The coming fire

The dragon is in the fireplace

I see his glowing eyes

this time I cannot be afraid

there are no clues only riddles

they whisper to me

The dragon smoulders so

near the butterflies

but they do not mind

I hear riddles all day long

words but not in English

no one wants me to know

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.”