Mother Earth is grasping you tightly, I swear: wrapping you in consolation-in mutual disconnect.

The supermoon was last night, sending him on his way. The end of an era. Sunshine would be too brash. Mother Earth knows this: she’s crying with them. Embracing them. Howling, wailing, hitting for them since they’re so graceful and limp. The grey, wet sky is matching their insides. Nature has a purpose and today, the purpose is to console them.  Mother Earth is swaying gently over their bodies, cradling and rocking them. Kissing their foreheads; she’s drenching them in her tears and letting them saturate her as well. It’s mutual. She’s hovering over his young, breathless body. She’s protecting it since his mother can’t. Believe, believe.

 

But I know that these words mean nothing.

A Raw Letter to a Mourner:

I imagine that tomorrow

we will gather around

the kitchen table

as usual, sobbing 

instead of laughing. I’ll look at the art

around the house and try 

to stay silent. I imagine

it’ll be easy: silence

is a heavy thing.

I might give you the salts

I bought you in France last

November but they’ll probably sting.

You might not be ready for that.

I imagine I’ll watch you crumple,

a new facet of your well-recovered,

recooperating being. I imagine that 

you will be drained–numb.

I won’t know what to do

with my hands. Limp, flailing.

The whole family there, 

solemn like a somber family photo:

minus two members. 

 

I wish I could coat everything

in a gelatin-mold 

and have the sun constantly shine

on it. The table would have a feast,

and there would be champagne

to match your bubbly demeaner.

But now is not the time.

I imagine you’ll be flat.

So instead, the table will sit there,

unprotected and worn from our tears 

and our clasped hands. We’ll sit in silence.

We’ll whisper “I’m sorry” and “Thank you”

and that will be that.

Ode to the Journeyers and the Journeyless

Last year she showed the public her darkest drawings for the first time. They spoke. Her husband was in each flower. She kept trying to erase, she said. Erasing the flowers would mean that she would be erasing time. The pain. The dark saturation that seeped into her fragile skin every night when she was forced to sleep alone.

He said that it translates differently–into something real.

Metal is real; paper is not.

Paper is not.

I know metal can cut

deeper than paper.

Rock, paper, metal, shoot.

I’ll take two dramamines

and three benedryls.

Then I won’t be able

to feel either cut

into my parchment skin.

I am not real.

This bed isn’t mine.

Neither is the one over there

or the one overseas.

My light radiates as I lay here,

thinking of textures,

but I cannot catch it

in my palms–not yet.

The other one

catches it–he wants to talk.

Paper is not real.

Sometimes, I float.

I float like paper

with my paper-thin,

paper-white skin.

Everything is debilitatingly big

and it makes me immobile.

“Don’t do this now,” I say,

“I have to fly, fly, fly.”

I have to brush

my fingertips against my dream

once more.

Instead, I float, though

and graze against the metal.

Boxes

One box had my forgiveness in it: layers upon layers of string. They were stuck together–the brick of yarn, permanently hidden in there.  Another, shoes: “You can’t go far without them,” which is a lie, but in this December-summer, it’s true. It’s too cold and I’d get frostbite. So I packed them. The most important box, though, was the one filled to the brim with progress. I had to sit on it in order for it to fit. Even still, it bubbled out the seams. But for some reason, it was not as effervescent as it had been in the previous days. It was kind of flat, stagnant. Permanently stuck in there.

Nature of the Littlun

Her humble demeanor is being squashed by the other one’s oppressive nature. Such is life. But she needs to stand up for herself. And she is. She’s raising and raising and I have the utmost admiration for her.

Internal Chaos In A Public Place

“How are you?” I ask, a seemingly simple, surface-level question.

Her face stays gentle, but there’s no response.

I touch her bare shoulders. Her skin is always warm and soft. Like a golden goddess of a mother, she scratches my arm gently, trailing her fingertips in a repetitive motion. This motion is a comfort for both her and me.

I want to be able to reciprocate these inspiring events–the ones she doesn’t even know she’s providng–but I don’t know how. I’m not like honey. It’s not something I’m good at.

Life Being What It Is: The Magnificent Strife of A Dandelion

Dandelions are funny plants. Suburban neighbors find their cheery yellow heads inconvenient: inconducive to an aesthetically pleasing palette of a yard. Like their kids can’t learn from something so dynamic.

“There’s light and beauty in everything,” the radical rebel yells to them.

According to Rumi

According to Rumi, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” And if the Light is that stinging sensation of hydrogen peroxide, I feel it. If it’s that raw, bubbling infection, I can stand it. If and only if.

My Processing of Too Many Thoughts to Process

My vision was lined in pink, satin thread today. So were my legs. And my arms. My face. And everything of his. Conversation came easy through the almost-summer air–through the phone, too. Pink ribbons plastered onto the trees, onto our beings, and our normally transparent souls. Real life: I’m tied to this tree. To this earth. To these people. Don’t make me cut through this progression.