Wind whips, whistling in the seat belt,
Crooning along to the emotional ululations
As I succumb to the emphatically teenager-like emotions,
Grand in their extremity,
Both realizing and fully embracing the cliché-ness
And dramatization of every quip, gesture, glance.
My mood soars irrationally with the voraciousness of my tires,
Devouring every granule of cement at velocities upwards
Of 30 miles per hour.
Jason Mraz and I make an excellent duet,
As I’m quite certain the disgruntled woman a lane over
At the stoplight thinks as well.
He sings of skies “getting rough”
And I allow my eyes to wander to our own ominous clouds,
Creeping from the east like panthers prowling in search of prey;
I appreciate their slate undertones and umber rumples,
The gold shining from behind and within, tinting their edges,
But I turn my attentions slowly, with a bittersweet notion,
To their fluffy brethren, friends of Magritte,
Iridescent and captivating as they weave among the rays.

in 12 ancient tomes is kept
your yore,
with pages blank and
pages scrawled with tears
(salt-edged persipiration from one
thousand toils),
ink bled through in
a chemical reaction of
struggle with parchment
to create lines fine enough
to be seen as beautiful.

There are no lines but those
of the author and she
writes with a sagging fer-
ocity.

Her toil is mirrored in the
Eyes of others and the
Smiting of thousands.
Sun sets on the spokes of
Wheels meant to carry her to
The library of tomes,
But they cease their revolutions.

I stumble upon them
In the silkily inked night-
Stars straining through like
Candle light in caverns-
And oftentimes nurse my
Stubbed toe in whimpers.

For some revelations
It is like the dandelion in reverse,
And all the pieces I catch,
Blown to me by the cold and unrelenting wind
As I strain my short arms, - higher, higher,
Softly, gently -
Nestle into a place that has been and was and always will be for them,
As it was and has been and always will be since this
Infinite and cumbersomely graceful universe was constructed in the cosmos.
The truth flowers and blossoms into being for me.
I caress it to my chest and stare at its multifaceted simplicity,
Shielding it from the wind that bore it with trembling hands.

Other times, I feel a blow to my temple
And my sternum turns to black, glass shards that implode,
Ripping and flaying as they exit.
My ribs slip to tar, laboriously oozing down the inner constructs
Of my collapsing frame,
Until it seeps from my toenails, puddling around me.
I rest a clammy forehead in its depths,
Soothing compared to the devastation within.

My heart, marred by these,
Flutters in apprehension,
And the closeness of contact causes
An indelible, impalpable, incredible
Rhythm
Falling in with the other.

The best moments of truth
Are when warmth
Crawls like sapling ivy from
The tips of my fingers to my earlobes and calves,
Navel and frigid nose,
Thawing me from the inside out and the outside in and all at once.
Chills cascade down my spine,
Fleeing to a safer place where they always will reside within me,
But that does not matter now.
I am walking on this knowledge,
I am prancing with my heart,
I am surrounded by a melody,
I am, I am, I am.
I was wrought with a tight throat and
Choked whispers
And a courage to hope,
And the moment when I began to know and suddenly knew all at once,
Because sometimes knowledge is inherent in our very being
If we are so bold as to taste it.

I pace myself with thoughts of trivialities
And brush depth aside like it is nothing
When I am called upon.
But I never call upon myself, for that would be too much effort.
I try hard to forget that I am rusty, too,
But you need so much more oil than I.
So take it all, and take it gladly
Because I’d love to see you glimmer
In the afternoon sun.

Your hinges no longer squeak in greeting,
But unfold in fluid motions to
Encompass my ragged entirety.
And I am rusting now,

I am rusting,
Russet and flaking.
My paint chips and I appear dull,
Weathered by water and watered by weather.
I only diminish.

Glass and translucency
Mock me continually
As I struggle to find the caverns
In their beautiful facet, undeterred,
But realize that cellophane
With its loud crinkling, stains
The sight instead.

If only I could show others
The way you paint
With my reds and chestnuts
And the sunsets that I choose to mimic.
The continual exposure wears me,
But I am galvanized by your whisper,
“You are iron.”