Do not let her take root
in the silt,
where her budding beauty
is tendrilled to the inky black
that hides her depths.
Her fate is stillness.
Her purpose:
polite, delicate existence,
until she withers,
wilting,
never knowing that blooming
is not belonging.
Teach her to float
like dandelion fluff,
an untamed wish that dances
with the vines of the willows.
Teach her to sway
in the saw grass,
strumming the cattails
like a harp.
Teach her to burn
with the light
that breaks through the pines
in  golden beams
that can make
even the tiniest gnats
and particles of dirt
into stardust.
Let her unlearn the hush
of expected tranquility.
Teach her to howl
with conviction,
not to fear baring her teeth,
or leaving her mark.
Teach her to become
the heartbeat of the forest
where the water lilies only dream.

Crush the raw cubed sweetness,
in the bottom of a glass.
Wet it with a tincture of sorrows,
fashioned from the brine of your grief.
Gently part the rind,
slipping the skin away from its ember heart.
Twist it,
demanding its fragrant perfume.
Drop in a crowning crimson gem,
just one.
Flood the glass in firewater,
force it to dance with ice's glacial grip,
as you swirl the crystal highball,
chasing the spiral of your thoughts.
Imbibe deeply,
as a thirsty earth would drink the rain.
Repeat when empty.
Then repeat again,
until your vision
and the edges of your soul both blur,
'til your heart is replaced with fog,
every feeling reduced to vapor-thin voices,
and even your memory
is swallowed whole into the black.
Repeat until the world dissipates
and you evaporate into the ether.

I never believed
what the blue mountains said of me,
that I was luminary.
I listened
to beige pebbles,
that played inside trickling streams,
longing to conform
within the shallow depths
of those crystalline springs.
But my lightness carried me to the sea.
-
I never understood
what the cardinals sang of me,
that I called the wild.
I listened
to the orange fire,
that scorched what I had begun to grow,
longing to dance
like the floating golden embers,
but the burning hardened me to steel.
-
I never dreamed
that the Dogwood bloomed for me,
but she declared I was worthy.
And I listened
to her ruby petals,
that whispered truth upon misty morning fog,
longing to again be made soft,
for my forged ferrum bones to melt,
but she cradled me in her branches,
humming verity,
"iron is still stardust
if you let yourself come home."

In the velvet hush
of tangerine light,
thoughts creep like mycelium,
trendrilling through synapses,
until fingertips tingle,
and the leading edge,
of a tender red lip
is self-bitten.
She tucks a brunette ribbon
behind the mauve flush
that has crept past her cheeks.
A twinkle, the way glints
dance atop water,
like mischievous nymphs,
plays in her soul's windows.
Her sighs caress
even the candle flames,
sending a shiver through
the playful gray smoke,
until it longs to be made
colorful.
Desire pools in her palms,
warm and ready.
She reaches,
delicate hands enveloping
the peak's obsidian bounty.
The soft yielding flesh
surrenders
to her mouth,
juices staining twilight,
leaving a vibrant crimson
where flesh touched flesh,
the heart of summer
devoured.
She smirks,
tossing away the pit,
"and if there's no body,
there's no crime".

Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap

The herald of the morning breaks
through the deep ink
of needle-pricked indigo,
scented sharp, angular,
amid the spherical savor
of deep rooted, red, earth.

Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap

The roots twined into your name,
shielded by the golden hush of dawn,
dancing through komorebi,
a Renoir from another land...
another time.

Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap

Kitsutsuki is knocking...
the call of a whisp?
fate? no...
expectance...
begging yet another errand
of a girl
who 'happily ever after'
left in rags.  

Tap...

Tap...

crack...

Glass shatters.
She will never sleep under ceilings
again.

In the emerald of the evening
I was devised in the celestial ether,
within a shooting star,
viridescent blood,
rich with tungsten
refracting, polychromic,
frolicking in Sunna's light.
Cherished amongst the crows,
and Mani,
who cradled me,
and called me bairn,
'til the coal of you,
hands calloused from digging,
scratched me out of Folkvangr,
inset me into your lavalliere,
wore me like a talisman,
an owned guardian,
a chained healer,
caged,
as if my pastoral viridescence
could mend the sedimentary solitude.
Envy laces into black rings
around sorrowful heavy eyes,
the mantle of you only able to burn
into polluted clouds
that fashion cold, resistant, steel
but nary a pip of a plum.
Weathered and worn as I may be,
I remain the fagr-gim,
and you will persist in your burning,
residual heat, sulfur,
never aflame, simply fume,
until the yearning fossilizes,
and only aska remains.

They worshipped him,
the 'Light bringer'
who chased beams across the sky,
golden chariot blazing,
the harbinger of warmth.
Even the moon
wears his reflection,
basking in the borrowed silk.
But I was born of the Earth
and Sky,
christened with the crowns
of above and below,
finding loveliness in pomegranates;
their blood red juice
staining my lips,
speaking the wisdom
of snowdrops.
They idolize the sweetness
of summer,
the thrill of the hunt,
dancing with grasshoppers
in wide-legged denim,
middle parts lined like August's geometry.
Laughter curls in my throat,
purring deep amongst the graves I've planted
with flowers.
A thousand daffodils will bloom again
in clay where a thousand silvered tears
are wept.
What beauty can be found
in a star
without the inky stillness
of the pressing dark?
You worshipped the sun,
and do not see the beauty
embodied in my night.