Roots

Such strange fluidity
I could not move
so I lingered in it
and felt it rearrange me

I am light
but my roots are dark
I am lush
but my heart is stark

Grand mal
that is enough to take in
I wish I spoke
whatever language you think in

I am light
but my roots are dark
I am lush
but my heart is stark

The etcetera is underpinned
a molten vein
leaves fault lines
and cave-ins to avoid

I am light
but my roots are dark
I am lush
but my heart is stark

The ache lifts off me
like steam
then settles back on my skin as mist
like it always does

I am light
but my roots are dark
I am lush
but my heart is stark

On the Bank

Three surreptitious little deaths
One loud one
Lighting from the tips of sticky fingers

Old tyme movie images used to
flicker one card at a time
The digital screen is wiped clean
Hands are hands
fingers, fingers
Faceless, but I know your name

Something brazen climbs up on the bank
rustling, poking alive
My eyelids made it too dark to see
This face could seem to be pain
but it's not

Drain

There is some
relief
in the aching possibility
of him
leaving the coil

She will not
say so
instead she sits dutifully
by him
smiling with strain

Watching the drain

Fly Butter

Two summers gone by now
I spoke to butterflies
They came when I called them
Soared around my head
And fluttered hope into my hopeless heart

Two winters to now
A bright yellow butterfly
Lands on stone at my feet
Facing me without fear
And flexing its wings so slowly

As if it wanted me
to believe
All was real and good and strong
That I was not altered
and stiffened and falsified

But I do not.

And I was.

Do Not Trade

They say you wouldn't want to trade
But what is this?
Anxious folds into waiting
Smiling through it all
A fucking optimist
lubricated with realism
and stuck up the ass of a sarcastic mother fucker

For the rest of my beautiful life
What is this?
Scraps of paper single words
Jangling musical notes
Dripping over my tits
into my cunt
with a hum and an eyedropper full of sting

Arrows of ephemera