My sister karen was a manhater
she hated all men
deliriously
she would sit on the top
of the bunkbed she shared with sue
and with one finger curl her hair
then pull it out by the roots
it was quite disturbing
she would spend hours
every saturday doing this
until she had almost no hair left
the family worried for her

During the week when I would
come home from school (I think
I was around 7 or 8) karen (being
older and bigger) would run up to me
kick me in the gut
push me to the floor
jump on top of me
grab me by the ears
and pound my head
on the floor until
my brains fell out
this went on for several weeks
until I told my parents and
they finally put an end to it

One night sue didn't want to get caught
eating an apple in bed
so she put the core in the toilet
and it clogged it
we (all four of us)
were awakened in the middle of the night
and had to line up so my mother
could beat us with a belt
until someone confessed
I was tired so I said okay
I did it
I got a good belting that night
I was suspended from school
for a week because the teacher
complained that the welts on my back
were bleeding so profusely that
lt was interrupting the learning process
of the other children

One day I was coming home from school
and I got caught in a hailstorm
I got pelted really good
Lucky for me Mr. Doty was home for lunch
so I took cover under
his light blue ford f-series pick-up truck
hail as big as golf *****
some the size of baseballs
continued to rain down
I don't know for how long
because I fell asleep

"What were you doing under there?"
he questioned as he was shaking my arm
awakening me
(I quess he thought I was messing around
or something)
I came to and stated
"THE GOLF ***** WERE FALLING
I NEEDED A PLACE TO HIDE"
"oh" he said
"you mean to tell me you were in THAT?"
"yessir" I replied
"well, your schoolday's almost over,
maybe you should go home and rest"
"yessir"
And I went home and rested

When karen turned eighteen
she married a wife beater
for nearly ten years he would
ugly 'er up
finally she couldn't take anymore
and divorced him

But she was only following tradition
my grandpa beat his wife
my father beat his wife
and al beat karen

Yep, those three knew
how to really take a beating

But, not from a hailstorm

I find
             Myself
      Among common folk
              Amidst the real deal
                            Throwing beers back
                   Gulping shots
                Admitting false guilts
      Believing hateful ideals
   Bad things
                       Happen when not
     In the right mind
                 You can't remember
     What went wrong
Or
                 What went perfectly right
But                   she remains
Beautiful in my memories
           Absolutely breathtaking
              In my
                                 Lucid dreams
          As gorgeous as
                             a Leonid Afremov painting
            Like a hailstorm in august
Unexpected              but
             Gorgeous
Like you
                               My dear

I don't know how
To get her home,
Or if she has one...
Does 𝘴𝘩𝘦 even know?

If I reached out my hand,
Would she even pull?

She's been making herself larger.
I can feel her reappearance.
She gets brighter, I get darker.
Interfering with my impulse,
And it happened again...

I forgot how I got here,
Don't where I began.

▪︎ mica light ▪︎

Ripely at 13, quickly an Internet queen
Found a boy around the same age
To swap and talk of things

Mindless banter from pitcher to batter
Such fun to see the words received
Upon the silliness, love was an illness
And the two were a couple on screen

But he became rash and rude and demanding
Forcefully aggressive and to my understanding
Required some photos of her undressed
As to which a little frightened she replied
“I guess”

For a year and a half, enslaved by a monster
No words of love just innocence slaughtered
The last picture she sent was of red bloodied arms
Without clothes on her body
Death from self inflicted harm

We laugh upon this empty rock
We smile as we run our circles
Giggling rats
Lice swaying in unison to our meaningless song
The black ground heaves
with laughter
Let’s go waterski
above the empty sea
You’ll find me snorting and choking and twirling in a hailstorm

I'm a firm believer in the sixth sense of animals and their ability to portend the future 'sometimes' . Many cases exist , farm animals included , of strange occurrences just before an Earthquake , Tornado or Hailstorm !
Animals have the ability to pick up emotional signals from human beings as well ! We had a quarter horse that could pick up fear , a dog that would hide under the bed an hour before a hailstorm , and a pet pig that would squeal and hide from someone it didn't recognize ! Then again I had a Rooster once , that picked up on my depressed state of mind an flogged me good with its razor sharp spurs one afternoon ! I questioned his ability to see the future later on that evening as I rocked on the front porch and picked out his barbecued remains with a wood tooth pick and a cup of hot tea* !

observing the ardent eagerness of the wind
it is clearly understood
that nascent pollens are overflowing
the niche of her heart  

in response to the signals of the river
she keeps on ringing
all long the month of earth-quakes

the bench of the rail-station
wants to hug her

the medicine-counter of the ***-end of the day
beckons her with the hand to come nearer

in the assembly-hall for musical demonstration
adorned with ash-trays
going on the rehearsal of her dancing and singing

she also distributes some life
to the meticulous dressing
of the magnolia

2.
let the swimming pool be fully absorbed  
with its dark-room

when the feather of your fore-finger
becomes green

the merchant of venice
will leave his business of photo-coping machine
to start walking directly
in search of new earnings

evening sets in
on the boiler of the delta

putting on yellow-dress comes
the water-vessel of the paper-balloon

there is no singing bird
shivering with cold
in the fold of the dear bed-sheet  

it is possible that the boldness of the metro-railway
may give some wood of tamarisk
on the expanded palms  

yet oh the western page of night
do tell today
why so much tamed polythene
are here in our cohabitation

