the thing is
the thing is
that when the music
beats at my temples,
when these voices
surge and crash over my head,
i lose myself in the tide;
the thing is
i have been adrift
without a compass,
sands dictionary for
the language of wind or stars;
the thing is
i have been building a shelter
out of my own life-raft
and dressing the gaps
with pieces of my soul.
the thing is—
i have been teetering and now
all of my walls
are coming
down.
Nomen est
What’s in a name?
My own
is years-full of brine and blood, soaked
in ugly words long enough
for the syllables to turn out discoloured;
when spoken aloud, its meaning is
synonymous with abject misery.
There are scars in the skin of my soul
etched in the shape of that name.
So I have taken a moniker (or two)
composed of gentler sounds to blunt the pain
and smoothen my jagged edges
until I resemble functional human being
more than wounded animal.
Yet sometimes
these assumed names do not sit right,
fashioned as they are out of fancy and denial.
What’s in a name?
Comfort, for some. An easy familiarity.
Home spilling from the lips of friends.
The words I offer for recognition
are all in fundamental ways flawed.
I would live with no name at all if it helped; I rather think it won’t.
Reclaiming those syllables from the jaws of hurt
must happen one day.
opened and re-opened
your absence
is a wound barely scabbed over
at a sluggish pace
bleeding me dry
I would like nothing
so much as
to quietly dissolve into the rain—
go rushing against
the drops that pass by,
dive up through clouds, back into sunshine;
reach higher, farther,
beyond the exosphere and away
where no sound can enter—
until finally, bewitched, becalmed,
I could grasp at peace
and be one with the stars.
dig deep, deep—
past the purpling blotches of skin,
sluggishly weeping scratches;
search for the humanity that lets you stand
against a hail-storm of intolerable
numbing emotion—
and hope to some nameless faceless thing
that the strength you need
is not too far buried to find
Thus, Purified
Look, I will say, give me that knife
and I will peel myself like a ripened apple
red-cheeked, bleeding my heart’s juice
all over trembling fingers and I will
strip, cut and slice
until there is nothing left
but for a whisper of bare skin and bones
and seeds that will never grow
without the blood of my sacrifice, the ashes
of my core, the heart
that yielded none of its secrets
and kept all of its loves.
There are feathers in
your hand when you wake
and from somewhere afar you
can hear the song of beautiful
little birds, beckoning.
You want to join them.
A fluttering on the windowsill, now—
capture it in trembling
fingers and whisper
old memories into ears
that will transform your clumsy
human speech; new melodies
will be born out of your sorrow
and perhaps tomorrow
you will feel lighter.
For today, for now, you can hold the bird gently
fling it onto the sky
and smile.