By my life's end and lost poem
the world will be covered with you.

Your name and scent and actions
will be written and then scattered

upon pages and hearts and stones,
upon date-trees, grape-leaves, and palms

for centuries to come.

The world is unfolding inside of me
because your departure took
the east, the west, the north, the south,
the fall, the spring, the trees from me.

With chisel and hammer
I carve the length of your legs
and the width of your waists
and the bend of your arms
and the ***** of your shoulders
until I arrive at your brain
where I reach with chisel and hammer
until I come across your spring
of wisdom and knowledge
your fountain of thought and belief.

I have been chasing you
for so long
that I have scraped my knees
on the curb of eternity.

Love, if you are the
answer, could you have someone
repeat the question?

I wanted to write your name down in blood
over and over and over
on slabs of gold and stone
but you prefer to be left alone.

I wanted to build a monument of your face
to overlook your land, your tribes, your home
but you prefer to be left alone.

Instead, I wrote your name on lavender sands,
your birth date on the golden change of winds,
my love for you on the sunset over the Indian Ocean.

I wrote everything for you
on places of scatter
and on places of dissolve.

I wanted to leave your mark on the world
but realized the irony in such
because you are already aligned
with the rising sun and setting moon,
you are already an endless cycle of life and death.

Still, I want to write you down in history
but you don't want to leave your mark on the world,
you don't want your coming and going announced.

To leave my mark on the world,
you said,
I would first have to injure it,
disturb the status quo,
but I would rather be left alone.

swim
through the dim
      abyss of the ocean's blue water
      to become a daughter
                  of the violent and quiet sea.

dive
through cold knives
      as your body submits to the waves,
      you must let yourself cave
                  to the water's hypnotic sway.

trade,
for green jade
      scales to cover your ivory legs.
      no longer will your wade
                  in the shoreline's shallow waters.

dance
with the chance
      of happiness running through your mind
      and you will learn, in time,
                  in order to swim you must drown.

Mulling over the
Usual things and
Nothing changes much.
Difference sought
And dreams in
New experiences but
Everything's the same


©Jacqui Slade

In my dreams a publisher sees my work and tells me they think I've got a real shot

In my dreams the ratio of rejection to acceptance letters in my inbox is not quite as depressing as it is in real life

In my dreams I am not editing my suicide notes and calling it poetry

In my dreams I never burned all my best work in my mother's fireplace when I was seventeen

In my dreams I can finish an entire project before the fear consumes me and causes me to walk away halfway through

In my dreams I am not bitter over the success of others

In my dreams I know where the line between courage and cowardice truly is

In my dreams I have never once thought of giving it all up

In my dreams I am brave

In my dreams I am unwilling to compromise

In my dreams I am tearing out my insides and throwing them down on the floor

In my dreams I am offering myself up as a whole and not as broken parts

In my dreams I am shouting I am here look at me

In my dreams I am exposing my open wounds and I am not asking to be healed

In my dreams I am cutting out my heart and I am not asking to be loved

In my dreams I am inadequate and insignificant and small and I wouldn't change that for the world

Sometimes I wish I could fly
But everytime we talk I feel so high-
High enough to feel like I could touch the sky

I haven't been to moon
But I swear in that moment
I feel no gravity.

(C.D.)