3.
after so many days
published in the wind
painted in wings
the recent heart’s desire
of the doors and windows

they have rolled up their fairy-tales
from the ignorant drawing-room that wanted
to set her mind to the hill slanting downward

they did not want to know
how much rheumatism is there
in the hands and legs of the bark
to whom is delegated
the control of the mason-made bus-journey

sleep hugs the eye-lids of the rivers

though there is no postage-stamp
within the reaching-point

then what magic is there
in the hill slanting downward

why the wall does not learn
how to swim like a fish

truly it is he from whom
those negligible moments of man-ism
itch for blue candle-stand

4.
the ***-appeal of the telephone
and the bugle of the carnies-breaking ****-crows
are all harmonised seamlessly

the noon in the blood
is flowing along the river

all the dialogues are covered
with misspelling of men and women

the tailors want to increase life
cutting rightly the walking of clothes

after the vanishing of collyrium
from the eyes
there is not a single being
in the relief-camps

as far as the eyes can travel
i can notice in the ear-lob of the village-boats
the water-colour of fire-flies
twinkles

then let an agreement be signed
with the defence ministry
on the right
to enter into private bathroom

5.
in the air
on which flowers are engraved
the union of the betel leaves are making their outposts
anew

before the calling of the next pine-woods
you all the butterflies do take on board the tram
to go to the south-pole

is it well to incline so much
towards the tv-screen

who can say
the waves of the terracotta
would never make revolution

i’ve sent some full-moons of winter
and some water-bodies
into the holes of the handkerchief

the lacking of the colours
may kindly be excused

the birds that are blind from their birth
has been singing till now
the songs of the cave-civilisation

there is no question any where
this eclipsed-valley is adorned
with the answers only

6.
i am to be blown off on the first bombardment
then it is to be flown
in the crowd of  fire-flies
on the bushes of the scented-lemons

and it is to see the memory race of the grown-up girls

it is to see more
that after the opening of the sluice gates
one by one  
how the gathering in the hindu hotels
increases
by leaps and bounds

the pores of the skin of the body
whose hoods are open
and who are running up
along the spiral route
that leads to the top of the mountain

their child
due to late-marriage
now only knows
how to move on all fours

7.
under the table-glass
i  unfold the life-chronicle of one lakh year

and in the olive-cabinet
all the applications for living

from the monsoon-noon to the winter-afternoon
the lines you draw on the parchment

none of them is so condensed
as to touch the palms of a sailor  

from the numerable timber-joists
come down the swarms of personal white ants

no spring seems to become corporeal
without the spell of misunderstandings  

so of late
besides the dry statistics
with the cough
comes out grey thermometer

prickly-heats spread over the whole body  

the sticks of young antenna
shake off their wings

behind the bath-scene
lies the succulent hailstorm

8.
there is no lovely add
yet the market-value of your headache
is going up day by day

all the noon send her mad
the intellectual kisses
the coos

or is it the running about of the tennis-ball

so much pop-corns are flying out
from the draw-well

or that sound of foot-steps
in the north-east

may be
that is of some brown horses
or some horse-drawn perambulators

when the moon spreads out the platinum
does it judge the recipients

thus the bin-leaves can ring
from head to foot

it unfurls an incorrigible right-angle
in the early-evening

the troop with armours
open a shop of ******
beside the vainglory of the lake

Your eyes are like a fever
They possess the ability to warm my heart,
or freeze my soul

They hold a heat so intense
you can see the waves
of warm air dancing around
like a group of girls in a night club
who've had too much to drink

But there are times
when a hailstorm swarms about
and slices my skin
with cool shards of uncertainty
and disappointment

The doctor says "take two of these, and you will be fine. The fever and hailstorm will slowly leave your mind."
But I don't know if I'm ready to leave it all behind...

I think I'd like to stay ill just a little bit longer

Sometimes at night when I turn over and my hand slides along the small of your back
I can feel the changes beneath your skin.
Sitting next to you, I read you like braille
Like something you need to touch to feel the meaning of.
I know you are a storm beneath your skin.
Sometimes I feel lightning reach out
To the answering chaos in me.
Our suffering makes our togetherness
Electric.
Cataclysmic.
We could crumble mountains.
I don't know if you know your own wildness inside,
Wilderness.
I think inside you are vast and lonely, wonderful but vaguely sad,
The way the trees sound when a breeze sighs its way through them and makes them sway.

Sometimes I feel a coldness from you like a chilly night without a fire
The kind of cold that starlight and silence bring-
Not a hostile chill, like the sharp fingers of frost or ice,
But just a distant kind of... Containment.
A solitude, like the desire to curl into the rocks by the river and become one by touch.
A desire to be still.
It scares me. I don't know how to reach that part of you.

