I am an ostrich nesting in mother's lap
head buried in shell-soft comfort,
bones tender as yolk,
hiding from the world that pecks too hard.

Ballons were once floating promises.
I chased them, believing they
would never pop.
Now they rise and I don't follow.
Childhood drifted upward and I
stayed watching
my joy shrink to sky.

They shaped the mold before I arrived,
A perfect cast where all compiled.
I was meant to be poured, settle and fit,
But I hardened too soon and fractured it.
I stretched too far and pulled to wide,
Shattered their mold and stood defied.
They wait, watch and trace my lines
tracking my stance, weighing my fall.
counting the cracks that don't exist at all.

Their sympathy searches for pores in me,
slipping through, expecting decay.
Their fake pity settles like dust on me,
waiting for time to wash me away.

Society can keep chiseling me,
But you know what?
I am a weathered rock.

In the wildest place,
my mouth stopped with stars,
I came to the end of words;
the parched mint, bitter
paper plank

where I lost my balance,
on one foot teetering
along that roadway where gold-
flashing fireflies stand effortlessly
on air

to send their fragile signal
out,
every night a nocturne
of one less
til I and the last firefly

danced alone
in the wildest place
sending our last ignition
out
to find our kind

or else fall quiet
and one
with the wild that
will neither be spelled
nor known.




©joyannjones June 2023

Is it when my voice
is heavy with no,
or when silence chains me
to the no I couldn’t say?

Is it when my hands
refuse to move
in the dance they command,
or when they move anyway
just to keep the peace?

Do I lose my beauty
when my smile doesn’t bloom
on cue,
when my nod isn’t obedient,
when my spine stays straight
instead of bending?

Do I fade
when I cross streets in straight lines,
stand still where told,
pretend I’m fine—
even pretend I’m dead—
to survive the laughter
that stings?

Do I stop being lovely
when my lips pray
instead of pouting,
when they sing,
recite verses,
or whisper secrets to the wind,
but refuse to curse
for entertainment?

Tell me—
is beauty only mine
when I surrender,
when I ache quietly,
when I let their script
become my skin?

Or do I stop being pretty
the moment I live
for myself?

Leaves just turning—
streaks of sun part somber clouds,
warm against sharp wind.

A small pond forms
    from the tiny patting hands
        of the spring raindrops.

Sugar sprinkled
    across a licorice sky—
        the stars!