when the hands
on the clock move
to stop time
the earth becomes a wild thing,

when the humans slip
from their skin
imagine giants waking from
slumber:
(because they did, and they do)

when they shake the trees,
in the distance
here is the twist and scream
of faeries molting their
imprisonments:
they have come
for more blood
than we have left
in broken bones

when it takes hold,
raise the city
lurking beneath
cracked subway lines,
under the skin
and in the veins of the dreamers,
raise the city that sits
placid in the heads of thinkers,
that holds lies
woven between strangers
tying them together, taking us apart

when we raise the city
where
dark things slip through
small places
it will be
a kind world

you already know the world is ending,

so watch
as the sun
fragments into
holy red pieces:

it is the most beautiful thing.

(it is the last beautiful thing)

research shows
we carry trauma in our bodies

passed on from one
generation to another like a

treasured family heirloom;
slips metal into bones

we hold on to the pain
that killed our ancestors

silent stalker,
hovering on empty shelves,
behind glass bottles and
old pictures,
in the warm sleeve of a lover,
gone before it even
ever existed

she takes the spoon
pushes food and silence
down my throat
thick and slippery; her
smile as sweet, and
nearly as sickly

she is all things
bright and blustery
sheer impact force that
reckons with the world around her;

golden hour pictures
hazily filtered into
meaningful words that she
laces with daisies and poison;
painful to look at
when she is a blaze of light
fiery shards that lodge easily;
beautiful and
reckless and
lovely