Haggard heavens,
pale white in their dormancy,
weary wind,
sweeping through the trees,
sleeping sun,
warm in her blanket of clouds.

Over the waiting earth,
the storm watches with a single eye,
a cold Cyclops.

Dank darkness,
bathes the waiting world,
the still static of cheap radios,
adds to the deafening silence,
short candles sit, covered,
in their own hot wax.

At the end
of their
dormancy,
the heavens shriek, their sharp tears,
tearing through the air, clashing with the ground,
cold bullets shooting the world,
white flashes
jagged white swords slashing through the horizon,
stabbing the wet earth,
the heavens groan,
sonorous rumbles,
as if they’re stabbing themselves.

Howling screams of vicious gale,
as it tears the world apart,
ripping through trees,crashing them to the ground,
flinging the world around in whirling anger.

The world sits, huddled
whispered prayers fighting through the air
to reach the heavens
and pass the storm along the way.

Now
finally
satisfied,
the cyclops moves on
a warrior wandering to
his next country
still strong
with its pale skin,
bleeding rain to wash away
the remaining carcasses

i wake up to october morning darkness crystallized under my eyes

i despise my smallness
i'm not sure what i mean by that but the feeling is thick in my bones

i wish i had more gravitas or impetus or something else sternly derived from Latin and Physics
wish i had a lever long enough to move myself, to advance the plot
i needed to do laundry three days ago. i still need to.
there is a ticket in the glove box of my car. today is its birthday. it is one week old. its name is driving-while-talking-on-the-phone-to-my-girlfriend or another arbitrary combination of shapes that represent sounds and ideas at the intersection of the nature of human contact and personal responsibility.
i don't know because i haven't read it yet

i think i could probably be more than i am
(more what?)

it's hard to remember which day it is
they all sound like cars driving past my apartment and a bathroom faucet that always drips
relativity says that everyone else is moving and I am perfectly still
october is when relativity first opens its autumn flower self
some time in april I will pick its rotting blossom from my skin

i remind myself that lots of streams have dormant times when thirst exceeds ability,
that even great rivers sometimes choke with silt, reduced by so much minutiae
that it just takes a change of season to set things right again

i am waiting for rain

I want to break free of your hold
but then I feel you sedate me.
You watch as my heart stutters and folds,
I feel you overtake me.

I fear they will not know what this means,
they'll keep me under their sockets,
barely worth trespassing into their dreams,
I'll learn to keep you in a locket.

I fear falling quiet;
have the years not taught me?
I fear your bipolar climate;
one day you'll strangle me,
I'll stutter through your riot
and starve you with the waves of the sea.

Take a white woman and cover her in red paint
Take a black woman and do the same
Now you can't tell the color of their skin
You can only judge from what is within

We are taught from a young age
To hate what is different from us
Now it's your choice to be peaceful
It's not the paint that is deceitful

But we are the same kind of people
If you look in my inner reflection
It's not about thick thighs and pigmentations
It's about every heart in all of the nations

Who would you take a slug for
Who do you wish death upon
Don't waste your bad words
On the ears of that's all that they've heard

Speak life into strangers daily
I don't know you or owe you
But I can still call you my friend
And we will fight together until the end

We all bleed red paint
We all die sinners and saints
Don't label me something I ain't
This heart, is not for the faint

So bless my skin
An all that is within
From the tips of my toes to
Every part the good Lord to knows

You judge me if you like
I won't reflect on it
I have cracks in my skin
And all the paint seeps in

And so it fills me up
With all the love and the pain
Of those who bleed out in vain
Because fools speak words that sound insane

Different shades of acceptance
So judgmental in their minds
Because they fear what is different
It's not your fault they on ignorance

So color me blue
And let the sky watch
Because we have bigger problems
Than who's white and who's not