In This Dark Hour

It is at this dark hour,
it is at this inferno,
it is in this block of rage
that I notice how stale I have become.

I am cracking,
in every fold of my skin and
in each dry bend of my skinny bones,
I become mosaic.

I did not read life properly, I think.
Big doors slammed on my little fingers
so many times and even
though they broke and ached,
I made them wrap themselves around
heavy door knobs and
step beyond explanation.

What is to understand?
Skies are a warning. Wind is creation.
We stirred life up together.
What is to understand?

Age is a gift and a curse.
The past sings me to sleep in
rough fusion, a symphony of screams
that shred my nights out before me.

I remember when she stood in front of the mirror,
red lips pursed deeply at my innocence and
my tremor. She terrified me more than
the thunder that rattled the world outside.

I chose the storms over her natured arms,
but I did not understand. I read her
wrinkles and her pores
and her treacherous explosions
as if they were life,

and now I have age to help me read,
but I am too old to understand.
My body is cracking under misunderstandings
and exposure.

I want the bright day back that I found
when I ran barefoot over boulders,
before boulders fell on top of the four
chambers of my life.
I want what was taken from me by the
thick chalk of her pursed lips.

Standard

Yesterday, you were
quixotic while I
came from lazy beggars. Yesterday, I
was obedient; buttoned up from the lips
down, waiting for a king’s summon.

Then, his majesty came out, knocking
on my
sun stained door. He arrived erect,
like a statue of a king
might, speaking assertively, made
up of upper-class
things.

I stood small. Barely reaching his knees.
Pushing myself to
abound in poise, to receive him equally.

We drew cards. When he smiled, I matched it.
When he threw wit, I caught it
in reciprocation.
I baked his boasts in cinnamon and
ate them as dessert.

By his majesty’s departure, he had
narrowed in volume.
Shrunk and blushing, he requested
me,
as a future gift to himself.

Now, I sit with his once luxurious crown,
recalling his Utopian image that left with him
yesterday.