I.

I am a ragdoll with loose stitching.
I am a cat with no whiskers.
I am adrift without course,
and my tongue is lost at sea.

It vows to ****.

****.



Say exactly what you mean.

Say you liked me more in retrograde.
Say I'm unbalanced.
Say that last laugh carried a bit too far.
Say I'm finished.
Say I've been had.

Say the voyage has ended.

Say it.


Say it.
**** it.

And I'll scream over and over,
and over again,
until every last drop of the sea
knows the answer-

"What did I do,
what did I do?"

II.

This mask-
I do not want it.
I need everyone to know
I do not want it.

But, oh-
how it craves me.

This face is haunting,
stealing light, fire,
and the ability to stand,
and the means to say I will,
I will not.

What we all desperately desire-
is it what keeps us at arms length,
away from the center?
The whole?
The home?

How does a heart admit itself
to strangers?
When is a heart permitted
to stop?

III.

Does the pain I carry make me a monster?
Can one grow from a curse?

Many times I've scanned my past for deserving signs and scars.
A curse traps victims under it wheels,
and revs silently.
And there is so much of it.

It manifests stupidly,
yet wholly and confounding.
It sticks.

When you say it's no one's fault,
it must be my fault.

Is it a blight others fear catching?
I don't want to share this with anyone,
but how else will the world know
it's (not) my fault?

I want to pull it all out of me,
those dark, old splinters.
I do not know how.

IV.

There is a world outside of it,
glowing with morning dew and a softer sun.
And all is gentle, waiting, listening.

All the decrees you made for me, all the far off decisions and desires, all of your Saturn return powdered into weak dust the second you lay your hands on me. Never have I bathed in any tangible form of gentle reverence or soft fear, as what flooded from your eyes just moments before your lips prayed to mine, when you immortalized your love. All terrors vanish when you lose yourself in me... When you give yourself permission to bow to my figure receiving all of your faith and courage thought to be missing in action. All wars end with your embrace. All of our hearts, the ones in the center and the ones outlining our cheeks, chins, and cherishes, lines up for bittersweet confession, to breathe in the sincerity of endearment, and to abandon all our excess armor. Deep inside beyond iron and earth and ambition, lies the essence of love that lasts beyond all quantities, all human promises. In the wholeness of morning, I dream of you in a proud openness you keep mostly for me, beaming in the gladdening light of wisdom several times your age. And I know no one will replace your image, your imprint, your golden glow in me, even long after you've continued your journey.

"What are you missing?" Metal asked.

Water was still and dark as Metal twirled before her. She dug her nails into her arms, and avoided the gaze.

"My voice," she whispered.

"And where did it go?"

Water stared at the dark Earth beneath her feet and said nothing.

Metal waited for a response. Metal never grew impatient. Indefinitely remaining, maintaining an immutable insistence and a fixed glare, Metal knew Water's patterns, and was always available the moment she emitted conflicting currents within herself.

Water managed only a hoarse offering, barely escaping the lump in her throat.

"It was stolen."

Metal could sense her riptides worsening.

Water turned her face to avoid Metal's eyes.

"Keep looking.... keep trying...."

Air whispered softly to her, though he was so low to the ground, so faint in form, he drifted lazily, and was easily dissipated by deft and brazen Metal, who continued to dance, unblinking and unapologetic.

Water bowed her head, secret tears forming. She tugged at her toes. She said nothing. She thought many thoughts about Metal.

Air had moved on to waft away and beyond, spanning time, place, memory, forgetting ever even encountering Water.

"But you have me now."

Metal grinned wickedly, widely, wildly.

And wasn't that the truth? Water had Metal. She had always had Metal. And she would never be rid of Metal, because Metal always managed to be a surefire relief. So why forfeit that certainty? Why carry on alone? What for?

Why keep looking?

Water wrapped her arms around her shaking legs and buried her face in her knees. In her tests with Metal, she often failed, or at least she viewed herself as a failure whenever she let herself become wrapped up, half-willing and passive, in such a rigid, yet wholly undefined relationship. Even simply considering the hard, calculating Metal swiftly invited a sense of defeat, which writhed wildly, quelling - suffocating - a love, begging to speak.

Metal walked the line between friend and enemy like the most silent serpent.

Metal was more easily vanquished in the old days, when Fire had spent his energy protecting Water. Fire was far less forgiving than Water. Fire held Metal to the same standard as poison.

"What's the MATTER with you-"
"You're never welcome-"
"Get lost-"
"*******-"

And after these, and other violent explosions, like all good volcanoes, Fire cast Metal into hiding. But, like all good volcanoes, Fire burned up so much of his power, and quieted to a small and delicate flame, occasionally flickering lovingly in Water's direction. These days, she couldn't see him through the curtain of her long hair, or the heaviness of her mind. Sometimes she swore she hallucinated him. Sometimes she imagined she had exaggerated his affection, even his existence.

Metal eyed Water greedily, who was now taking less and less space for herself.

"Make a decision."

Panicked and trembling, Water sank lower to the ground until she was curled up in herself, furiously holding back gasps, refusing to reveal her innermost surges of wretched pain and brokenness. She viewed these damages hideously, even though her softest self cradled them delicately like thorns-

"Well? Every moment, you are losing time."

She absorbed Metal's blade-like advice, regarding the certainty of such a cold, serrated tone. She remembered cunning words, trickery, lies she believed-

"Decide."

