Once living in blue,
how deep the hand in my head
loved by a hungry sky
would become sharp of edges,
ripped my born wings that
a songbird bound; crawled
crushed flowers placed
in pockets I thought
could weave a crown.
It was that I knew first
having arms of cirrus:
insubstantial and searching
like water feels every
form of inauthenticity
and fills it;
I would bleed when needed
and not wanting to die
have untied each
found fiction to see
its kinked rope.
When once there was
first, forced inattention
like my mother unable to
hug when unwatched
could it be enough
that never like her father
left her broken,
she only left –
and a love that made me
has tried to take me
and save me same
stumbling into what is
familiar, many times
until older, I have felt
long beneath a snow
like a seed dreams of
a tree they will know.
Tag: Poetry
strong sun
The sky was heavy the day
I decided I liked orange
and pink together, torn
down the gray, octopus curtain
and placed a flower-bombed
flag in its place
sprinkled bits of periwinkle
to calm the delight,
a shocked, blank edge
calling where the cacophony
of color concluded
and I would sink into the heat
of a long bath, another too
cold day - the sun has slept
for weeks in Seattle,
to float between the shattering
like when I was very small
like a torn hibiscus bleeds –
laying face-up in a kiddie pool
legs a tad too long and splayed
in the time-eating heat
I tried to rub the sun from my eyes
but it just sunk in more
until I could see it behind
closed lids
like a dream in focus:
my body a boat gone
adrift
and sought this halting heat
that pauses every thing,
this version of me –
just a little more time.
endurance
The tide will come in
but I - always - outrun
upon - jutting rocks
once - being a starfish
have held - air, face-down
procrastinated - tongue
folded - words and
right to live – tendered
to – the past
like a sunflower diverted
by the sun – so will I
inevitably - halting syllables
having no root – only
sound of a creature once caught
this hobbled back - sand
between teeth
now face up - the air full
lungs stretched - elastic
as the tide - could sing now
running mid the waves.
skipping stones 