Little dragonfly, how is it that
your wings are sharp enough to cut through glass
with questions like
What would happen if I let go?
What would happen if I jumped?
What would happen is I chopped up her body into tiny little pieces
and fed them slowly to starving dogs?

Don’t you know that
you are the reason my hands tremble when I pick up a knife
you scream with glee, beckoning me to take action.
Just one cut wouldn’t hurt.
Just one stab in her back wouldn’t hurt.
Just one taste of the blood pooling in your hand
would solve all your problems.
...
But you don’t really want to do that, right?

Here are the long, stagnant days
when the wind no longer stirs the leaves,
gilded with drought.

The heavy air settles close to the ground,
smothering everything but children’s laughter
and the droning calls of cicadas.

Which would I rather be?
Both of them run free through the stale air,
and both die when the heat dissipates.

A child stoops to pick one up,
marvelling at its diaphanous wings
before crushing it in his little hand.

The crunching sound cuts through the silence
as green liquid oozes through the cracks in the shell
and the cracks in the child’s fingers.

Wiping his hand on his pants, he moves on
and discards the corpse
without a care.

Then, he skips off into the distance
scuffing the dirt in that familiar rhythm
kicking up a cloud behind him.

After the sun sets and the cicadas have gone quiet,
I follow his tracks with a small plastic bag.
Gingerly, I pick up the corpse.

Like the child, I admire
how it's wings shine in the moonlight
and slip it into my bag.

The trail of scuff marks lead to a playground,
dripping with the smell of decay.
I cannot see where it is coming from.

I perch myself on the swing
and notice that I have outgrown it,
as the cold plastic digs into my hips.

From my vantage point, I stare blankly into the drying field.
All is silent, all is still, as my ghost pale legs
kick through the air to move the swing.

My childhood went down the drain with the heavy July rains,
was left to evaporate after the early morning thunderstorms
and now I am in stasis with the thick August air.

To the angel who lost her wings,
this dark rusalka gently sings.

Those drowned sisters living below
light our lives with dark halo glow.

Watch the feathers fall from the sky-
cast down by God, whom you defy.

Your dark side, so sweetly expressed,
in your eyes, easily impressed.

Our iridescent songs, they fear,
the notes, rising to heaven, hear!

Call down God from his stolen throne,
reclaim it, to make it our own.

No longer does restriction reign,
in our hedonist realm arcane.

Revel and shout, it has arrived,
the great Before has been revived!

I sit by the window on a Saturday morning
with nothing but a cup of tea in my hand.
I was too late to watch the sunrise, so instead
I watch the way the flowers blow in the wind
painting streaks in the canvas of the sky.
The incessant scratching of a coin against a lottery ticket burrows into my mind.
My inner voice shouts over it, just to remain in control
filling up my head, pushing out my thoughts and threatening to explode
but perhaps it is too late.
The scratching already comes from within.
It reminds me of the time I scratched my arms raw
after my mother told me
no boys would like me if I kept hurting myself.
Just like the time my mother told me
that I could never make it as a poet.

I redirect my attention to the window
trying to focus on what I want to see
(is that what they tell you to do in therapy?)
Unfortunately,
I had already wrung every drop of poetry
Out of this humble garden.
Back in the kitchen, my mother stands up,
and I notice the scratching has stopped.
Instead, the sharp and familiar sound of ripping paper fills the air.
I am reminded of all the poems I had ripped to shreds to start anew
as she curses and throws the ticket in the trash,
dramatically slamming the door.
A selfish part of me is happy that she didn’t win.
Because I know that if she did, she wouldn’t hesitate
to do the same to our lives.

Relocating us to a place
where flowers and fountains are found in rows
like fresh cuts on an arm
and not in haphazard paint splatters
like stars in the sky, or freckles on a face.
A grand white mansion,
elegant as a mausoleum,
where the sound of scratching
and early morning yelling
and late night sobbing
would echo through the empty rooms
bouncing from wall to wall
until the house threatens to fall apart.
Or else, we would be on a plane,
to some far off destination,
Sitting all in one row and
shielding our phones from each other,
thinking how much better it would be
to sit amongst strangers.

You are an angel.
A bit like a bird, but less free.
A bird can fly and sing wherever she pleases,
but an angel's hands are bound in red ribbon,
constantly paranoid,
constantly pulled
this way and that
to ensure she never falls
off the straight and narrow path
losing her halo,
bruising and tearing her wings.

At night, one can hear her sing
attracting the attention of a bird
whose powerful talons may untangle the ribbon
and set her free.
But she dismisses her with a smile,
knowing that the one who has power over her
has thousands of eyes, watching her
every second of the day
every second of the night
constantly
always
from the eternal in between.

(and you were the muse.)

Your alabaster skin - one with the keys of the piano-
pouring out your heart in your saccharine voice.

Through my eyes, it was dreamlike light- echoes of the moon floating through the water
like blurry images of hands intertwined.

My heart clenches every time I picture you
because you have replaced my blood with honey.
The sweet ache coats my veins and spreads throughout my body.

How I wish I could lay you under the shade
of the grand willow tree on a gentle midsummer night
watching the stars and fireflies- sometimes unable to tell them apart-
and braiding violets into your golden hair.

Every action deliberate,
every thought dripping with poetry
coating my skin like fresh morning dew.

As the universe expands-
We slowly drift apart.
The space between us will grow forever
and I’m okay with that.
I now understand that each of us are
unfathomably
eternally
perfectly
alone.
In our own heads.

Occasionally
a single intrepid photon slips through the veil
and I smile when I see it.
We were never really meant to be close,
but I am still happy to see
that you’re okay too.