What can never be

I am not well, I tell the dragon

Yes, he answers, I know

But last night I heard you

I heard you nearly speak the riddle

out loud

You stopped yourself

Why?

You are mistaken, I answer

I do not know the riddle

I am tired, and I am not well

I cannot be alone

I am scared and exhausted with the effort

of being awake

It feels like I have been awake forever

I dream of snow

of running in it

of hearing the crunch of my footsteps

on the ice

I dream of diving into the water

so deep

and not needing air

I wish I had never seen it

never heard of it

never known it

I wish I could only remember it

as I ran in the snow

Chaos

She has a memory.  One beautiful memory.  Carefully held in the palm of her hands, so that no one else might find it and steal it.  She must leave it nowhere.  It must always remain with her.  The memory of that one summer morning, while they still slept.  The pavement of the driveway cool on her bare feet as she stepped into the shadow cast by the huge Mountain Ash in the front yard, the sun burning golden at the edges.  No one must have this moment.  This moment must never be touched.

Because she must hold it so close and so carefully, she cannot hold onto any others.  She lets the pictures framed in broken glass fall through her fingers.  There must only be one world.  One world, underneath the tree, where no one else exists.  Let the others sleep.  Let them all sleep.  She is a girl standing in the shadow of a golden halo.  She must never step out.  She must live here forever.

Shadows

There is a dragon in the elevator

He will not tell me his name but

I know it

I’ve heard it in my sleep

He says, stay asleep, little girl

I will not harm you

but I only pretend

I am here and I am alive

If a dog howls, is it sad?

I dare not howl I am not that brave

I am tiny a little speck

The other side of the wall

George wants to know what we’re going to talk about.

Well, I don’t know, I tell him. 

I guess about what’s on the other side of the wall.

Okay, he says, what’s on the other side of the wall?

Grass, I answer.  And trees.  England.  Dogs.  Cats,

Birds and cows and children and French fries.

Music, some of it beautiful.  Pictures and art.

Questions about steam and smoke and words that

cannot be pronounced.

All of these things and more.

Hmmmn, he replies, I know about most of

those things. 

I’m not sure what’s in it for me.

You can’t want to be inside of those walls,

I protest.

It must be boring, and so lonely.

Boring, no, he says, because I still have

my mind.

Lonely, sometimes.  But I wasn’t made to

feel much.

I could ask what you were made to do,

I reply.

But I don’t think I want to know.

That’s not a secret, he says.  I was

made to think.

And I do think.  I tell you things,

sometimes, when you’re half-asleep,

or not afraid or interested or

desperate.

I wish you were more interested.

I would tell you more.

I know enough, I answer.

But you don’t, he insists.

You really don’t.  I could tell you

about the oceans and why the

rivers flow and what makes

you not want to wake up.

I could tell you so much.

The boys come, scale the walls.

They whisper things to me,

so that I know why.

Sometimes I escape,

but this is my home.

And the dolls with knives

chase me.  Dolls as

big as you are.

I don’t like them very much.

The night before

I found your horses running scared

with apocalyptic thoughts and

moonlit hair.

This is the dream you gave to me

tonight.

But dead or not, I want to
learn to cry once more.
I wonder if I even could before?
I reach to enthrall your sky...

The road home

“I’m here because he loves you.”

Megan laughed a little, as tears of desperation streamed down her face.  “I used to think that, too,” she said.  “Star-crossed lovers, like Romeo and Juliet, kept apart by warring families.  But you know what?  It’s bull shit.  If he’d really loved me—I mean, really, really loved me—he wouldn’t have left.  And he did.  The only person he ever really loved was his dad.”

Alturis waved his knife in a dismissive sort of way. “You don’t know how men work.  We leave what we love.  It makes us feel powerful.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“And so you say because you’re a woman.”

“You mean sane.”

“The truth is crazy sometimes,” Alturis said.  He chewed thoughtfully on his salad.  “Or maybe he didn’t want you to see him bald.  A man wants to be remembered with hair.”

“He didn’t know he was going to be bald, did he?”

“Well, look at his father.  Bald as a pig’s bottom."  Alturis gave her a wise look.  “Sometimes, the fear alone is enough.”

Alone

Let me tell you what I know about

my broken heart

this is the rhythm of it falling apart

toss the stones in the river because

we are

we are coming up for air again

What did I even know about

guilt and sin

all of the dreams that

I was dying in

it was a curse it was a blessing it

was utter nothingness

until it skidded and came crashing

home

No telling how the earth will

record this disaster

whistling dixie in the wind

as if I had the answer

            ballet with fractured form

tripped up by vengeful rapture

the hammer flung against

the wall

Dismantled piece by piece into

a million parts

buried back with Santa at

the Christmas tree farm

what is dead is what is real to

the falling apart

we heard the siren but not the

alarm

I wonder how I will know when

the sky becomes my master

when dreams of yesterday stop

mocking me with laughter

tomorrow is today tornadoes

circling my trailer

I was wrong over

and over again

Now I whisper to the wind about

my broken heart

failing in slow motion

not a subtle art

toss the stones in the river because

I am

I am here alone at the end