These scraps are yours,
Little words running through my head,
Pretty pickings and pairings,
Offering your praise.
Take them, o Lord

She is ruining you
Ensnaring you just as warned
Looking on at you
At your hands fondly, wantonly
Regarding you well
Teasing and poking and prodding
Yet also caring
Though not often
The hug has ruined you,
And the kiss too.
Who kissed who?
Why do you not care?
Where is your fear?

Oh.
There it is.

What is strength?
You’re not quite sure.

Father taught it to be hardness,
Unyielding fear and distrust,
Screeching, scrabbling, striking out
All love crushed before it spreads.

She teaches it to be rebellion,
Standing up in the face of all,
Tearing down walls, breaking up bones
A resounding no and a fierce affirmation.

Experience taught it to be lacking,
Lost and nowhere to be found
In the possession of others
With you always groping about.

Where is strength?
You’re not quite sure.

Where do you walk?
down those same hallways
old, haunted
ringing with the madman’s voice
the bolt is shot
the door locked
yet he marches on
screaming, shouting
the door does not open
but you cannot bear it
Why do you walk?

You love jokes don’t you?
Clever strings of words.
Pranks too!
As I drank a cup this morning
I heard a light bubbling
As like percolation,
And I giggled on, not knowing why,
Feeling oh so drunk.
I don’t know the joke,
But I understand it.

The old sea god is dead,
Torn open and ripped apart
For science, study.
Villagers maimed
Heads cracked open
Always asking
“Do you have eyes?”
Do we see the eyes?
If Kos is dead then why does she speak?
She speaks of sight,
And I see the eyes.

Perhaps I have misunderstood;
I cannot be certain.
Lost and afloat in you,
Unaware of what you desire,
I can only state two facts.
Barren is my womb and barren is yours.
But perhaps I can be as a butterfly.
As friend or lover or child,
Or all of these at once,
I can sprout wings and rise to meet you,
Perhaps as equals.