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Melanie Kate Sep 2012
Dusty smells stir with the howl.
Echoing between the rattling cobwebs of this cave.
There's an army marching, drumming
through the rot of these commotions;
Strewn like splatter upon this ground,
without evidence of any past sound.

There's a streak of sunshine
crashing through the cracks,
pressing against a dried crust of face
caked in the ashes of war:
a battle turned silent;
the wounded, free of it's tyrant.

Out there in the empty space,
rain begins to fall.
All that is dead and hard,
slowly unravels, twirls, crawls.
Blinking at the sharpness
of what remains left in this darkness,
scattered alone across the floors.
(c) MKD 2012
Laura Mankowski Apr 2014
She was warned that a collection of rice would weigh a lot.
She shook her head and claimed nonsense while exhibiting the size of each grain.
And her collection grew with marvelous and hideous grains of rice
Until
9:30pm one Saturday, while she was sitting on a couch with loved ones, laughing at baseball
And she knew, if she drew one more breath-
She would implode.
The bag would explode
Millions, billions of grains would come spilling out of the wound.
She ran
Hyperventilated the whole way home-
Not even home, dog sitting was more rice she picked up that week.
Curled in a ball all night, counting the seconds until she could flee to her sanctuary-
Retrieve her thread
Sew the hole
Hold onto the grain
Every breath a dagger
Every heart beat, a beat for a grain-
The reason she has them to begin with

— The End —