Did You Think I Wanted To Write This?
by nobody you know about

it cost only the love i had for the blood in my body
the respect i had for humanity and for every caring soul
the stupid trust i had in mommy and daddy
the promise of heaven for the blind and the righteous
and the swift release that only sleep and death provide
to collapse this diary into shards that you could choke down
and somehow still have a lying tongue to say “you are perfect.”

what idiocy possessed my blackened mind to share with you
the hellfire consuming every minute that Beauty allows me to live?

We were in confided spaces before,
           in open air. Where we never mingled...
But at least we had company that we were
next to, now were in solitary confinement.

Now were 6 foot or 72 inches or 182.88cm
                from the nearest person, I don't know them,
they were here before me,
                                             celled up.
Slow walk, felt like a life time, so few steps..

But this is a funeral prosecution,
               is the one in front of me going to cough,
                                                                ­          sneeze..
Will they cover up or infect me, ME…
With there I don't know what's, could it be hay fever.

Could be me coughing in seven, to when I have a ventilator
shoved down my insides, I'm a breathing coffin..
        Just being buried slowly..
                                           they burn you now...
But I'm not there yet, I wash my hands.
                

"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me,
        I hope I wash my hands enough to see my  
                                                            ­     next birthday.
  But I'm wishing my hand happy birthday now,
            So soar but I'm happy birthdaying all week.

We in an open prison, free but unable to escape,
               I look out my window and breath..
      The air is a lot fresher that it used to be..

Another week passes, I write lines on the wall
         of my incarceration, I'm in a cell of luxury.
But I've never felt so alone.
     Were all roses, wilting due to lack of sunlight...

My palms in my pockets jingle
the keys to my cave as I make
my way to wherever I’m going.
My legs propel me, and my feet
dodge cast-off gum and dog dung.

And on my head rests a fishbowl.

An extra load on my skull,
but I don’t mind. I rather
like this bowl. It gives me
a barrier, and though thin,
the glass has yet to crack.

I hear my voice resound,
bouncing around the tiny
space, and I smell my breath,
minty fresh and foggy, and
through the fog the world and
its creatures are phantoms.

When I’m addressed, it’s like
floating in frigid freshwater
as they call for me from
the sheet of ice above.
They suspect I’ve lost
my soul in the fishbowl,
yet as year after year
goes by, I feel just fine.

I am an astronaut taking
a space walk, drifting around
and watching the universe
unfold under a sheet of glass.

And when I close my eyes,
I am in a womb, or a coffin,
and I often can’t tell the
difference, nor find much
of a reason to tell.


-
by Aleksander Mielnikow

---

A bag of clothes, a box of books, another smaller box of letters and photographs & an old guitar are sitting in the backseat.


It's 3am and she's driving through the Blue Ridge mountains. All the windows are down, warm summer air billows in and sends her hair dancing. 


She doesn't know where she's going, but the warmth calls to something in her blood so she heads South. 


She'll probably end up on a beach somewhere in a little East Coast town. Maybe she'll sell flowers and jam by the roadside or find a little bookstore that needs help, she'd wash floors all day if she had to and wouldn't think to complain. 


It all feels like freedom. 


The air smells like rosemary and thyme that grow wild along the roads. The stars are so bright she can hear them breathing. A jackalope dashes across her headlights & is gone before she has time to turn her head.


She parks in the back corner of a gas station somewhere in the Carolinas & stretches her legs out the window, takes a few sips of whiskey and reads a while before she falls asleep. Lightning bugs dance in a nearby field to the voices of cicadas. 


Somewhere a voice is screaming, glass is breaking, sirens pierce the stillness of a quiet street, but she doesn't hear it & she never will again. Even in sleep she is smiling.

My words died soon
With the clouds of doubt and foggy memory
In it submerged was a polished car
I kicked the tire as I wallowed in the mire again

smile
my dear - even when it hurts to
for your smile may be like the ray of sunshine
which escapes the curtains at dawn
for another
whose sun no longer does the things it is
the sun does

The water surrounds her
And takes away her breath
It consumes all she is
Free, at last

Teal and peach, mixing and mingling
The mess that she has created flows in and out
The left-over oxygen, escaping her lungs
Giving in, once more

And in her darkest hour
She decides to flee
Back to the depths of the sea
Sunlight, gracing her path