She strummed the edges
of bound golden leaves.
They whispered promised secrets,
shuffling beneath her thumbs;
blank pages,
ghosts of tree ringed memory,
Yearning for new life.
All the world lay open before her.
Pen unsheathed,
ink steeped in dream-spell,
she begins to invoke,
summoning, invoking,
weaving the breath of possibilities,
polishing them
until ribbons of their iridescence
broke through the ivory quiet,
refracting - no,
reflecting her reclaimed fire.
She holds them tight to her chest,
and sings, "this, all of this,
is mine."

She plucked tear dropped dew
like harp strings;
they clung to spider silk
woven between the drying pondweed.
The creek somber,
low,
unearthing river stones
gleaming,
begging for the sky to open
in the blazing summer sun.
Her wings wilted,
bowed in mourning with the cattails,
her grief alone not enough to refill
the home that she had built,
for upstream,
built by hands that no longer believed
in myth, or magic;
they had dammed her.

Canyon born,
sipping the wisdom of Grande Ronde
from weathered springs from deep within
pebble jeweled ground.
I sing their songs in the golden hush of morning
as I feast upon the sun,
low, root-deep,
native as the wild wind that dances with me,
fingertip to fingertip
petals flaring red with rare fire.
They once sought after me for medicine,
an ample stem for leaning on
with their tongue-tied cracks
until their fear captivated me,
forced me into containers,
made for befriending hummingbirds
that drink of me so they can soar
sideways shuffling away
with their self-important iridescence.
I may not outlive this cell,
plucked away from the sweet summer grass
that taught me to plant seeds.
Those sprinkles claim the clay anew,
re-rooting my lineage.
The legacy of my blooms lives on
in the whispers of butterflies,
and the hum of the earth.

I was born with unopened eyes,
skin striped black with shadows of my ancestry,
a roar that resonates in my bones
calls me to the water,
and to the hunt.
They tried to cage me once,
to ***** out the orange of my wildness,
file down my fangs,
told me I could live on
packaged, processed meat.
I chuffed at them
having taken the mangroves as my lover,
his salted bark the perfect reflection,
both of us camouflaged between earth
and sea.
He never seeks to tame my roaming ways,  
paws itching for unfamiliar earth,
claws ever carving new ground
He simply lets me breath, unmuzzled,
free to embrace my soft feminine wild

Fancy free, feet loose
dancing on your shoes,
toddling till my toes could tap,
frying like bacon on the carpet,
sizzling away from the fleeting
summer days.
perfection in simple, uneven
steps.

Pulling hoodie strings down tight,
gifting one arm only hugs,
and pinky promises;
my swivel hips will stay in the living room.
How I fall in love watching you
spin, and dip,
twisting together into pretzels,
the way I can only imagine lovers do.

Spiraling through the danger zone,
we set the floor on fire with the family name.
I could have sautéed in victory,
dressed in gold from crown to blouse,
sporting purple satin pants that bruised the ego
of men who tried to demand I wear a dress.
I never thought not to believe,
there'd be no one to sashay
in a moonlit kitchen with me
*
Now... my pen swirls and curls
over neat blue lines that reflect
the somberness in turns
I do not get to take
within shared space,
others wrapped in tangos
as my favorite songs play...
dance card empty...
everyone seems to have forgotten their pens.

I crawl into my skin,
letting my soul sink
behind a barricade of my bones,
folding my sleeve-worn heart
into origami cranes
that nest into my ribcage.
I blur my rough, rusted edges
until every pixel of my frame is softened,
blending with the floral wallpaper
where I lean like a forgotten daisy.
I turn my voice into a whisper
softer than weaponized silence
twice as deadly,
compartmentalizing my tears and smiles
into separate boxes and bottles.
You're not supposed to mix the lights
with the dark.
Only my eyes peek out from my armor,
checking the coast,
...it's never clear.
I can still taste the salt on my lips
from licking the old scars
that you pressed upon,
fingers dripping with melted butter,
ready for a feast.
My once soft shell
now hardened,
calcified with every lie I ever believed
about myself.

Dawn breaks through the morning glass,
an unwelcome intruder,
golden light tickling my eyelids.
I want to brush her off,
to laze in the hazy quiet before the alarms.
In this half-life space, my pillows are clouds,
and my blanket is the whole of the earth,
swaddling me like an infant,
where nothing aches, and nothing asks.
The breeze from the fan brushes my hair
as it hums a tender lullaby
that was written just for me,
and as my eyelids close I can touch the hem
of my dreams,
stitched together with copper thread.
Walls woven with my mother's hugs,
My father's laughter,
My daughter's singing, sliding down rainbows,
playing catch with shooting stars.
I am kissed by the sweet sticky scent of cinnamon rolls,
fresh coffee, and woodsy stacks of books.
Salted air pours itself through open windows
carrying the welcome hush of the waving sea.
I can almost pinch the aquamarine of it
between my fingers.
BEEP! BUZZ! RING!
The alarm yanks me upwards
with corporate, expected, force.
I sigh,
rising to the gray of the same day mundane
that we chased after so briskly in our youth.
Now the grass is only greener when I sleep.