breatheā
like mint shrub under a drizzle,
Ink clawing itās way up a quill
Like lemon grass, growing
Like steam rising from a cup of tea
Like parchment.
Like confetti circling a cyclone
Like a whip kissing skin
a branch cracking
Like chalk against cement,
Like nails on sandpaper
Like glitter.
breatheā
But sometimes I lie straight on my back
Under a heavy quiltā
let my limbs slump away, let my fingers sink
weakly into sheets
And I think,
this is how we dieā
Insipid eyes blanketed by skin
A book incompleteāclosed midway, without a mark.
They may tie our chin and skull with a strip of cloth
to prevent our loose jaw from falling open,
thisā is how we die
Like the carcass of Morning Glory
hangingā swaying in the wind
Like coal left behind by a burning log,
Like a dusty painting.
Like a moor.
No wings sprout out our jagged backs
they put us in a box and clothe us in dirt
No earthworms spare our clotted blood
Clouds donāt come bowing down
nor does sky break to shardsā for our escape.
solid bricks, we never did mind sleep
nor the warmth or tight embrace of our beds
the world's too big anywayā for our shrinking selves
Silenceā
Like a beetle crawling down a leaf
the ocean behind a portrait
Like moon, yawning
Like a folded paper, filled with scribbles
Like dusk.
Like a still child.
a tongueless nightingale up a bough
Like words in a bottled letter.
Like rubble under smoke
Like a palette, unwashed.
Like a bone.
Silenceā
And someone knocks under youā
You dig out the coffin and break open its lid
But itās filled, to the brim, with mud.
And time spirals onā
Pushing us behind, and we fight against it.
A puppet tied to the sky,
wishing to see the end of an abyss
Like a stone under the ocean, dreaming of stars
breatheā
Like a newborn leaf.
breatheā
But the time spirals onā
and we, with the dirt, reunite.
but breathe,
it's just a night.
breathe--
the air hasn't banished-- not yet
not yet
not yet--