Little ol’ stimtastic me

I want to search for myself in the grain,

stills can only tell so much

and I need more.

So back I roll past white noise

to the start of my fingers

tapping out the sheet music on invisible keys

while my eyes put up their barrier against the hum

and I go off into space.

There it is. The movement

I’m playing right now, recorded in the background

twenty-one years ago.

Advertisement

Clay

The soil clung to the woman’s fingers

as they stuck up from the ground.

It was evening, violet candies crunched underfoot

scattered around where she’d buried herself.

She’d needed to scream, and lacking

a place to release it, had dived into the earth

to let her voice ripple the clay

into the shape of her frustrations.

Comfort Zone

prints in the water

marked out with brown leaves

scurrying colour into whirlwind swirls

 

I can view it from above or below

hold my breath as it swamps into my mouth and ears

as I sink down to the bottom

gazing at the sides

 

and then it drains away

and all I’m left with is the aftertaste

of being suspended in the amniotic fluid of trees

Ink blot

My heart is an inkwell, each beat

sending rivers through my veins

that stain my nails black, every

second nearing me to the moment

I’ll run dry; full colour pages

getting fainter and fainter with each sheet.

Every time I am naive enough

to believe that I’ll never exhaust myself,

that I can keep up the image

projected in front of my face,

my fingertips blacken and all that I am

drips off them to the ground,

trodden down and kicked easily

aside by those who are so trained to follow along

that they never even notice I’ve crumpled.

I want to speak up, but my mouth

and my brain are so disconnected

I can only do it when someone takes the time

to give me a pen and paper,

and I can let my blood pour out and form itself into words,

hoping, simply hoping,

that they’ll finally understand.

Bard Dance

We paste on our faces and squelch down our thoughts,

produce positive, can-do attitudes to adhere to the court.

Seething inside, maybe; overwhelmed, swamped under,

forever unable to give in to our thunder.

The days melt under the heat and converge into one,

a conjunction of swarming bees whose tasks are never done.

Bodies we are close too, silent they must be,

still encourage us with a gesture only we can see.

And after the hour-chains finally let us retire,

we crash under waves that we have perspired.

Stacked

I think of my eyes as building blocks, little

lego bricks that connect in place to make

something bigger than themselves,

bigger than me. Sometimes

the colours don’t match, or a wall doesn’t take

on the shape it’s supposed to.

That’s when I know I’m tired. That’s when I know

I’m overwhelmed. That’s when I

know something’s wrong.

I need to rest, evaluate the pieces I have

and find a better way of constructing them.

Figure out that just because pieces don’t fit in one spot,

doesn’t mean they won’t fit in another.

Step by step. Brick by brick. Hour by hour.

And I’ll heal. I’ll breathe.

I’ll build once again.

You are the Yin to my Yang

It’s soothing to hold your face in my hands.

As the cuts open up on my body,

I can cling to the sensation of your smile

under my fingertips.

 

When you seep down like melted wax,

I want to step up, take your hands

and hold your palms to my cheeks.

Can you feel my smile, the smile

you gave me before the world turned upside down?

 

I like to think we stand

each side of a pair of scales, perfectly balanced,

and if one of us stumbles, the other

can compensate and bring us level again.

 

Let’s chat

Like being slit with a scalpel

I find myself open and bleeding,

fractured into shards of agate,

my layers exposed. All

I’m doing is speaking, one

to one. My palms are saunas.

My gaze fixed to your mouth,

not your eyes. I know

I need to speak. I must.

A stone mouth doesn’t make it easy.

Pi inches of parchment

Unfurling the scroll, it seems

it will never end,

a list upon a list that is

stuck in my hands

for an eternity I don’t want to face.

Ticked boxes, completed tasks,

I’m winning,

then the scroll is reversed

and instead I see

how much I’m losing.

Losing, or lost? That’s

the question now.

All I need is a chance.

Just one,

and then I’ll feel like me again.