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Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
Right now,
legs out on the couch
One floor beneath my sleeping spouse
I am a tiny mouse
Right now.

Right now
blanket-covered cold
I am heated under folds
Fabric-covered, naked soul
I am a raw ceramic bowl
Right now.

Tomorrow I’ll be ******* tired
Tonight I’m wound with frank desire
Coals around my very core
Close the door
Have some more  
Tomorrow ill work on the how
Tonight is for
Right now.
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
I saw something today on Instagram
One of my many astrology pages
Informing me that this is the time
To let go of pessimism
And external validation.

First of all,
I’m not pessimistic.
I’m a ******* delight.

Secondly.
How would I ever get anything done
Without the promise of a
High five at the end?

Silly moon,
You know not your small pale daughter.
Leave me in peace
And I will leave you to your royal fullness.
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
You were born on a Wednesday.
It was snowing, I think.
I nearly died, and you too,
My blood pressure screaming as your heart rate bobbed and weaved,
A reaction to the terrible ordeal of being born.

The night I learned you were a girl
I lay in bed alone and asked you about yourself.
What is your name?
Beatrice,
you said.
Bee.
A name all your own, belonging to only you.
Beatrice the First:
Shakespeare’s snap dragon heroine;
Dante’s ethereal guide.
Traveler and pollinator;
Wings and a stinger.

Daddy was scared but I didn’t know until later.
He made jokes and played “Something’s Rattling, Cowpoke” by Ben Gibbard on the Bluetooth and held my right leg when it was time to push.

And suddenly there you were.
More alive than the Holy Spirit on Sunday morning,
Bigger than poetry
Bright as a technicolor daydream
And so substantial.
We did it. We made it.

The Tibetans believe that we are all wandering souls.
That crazy movie, Enter the Void, I think about it all the time.

We choose.

Did you choose me?
A willful, chronically sleep-deprived, anxious mess?
How did you know it would work out?
How did you know that my life would not start until, with an audience of doctors and nurses and your family, you were laid in my arms that cold night?
I have such doubts but this I know:
I will choose you every moment of every day and  still
it will not be enough to repay you for giving me the gift of yourself.
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
I think the secret to a long life
Is to be in love with every thing.
It’s easy, honestly, to love greatly and truly.
It’s the easiest thing.
You should try it,
Just try it.
Breathe and the air is sweeter
Open your eyes
There is so much to pine for.
Being in love is noble work
And we need you, the lovers.
We need you more than ever.
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
Tonight
Again
I battle myself
As Vince Guaraldi twinkles low on the smart speaker
And the baby sleeps
And the tree in the corner absorbs water into its severed spine
And the lights shine merrily
And the dog kicks and snores
And the dishwasher sloshes
And the wind chimes sing
And the clock ticks
And the wine bottle drains
And drains
And drains
And tomorrow looms,
Always so distant,
Always so near.
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
I’ve mined for gold
But I’m getting old,
Too many holes.
Searching for souls
Has taken its toll
An empty bowl
For a mink stole.
Hey it rhymes
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
I wasn’t there for The Final Fight.

Frankly,
it sounded like the same old *******,
Old words, new spit
Old hurts that won’t quit.

I wasn’t there.

But I’ve attended that fight,
And it’s too shiny to die,
Glittering with layers of lies
Roughly the shape and size of a perfect slingshot stone
And worn hot and smooth from years of carving into bone.

It isn’t fair, the choir sings,
As one triumphant final chord rings clear and long,
So ends the song.
The war lost
The battle won.
It’s not as fun to take the bow when the audience is gone.

You know,
Trauma is tricky.
It evolves quickly,
a parasite
That grows when you feed it
And knows that you need it.

You shaped yourself around that shard of pain
And it lanced through your childhood and ate the remains
There’s no knowing where you end and it begins.
You are the same.

Its’s strange to mourn someone who isn’t dead
Your aliveness rattles around in my head.
I picture you alone in your garden,
Which thrives the way only a loved thing can.
It repays you in lilies, tomatoes, sunflowers,
a hundred different birds in springtime
Who return again each season
Hoping you will feed them.
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