She felt false comfort. She envisioned the cutting moments before her downfall-

"Decide."

She recalled sharpness, rigid, unspoken rules, draining, unkind words, withheld affection, ripping pain, breathlessness, and the inevitable collapse-

"Enough!"

Water inhaled suddenly, as if she had just remembered how. Her descent slowed.

Metal stopped dancing.

Water placed her palms on the damp, rich soil, and looked down. She felt. She wondered. She inhaled. Earth rarely spoke to her. Earth was very hard to hear, and Water never knew why, considering how suddenly visible Earth was now. Air sang and whistled, Fire roared and radiated, and Metal... Metal stabbed. Metal slashed, sliced, and cut down everything from the outside in. Metal was so easy to hear, to obey...

"Surrender."

Water connected to her palms embedded in the ground.

"Surrender."

Metal stared, glistening, steely, a glint sharpening in eyes like splinters, oblivious to the warm, melodious voice resonating from below....

Or was it within? Water raised her hands and looked into them, uncertain. She placed a muddy palm on her chest and closed her eyes.

"Surrender."

Water was no longer certain if the voice came from within, like a heart current, or if her mind was turning around on its path. She kept her eyes closed, keeping Metal at bay, just out of sight and sound. She let Metal's voice slowly fade from her mind...

She breathed in.

"Surrender? Surrender what? Myself?"

"Surrender your hurt."

Water blinked, her eyes opening slowly. A tear fell.

"Surrender your pain."

Like a fresh spring rain, more tears fell. Water slowly stood up, finding her balance.

"Surrender your heart."

Water lifted her head. She stood. She was face to face with Metal. Metal glared back.

Earth steadied Water's feet. Water harmonized Earth's voice. Together, each offered the other strength and gentleness, ferocity and openness, power and kindness. They fulfilled the resonance we consider to live in all hearts when we are full and whole again.

"Let your love out. And let love back in."

Water lifted her chin. She let tears flow. The lump left her throat. She grew taller. She breathed in, softly and fully, and felt her heart burning.

"Let love out..."

Water locked eyes with Metal, realizing she was looking down. Metal had stopped dancing for awhile now. Metal was losing shine.

"Let love in..."

Water passed her silence to Metal as she took a bold step forward.

I measured out, in both hands, the words I meant to say to you, and the interjections in my head.

All fuss and pain and clown games danced lightly and mockingly around the center of your demise, that which is invisible and fabricated yet completely real, and massively powerful.

The completely furnished, embellished, yet totally factual and veracious monstrosities that tore your reputation like a hard, cold blade invaded the private, the public, the distant, the remote and shiny leaves of a dark manifesto. And somehow, the literal appears most truthful, especially when nothing explodes into that active, dynamic Thing. (Result).

Essentially, you birthed the unreal to make real, and the made-real spewed demons all over our fragile little spaces. How do you intend to clean them up? The whole world knows you can afford to try, but can you ever really fix this? Like sand, your problems spread and stick to every moist and breathing life form.

I myself have always wondered why they played the music for you. Your meek and fragile nature, contrived by pressure, pressure that is easy to extinguish, the pressure embodying a dying breed encouraged by bounty and beauty, is somehow praised with music that belongs to the bold and primitive. Have you ever tried to face your own music? When it does not fit you like a glove on your delicate, struggling hand, is it time to join a new band?

when it is immobile
or drunk with cerebral pile up
it goes to a window-
it drools out
wanting all the space
beyond its saddened globe

it goes when the lights
are illuminated brightly-
arranged in choreograde-
emulating streams
of dark spring's resonance

it goes to a filmy rose
shaded garden-
it sits with the beetles
tickling up lengthy
ferns-
it kicks at the dirt
and sees only a
handful of admiration

it goes up and up
and up out of my eyes
and into the hook
of my ribcage-
my left hipbone
congruent to your right-
my aquiline ears passing
fluttery notes
but then-
what-

it goes into your shoes
to reset you
and to remember
where you came from
before it handed all
to you-

infinite times
it goes to look
for something
to match my
evening empyreality-
a damp green
wood by some
pretty electronic
performance
and it reminds my
unreality why
this never works
the whole way
through

it helps to found
a traveler
with fifteen heads
and black ball eyes
spinning the wheel
with elder spirits
from dusk to dawn

it deserves
a shock-light
buzzing straight
like cicadas
without ceding
to the earth

it is swift
and thieving-
full of rot-
a great salt jewel

I.
Frost on cheeks may be measured, amorously.

II.
The hawk circles above.
The hawk makes known all the space of the sky
in ringlets,
extensions of wingspan,
dynamic shape,
cyclic motion
until
the
dive.

III.
When the roads of summer dust cease churning,
When the smokened crackles of oily grease substitute cool,
When human machines accompany their electric bodies,
I return to the forest.

IV.
Home, born
maybe two,
three years ago,
is an enclave
shrouded,
for most,
in ennui.

Home,
the sound of
branch-squirrel-branch,
the light slapping on
dead plant flat
on flat under
flat-sole boots,
home,
allowing these shrouds
to manifest,
adjunct to
the ground.

V.
The reduction of *****
cleansing
is itself
shoved down these maws
of our future
expectations,
lingering,
gaining more
passivity than ever,
near
newly born,
hanging a hazy cirrus
on our old senses,
lingering
like some fickle god,
all standing by some
unseen master,
just to further
something more
with help.