Cloaked

The fog drifts down onto her shoulders.

I’ll cloak you.

I’ll shield you.

She crosses her arms, hugging herself.

Help you hide,

help you disappear.

Tears roll down to drip from her chin.

Wrap you up,

keep you safe.

She shivers and bows her head.

Comfort you,

ease your pain.

The fog envelops her completely.

I’ve got you now,

I am you, you are me.

 

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Ghost-touched

It travels up the cracks between floorboards like rot.

Fibres decaying more quickly that the feet

wearing them down can pick up on. The centre

bubbles and boils daily, vomiting forth rules

and regimes that make the smooth inner workings

catch in halting breaths. A solid foundation

now revealed to be wet sand, washed away

by the smallest hint of tide. Green, orange, red:

a progression of colours mirror the emotional response

of the gathering crowd. Someone offers a hand

but their fingers are blackened by frostbite.

Luggage

Bulging from the seams,

the trunk of lies

sits by the door, waiting

for its owner to take it out.

 

The shadow stops just shy.

And turns away, leaving

the trunk to be.

King Mold

Among the breeding rot – whispers.

I hear them stretching through arthritic

tongues. Knife to bone,

crown to head, head of the table

where judgement resides on platters of

purple skinned grapes already coated

with penicillin.

Yes, the medicine, I’ve taken it,

drip feed from a babe.

Things that are not normal

flag as normal.

Things that are. Obviously insane.

Uncorked

Black swirls on the brain. Links opening to catch stray ringlets of thought that otherwise would spring as solar flares from the mouth; raw, dangerous, too bright for most to look at. Stacked, formulated, ready for processing. That’s how they want it. That’s how they accept it. Are you sure? What if the sun needs to flare?

Dragon Breath

Fire

on my eyelids,

the skin of my nose.

Ash rising in the belly

to leave

as a clouded scream.

No pacifier

can stop it, now;

the burn has found me –

caught up

with my words.

Can I ignite, or

will I be

ignited?

Foward to:

I reached up towards the whispering trees to tell

of all the things I’d seen cascading upwards recently.

The distant past, stone faced, stone minded,

stone mouthed. Confronted by flat facts

that illustrate the cover of the world.

Foil lettering given to signatures on toilet paper,

topiary hedges with red painted roses

casting a dripping grin down at the green.

Light flickers behind.

Hidden Breath

You once told me

you could grasp a pool of water

in your hands

without a single drop

slipping through,

but you never

explained

that the trick

to it

was to freeze the water

first.

It’s a simple thing to leave

out, I understand.

Yet I cannot help

wondering

what other details

you’ve lost

along the way.