Sometimes I look at you and I see storm clouds and wildfires in your eyes,
I see the end of days, and earthquakes, and brutal hurricanes,
But I see them through glass, as if you've stepped inside a mirror and imprisoned your rambling hurt to keep the world safe-
I see it through the cracks in a briar wall that's sprung up suddenly and sharply, tangled and complex, a warning.
And although I don't want to be
I am warned.

I want to touch
But I am so very good with boundaries
So very
Sensitive.
I feel the changes in the air
The way a deer in the forest may shoot its head up at the scent of a hunter miles away, caught on an errant breeze.
You change what I breathe in and out,
You change my weight and my texture.
Sometimes from you I can close my eyes and feel what warm honey must feel like in essence-
If sunlight found purchase in the air.
I feel fields of wildflowers and slow, dreamy, balmy nights and days at the seashore with diamonds capping the waves.
Sometimes I feel from you the tickle of cut grass, and the smell of fresh rain, and what a butterfly's furry wings would feel like if stroking them wouldn't make them crumble like spun sugar.
Sometimes I feel from you the slow, deep pull that I remember from sitting at the bottom of that coral reef in St Thomas-
The heat of the day sinking in layers through the water to hold me suspended in graceful pressure-
Poised to be swallowed by something much more significant and much hungrier than me.
And sometimes there is simply cold, the way I said,
As if the wind has somehow changed and left me adrift, sails dead, in a sea that offers no sustenence and no explanations.
In those times of stillness I wait, breathless,
Cautious-
They always pass,
So far.

I sit beside you and hold my breath
Hold my hands.
I sit and look at the grass
At the sky
But I see you instead
Silent beside me,
An unknown, a mirror maze
All of a sudden sunlight
And all of a sudden shadows.

When you go dark and silent I want to start digging.
I want to sink to my knees and pull apart the earth,
Find its heart, hot and sticky and molten,
Burning with the secrets of a forever life in the belly of a fragile stone.
I want to claw it out and put your hands on it,
Watch it feed your soul and sear away that terrifying cold.
Light you up so that you will never curl up silent around a black glass starless hailstorm ever again.
I feel the dirt under my fingernails and how
Odd it is
That it is familiar, from scrabbling out of grave after grave,
Confused and reborn and shivering.
How odd that now I am tunneling towards what remade me so many times
To try to break the laws of nature and bring it to you
Before you ever have to sink towards it.

But I feel from you. And then I don't. And then I do.
And it wakes in me an unsettled longing more powerful than my history.

I feel from you the silence right after the last note of a symphony fades
Before the audience applauds
Before anyone has even taken a breath.
I feel that exquisite beauty
And the fear that it will shatter.
(The fear that is the knowledge that it will shatter.)
I feel all of this from you
For you and
I think it might be
Love.

Rain is refreshing in a strange, backward way. It shocks you out of a deep, prolific lapse of participation in reality and reminds you that you’re still here. You’re still corporeal, tangible, you can feel and you can decide. But rain is still rain. It can be cold and unpleasant to be faced with, or it can be warm and welcoming. Beconing you forth to splash and smile in the reality you forgot still applied to you.
    I left behind the idea of full, around the clock consciousness during my last frigid thunderstorm. I realized, during a session already dedicated to realizations, how exhausting it was trying to live my reality to its current extent. How frustrating and soul-crushing it is to have the ambition you truly believed in and planned to embark upon, forgone by the limits of a situation you have no control over. I kept a small jar of ideas and plans in the very back corner of my closet. They were safe, they couldn’t be taken out back and shot nor could they be taunted and destroyed from the inside out. When I was cornered in my intruded closet, when I was taken by the collar and shaken for my truth, they were found. Both above-mentioned circumstances played out shortly but in the opposite order. That’s when it began to rain.
    I decided on an alternative: selective awareness. I keep myself alive only feeling and participating when the rain is tepid and pleasant. When I feel the temperature beginning to drop, I fall back asleep, floating through lull and lash, until the sun comes to change the course of my simulation. For days, all I will see is fog. I’m lost and isolated, but that lack of direction comes with an onset of contentedness. There is no one who can see me wandering through a deluded course I have set for myself. I don’t know where I’m walking, I don’t know what’s in front of me, so the warm rain will give me a pleasant surprise as it melts away the fog and gives me hope for sustainable warmth.
    The cloudiness that lingers in my head, even when I’m experiencing kindness and sensitivity, reminds me that my effort to make my reality more livable is as viable as staying completely shrouded in fog until I wander off the edge of a cliff. Eventually, as I age out of my simulation, I’ll have skin thick enough to withstand the hailstorm I’ll be forced to reckon with. Resilience is necessary, but hope exists. I often forget it does while I’m wondering, but serenity and light remind me that fog isn’t all I’ve devolved into. Rain will come, and so will spring.