Chrysalis

Their wings were broken, dark bodies

in constant motion

trying to escape the mesh.

No air, no wind.

Emerged one day to a wall, nothing more.

The sun shone, but they could never get to it.

Sea mist

The ice has broken under my feet

I’m not plunging into cold

As I imagined each time I launched this scenario

In my head

I’m not connecting to the ground

To the sea

To the air

I’m an apparition, a wisp of memory

On the breeze

And I’m being carried forward whether I like it or not

Drop your guard

When you stand before someone

exactly as you are,

no armour, no shield,

and still have the courage to look into their eyes –

you are strong.

You are raw, and you are real.

And when you let them do the same,

with no judgement,

understanding dawns for both of you.

You might be scared,

but opening chests that have long rusted shut

was never going to be easy.

All you can do is be the net

to catch each other

as your whole spills forth

and slips through your fingers.

Reoccurring

I’m still falling.

I see the ground rushing towards me even as it floats away.

My feet

no longer know what it is to stand on solid boundaries;

they pass through

and I am birthed out into a loop

of waking and sleeping

and waking again to find that I’m still sleeping,

and can’t escape.

 

My breath comes short

but also long,

empty lungs somehow full to bursting.

How can this be real?

How can I be real?

How can I stop myself

from fading away?

Battle of Monsters

You’ve seen them before,

noses pressed up against you,

moist breath on your skin.

One side is right. So is the other.

They ask you to be the judge as they battle it out.

Please stop, you ask.

Your voice doesn’t work.

The lawyers do. Settling the disputes.

Settling the money.

Now, young one:

who would you most like to live with?

Time bubble

I’m falling out of love with the apples

suspended in the air, frozen

on their descent to the ground.

The songbirds too, paused

in mid-flight away from the rain clouds.

I can stand in front of a whole swarm of bees,

rear ends rapier-pointed at my face,

knowing they will never pierce me.

What’s there to like

about a world that does not breathe?

Creature Unknown

The hand on my face presses down, sliding its fingers into my gills. No oxygen, no screaming, I suppose it thinks. My mouth proves otherwise. I have teeth, I have lungs, I have a voice that belts out an alert to all around me. There is a creature here wanting to crush you. It’s got me. Stay back, else it will get you, too.

Nozzle-rama

What do you do if you have a tube

needing a nozzle,

but is nozzle-less?

And while we’re at it,

perhaps we should consider

how nozzle is close to nuzzle,

close as close, yet far apart,

unless you’re applying filler.

 

Discuss.

 

What is in

the nozzle-needing

nozzle-less tube,

anyway?

A hand to hold,

a hug from a friend

undercover as a stranger?

A cart-load of commuters

squashed up in glue?

 

Ah, the nozzle.

 

Hiding down the aisle,

white-feather painted.

Now we can use it

to thrust out

liquid staples into the cracks

that have appeared

in your straining cheeks.

 

It’ll only hurt for a moment.

Promise.

Bound.

I jumped over a hill today.

One of those great rolling ones

that merge with the ocean

just out of sight.

 

I did it in one spring.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

 

I don’t want to talk about the chains.

 

They wrap around my arms,

squeezing

the flesh

so that it bulges.

 

I used

to point at them,

rattle the links in their faces.

But always

they would claim

they couldn’t see.

 

Now I stare into the distance,

leaping across fields

and dipping my toes

into the cool water of the lake.

 

They can’t see the chains;

they can’t see my escape.

 

The air

might not

be fresh on my journeys.

I don’t mind.

 

There’s freedom there,

and I claim it.