in school
we learned about hydraulic fracturing
when they would send pressurized chemicals into the earth
until the earth began to “frack”

well that’s what i felt like
when your words rained down upon me so hard
my brain began to crack

Translation From Catullus.


Equal to Jove that youth must be—
Greater than Jove he seems to me—
Who, free from Jealousy’s alarms,
Securely views thy matchless charms;
That cheek, which ever dimpling glows,
That mouth, from whence such music flows,
To him, alike, are always known,
Reserv’d for him, and him alone.
Ah! Lesbia! though ’tis death to me,
I cannot choose but look on thee;
But, at the sight, my senses fly,
I needs must gaze, but, gazing, die;
Whilst trembling with a thousand fears,
Parch’d to the throat my tongue adheres,
My pulse beats quick, my breath heaves short,
My limbs deny their slight support;
Cold dews my pallid face o’erspread,
With deadly languor droops my head,
My ears with tingling echoes ring,
And Life itself is on the wing;
My eyes refuse the cheering light,
Their orbs are veil’d in starless night:
Such pangs my nature sinks beneath,
And feels a temporary death.

Think not of it, sweet one, so;---
      Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go
      Any---anywhere.

Do not lool so sad, sweet one,---
      Sad and fadingly;
Shed one drop then,---it is gone---
      O 'twas born to die!

Still so pale? then, dearest, weep;
      Weep, I'll count the tears,
And each one shall be a bliss
      For thee in after years.

Brighter has it left thine eyes
      Than a sunny rill;
And thy whispering melodies
      Are tenderer still.

Yet---as all things mourn awhile
      At fleeting blisses,
E'en let us too! but be our dirge
      A dirge of kisses.

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
    Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
    Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
    Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
    Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
    Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
    Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

Sailing across a field on a machine of pure iron
He carries your weight as though,
you were merely a fly on his shoulder.
Pulsing in your veins echos the thunder, of each
consecutive hoof as it strikes the Earth in turn.
The wind taring at your skin.
Your eyes water painfully with its vengeance.
The land fly's by in fades of greens and blues
Time stands still and the world tips on end.

©  Crystal Erickson

With sleep I fell and fell deeply too.
Into his withering meadows and among rationality.
Where those who are living have lost all vitality.
Limbless are some, some thoughtless too,
Never had a dream yet mine they walk through
Painting disbelief with their faces: I look to the sky
But my eyes are drawn to a castle at the end of my view-
Far off, far from the far out margins of mind.
      I walk with a beat, leaving the limbless behind,
I walk in his circle until it loses its point.
I fall, crawling around each and every wind.  
Until I feel time grabbing a hold of my knee joint.
I try and kick back- along the ground my teeth grind.
Then I break back untouched, but still trapped in my mind.  

I awake again, toothless and out-worn. A
broken spirit, hoping without it. Spinning madly.
Amidst my spin I see her arms, into watch I do fall gladly.
But being without time, I miss the perfect second.
And I awake again before the castle, its sombre music
somehow whispers as it calmly beacons.  
           Without wit or a winding tongue, I alone embark
up the hill as the songs grow louder in my head.
I pass a ‘laughing dead” as it rolls off into the night. Dark
is the blanket that descends on my plight. Its fed
by fear, but I have nothing but spite.
So I carry on alone, and with myself begin to fight.


“ I dare you to pass me. You’re a coward.
You’re a weak little druggy,  who’s ego empowers
him to believe that it is he who should belong at the top.
I’ll leave you to rot. Remove your mind from its shop.
I’m telling you stop. Turn round. And awake.
Or you can die here, while in sleep you but shake”