The Passage

The dragon doesn’t wake with the sun.  It is warmed
through mock light, on an affected cove.  It looks
like it could be made of mopani,
but he cannot tell colors
what they should be
and what they are not.

I left him a note, this morning, by his glass house.
In his rest, he inhaled the pushed warm air
that circulates my blood each night.
I promised him Aspen and Cabbage and
my return.

I am late.  I am always pushing the clock
into my lungs, back to my cycle,
back to little hands and little
feet swirling around
a glass house,
tearing cabbage for a dragon that
constantly stares at me.

Like I Am

I did not touch yesterday, like I say I did.
My fingerprints are missing.
I lost them on a glass man,
wrapped my hands around

his whiskey sour, like I shouldn’t have.
He mingled with fire over
victory, like a beast gnawing
on my shoulder

I looked over his shadow like I owned him,
but daylight quickly ended, now
here I am. Fingertips dripping
off frozen glass,

as miserable as I planned it,
and here I still sit,

alone and empty-handed.

that my lips may part for lava

winds sail slow
arriving with difficulty
to confession

I speak against another
back turned
burned by sun light

I am familiar
with the dark –
with poison
with automatic disappointment

that my lips may
part for lava
but not for pardon

and I sail slow over
raging seas
arriving with difficulty
to confession

where familiar darkness
speaks mostly
about me

Just A Dream

The vile’s are filling from the back of my knee.
One full of life, a gifted excretion,
the other full of poison, waiting to take the former’s place.

I am set out to chill. Overnight. Alone.
I don’t mind except that the
sounds become so loud
and all the movements in all the world
become heavy like a rock.

I used to dream that I stepped out upon
the softest land,
barefoot,
soaking comfort in through my pores.
How quickly the dead tree branches would poke
up and stab me at from
beneath the peaceful ground.

I used to dream, but now silence
sharpens itself in my ear.
It is a carved loneliness, perhaps from
the other side of the grave
where the ones I love have finally made room
to love me back.

This side of life ties me to boulders and
smashes my ankles with hammers.
My bone fragments roam about
under my skin
wondering where they belong.
They cry out to me, but I
do not know where they go.
They are just fragments,
and I am just a dream.

The Child Within

I promised a seven year old girl
that
sixteen years would never happen

“don’t be afraid of driving, it will never happen”

in her rancor,
she pissed off a ten
year old girl’s
silhouette –
it was a hollow
young thing
but

outlined in
potential

the young early version
stepped into her
vacancy,
thickening
throughout
the
void
angry
silhouette,

she ripened

in body,
in vocabulary,
in age.

Sweet,
sultry,
sinister,
sixteen,
finding small doors
leading to
thinned
ice,

crystal air
loaded,
ready to explode.

She picks at
glass plank
floors, pulling
strips
of her new tool.

That young one
so afraid,
timid,
playing hide-and-seek
with her
developing
womanhood!

Enough!

She clutches
on to
her
shard sticks,

carving away
at her pumpkin
arms,
her pumpkin legs,
digging her out…

that little
phobic brat,
quivering around
her
prime
poisoned internals.

I made a promise
to the little
one,

sixteen would never come,

now here she is;
butchering
my promise
and
my child.