Michal Shilor

Michal Shilor Jan 2014

paper playgrounds for people who are post-
trauma,
who talk to words instead of
people
who talk to people.

we, on our page,
we play with words, we
dance and distance and die for each other,
(cry for each other),
exploring letters & sounds & rhythms & rhymes
and crying
                                      up
as we mix each other        and calm each other
                                                                                  down,
we slip & slide & lock our lips & hands & feet
(and paint each other
against each other's bodies,
changing letters to other letters) and listening
to the winds
which warn us from the coming sandstorm,
the tornado'd gravel in our playground of ink addiction and diction,
and we
            fall
                    and bleed
                                    but know
the loyalty of letters
playing on (these)

Michal Shilor Jan 2014

for the listener

For the listener, who mourns in the silence
and takes upon himself to bury the secrets of others,
who listens in the sand and is solaced by the wind
and lays to sleep at hours small and nights dark

for the listener knows the thoughts of the universe
when he looks inside and feels the earth quake
in his body, the earth
quakes
and he shakes & shivers & the mortal secrets
drown,
secreting into the flood the chemicals that lie
between us,
lie
for our survival and the belief of our progression.

for the listener, i pray,
i pray for him to come & save
my hopes,
i believe no one else believes in his arrival.

— The End —