I watch each delicate thread

Pull away

(Frail twine,
The string of life,
Warn from wash and
Off white)

The plink of one more

Surrender as

One by one

Their little hands

Let go under the pressure

(Too taxing;
Cracked glass
Invasive fissures
Wiggling their way
Downward until
Wrath forces its way
To the surface)

And prepare to lose

(Control
Tumbling upward in a
Bittersweet cone of
Fermented
Nineteenseventyeight
Exquisite wine
Ready to shoot
Straight to the brain
Unraveling the ties,
Letting the pieces fall)

Myself in fragments

Scattered upon the floor

Of who I really am

(or who I never knew
But learned to grow
Apart from.
Caged in my fear
Savagely
Awaiting freedom
So prohibited
;Slavery)

Until I shed my shell

(the painted
Actionfiguretell
Of the mold
I came from.
An assembly line model
Struck in posses
Clothed in garments of
Rejected leisure)

And feel my truenity

(the gentle nature
Peel out
And bloom
Like the dark rose
I’ve seen time and time again
Amidst a lot of pebbles
Waiting so eagerly
To be picked by
The one naïve
Green soul
To let the eye fall
In color
And lick the blood of christ
So tainted
With illusion)

***** the finger

Let the blood run out

Bleed me out

( ailments birthed
of a gentle betrayal
disease my being.
embalmed of any
logic for sense
the salvation of patience is
left by the wayside;
a token for those who
stop to think )

My sanity ridded

Corpse

A poor excuse

For my former self

(falling)

You’re still Little
I’ve turned
from Big Spoon to Recovery Position
back to back
like stacking mats at school

Our vertebrae are boy girl
boy girl teeth like cogs
that turn together

Runs through a sunbeam.
A single red hare
Burning the ground he dashes past.
A single red hare
Jumps to the sky
And the ground creates a crater.
A single red hare
Flies through the forest—
Every tree aflame.
When he goes through the forest
He gives the trees their dance.
A single red hare
Dives into a black hole
In the ground
Looking for a wall
To break the barrier
Of hell.

lines-- they shriek and gimick these
mimics, blank corneas set against
slanted eyes.

the world of characters,
tiny, prepubescent, etched
shadow in mocking fingers

stinks of unyielding white,
light that has shook our books
off the shelves, off our shoulders
to the

c-Lack! pebbles spewing and
clanging against a shiny lock--

dissonance of demise
biting in disguise

Paper Lanterns

Your twin roots inflate and detach
as they form themselves, Arms
of golden battered skin, your bamboo hollows
Sway as the sun-split winds blow through you.

When you breathe, your heart is light too
and small, as if swallowed and held
between fluorescent sheets,
rocking on the cradle of the wind.

Up, up in the wandering, burning blue
Slipping away the earthen bonds, you rise.
And, with silent lifting thoughts, you withdraw
into the sanctity of space.

falling down into the pit,
tumble my stones into the
gravely grave, where my heart
pours a sieve, where rain
falls down in sheets,
enshrouds my truth.

my seething, growling, gnawing
tiger caged in her corner,
spits into my dark night;
she's ready to pounce.

i thought i'd tamed the beast,
but she was only waiting in shadows.

now backed into her corner, she strikes
her razors across my face.

i bleed onto packed dirt floor.

tiger's eyes glow green.

She’s cracking eggs.
“What are those?” she asks, pointing to white and red specks in the bowl.
Once I’d have told her it was shell-
but she’s too old for that now
so-
“Where the eggs started to grow”
“Into chickens?”
“Yes”
“Oh” she says, staring intently at a gooey mess in the palm of her hand.
I finish weighing out the ingredients,
wipe her clean-
“Which colour icing do you want?”
She’s carefully spooning cake mix into bright-striped paper cases.
“Can we make angel cakes instead?”
I go into the kitchen to pre-heat the oven,
steal two minutes silence.
Deep breath.
“No. We'd be cutting up perfect little cupcakes to make the wings”
Choked.
I can’t tell her why
I don’t do Angels in December.

Hidden.