Night Lights
The cat's shed fur floated in the air, the afternoon sun's rays bouncing off of it like light off dust particles above the seats facing a reeling film
What's it like for those who float through, directionless, seen only due to their closeness
to the presence of another
more prominant source
Invisible without the light of others.
Where are they at night
Cubicles with desks in the tallest buildings
Cubicles with beds in the rustiest buildings
Loitering in every space they saunter into
The only one awake
Silhouettes exposing themselves on the wall beside her
Shadows overlapping to create a landscape of dimension
a puppet show for her eyes only
Except, similarly to herself, nothing is in motion
The puppeteers haven't arrived, the set is in shambles
She is only the exoskeleton of wood, currently put aside
enveloping into itself like layers of thick mud
Shapeless and dead.
Flowers can’t grow on mountain tops
My hair falls out like pedals do off wilting flowers
It must mean I'm rotten, layers of black having filled my capillaries
inhabiting my internal flow
The ends of fingers fall off first in the cold, your body retaining heat in its center
If it were the opposite
Your heart would shed first, all at once, laying on the ground before you
wet and anxious, flapping like a fish
You'd bend down and hold it, feel its warmth
its movements slowly fading
with your warm, fully attached, fully intact, blood pumping fingers
which will stay no matter the heights you climb
the conditions you suffer
Flowers can’t grow on mountain tops
My hair falls out like pedals do off wilting flowers
It must mean I'm rotten, layers of black having filled my capillaries
inhabiting my internal flow
The ends of fingers fall off first in the cold, your body retaining heat in its center
If it were the opposite
Your heart would shed first, all at once, laying on the ground before you
wet and anxious, flapping like a fish
You'd bend down and hold it, feel its warmth
its movements slowly fading
with your warm, fully attached, fully intact, blood pumping fingers
which will stay no matter the heights you climb
the conditions you suffer
The love song of...
Let us walk on air
hand-in hand, acrobats in the sprawling night
lacking a trampoline, it is reality that we may fall to.
Let us explore the spaces taken up by those grounded to the humble earth
touching books, petting slobbering dogs and hushing screaming children.
Let us make it to the mountains
where bear cubs climb trees
where foxes carry wounded bird in their mouths, the compassion we hope to find diminished in dark eyes.
Let us lose expectations and embrace loss, succumb to our greatest fears
Let us go
Let us go.
“Do I dare disturb the universe?”
the world she knew had been deluged by a blue tint
trees on her street clothed with a navy coat, dwindling arms puncturing through.
standing in front of it she rubs her wool overcoat
fearing it will be protruded by her own growth
she wonders who remembers to clip off sprawling ideas when they wind on and on nearing the tree and snapping off thin twigs with a rosy palm
leaving only two which almost connect at the center, creating the axis of a planet.
Still
Your tickles are like stipples on my body
each leaving a mark, absorbing into my skin and shading my muscles
Go on, make me one of your sculptures
Carve your name onto my collarbone
tell me I'm your greatest creation
Shape my mind
include every bump and scar
Put me in a museum
for everyone
To see and to love