i too wish i could pirouette
on the flames of fire;
dive straight into an ocean
without knowing how to float;
shoot into space
and breathe my own oxygen

but purple flowers grow in my lungs
and i cannot stop the weeds that come with them
oh, it drains and it hurts -
the blue leaks out of me
like a nosebleed stream
and i swallow them back in past my lips.

then i face the corners of my walls
for forty-two days,
for forty-two days without a party
where the world still whirls in wavelike motion
and i stand in a pool of blue

almost like sorcery
after forty-two days
the pads of my feet tread blue
all up my capillaries, up my veins
into the arteries they go -
and back to the red flowers

they are purple again