War

I don’t really know what to say.  Well, I do, but I don’t want to write it down.  I want to obliterate it into a million zillion pieces.  I want to turn them into cartoon characters I can erase, or I can crumple up and throw away.  I want to fly in the stars I want to fall splat on the ground.  This could go on forever.  Fat and wore cheap suits.  There, how’s that for something?

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

There is a party conference going on and no one is winning.

After

the place you fell down from

                                                was the air so pure up there

                                that before you could warn me I

might find you

                                    in the rustling of the trees  

you lost your breath

                and I was trapped

                under this avalanche of leaves        

Deluded

“She’s a kook,” he said, “but a lovable one.  She has absolutely no common sense whatsoever.  It doesn’t seem to matter what happens to her—it all filters the same.  So of course she attracts the wrong kind of people.”

A Simple Life

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

All very poetic, the dragon says

but you told me once

that wishing will not make it so

will you not join us here?

Not even the butterflies are

afraid

I am not well, I repeat

I want none of your riddles

I only want peace

There is the problem, my child

there will be no peace until

you speak the words

You knew this long ago

Safety

“How charming,” Alturis said, laughing.  “But now you must come out from under there.”

Clutching her battered teddy bear against her chest, Megan returned, “Why should I?” 

“For many reasons, some of them yours.  Aren’t you a little bit like a fish in a barrel right now?”

“You’re just going to kill me anyway.”

“But you won’t have a chance to escape unless you come out.”

Megan frowned.  That was a good point.

“Besides,” Alturis added, “you are much too old to be hiding underneath the bed.”

Catch 22

I am not well, I tell the dragon.

Still.

Yes.  I know.

My head hurts 

It feels strange 

I don’t know what normal is anymore but

I want to remember

I want to remember what it

felt like to hold my head in place

to not feel as if it was either going to

fly off

or pull me down to the

bottom of the ocean and

hold me there

an anchor I cannot escape

I am not allowed those memories anymore

I am not allowed any memories at all

Maybe if you asked.

I don’t want to ask

Then what do you expect?

I don’t know

Nothing

And that is the problem.

Gone Off and Lonesome

I have been pining for you, old friend

I have been searching my organs for

clues of your existence

I have been listening to the buzz of

the lamps, my friend

I have been understanding that we

are all without evidence

Because you are the intervening cause

you are where I buried my investments

I have been searching the heat registers for you

only to find cotton balls that missed the garbage

can

I have stood on my toes and screamed

through my stomach

I have flown off the linoleum by the force

of my breath

I plead to the cobwebs for you to listen

I wake up with charlie horses at 3 am

When I lost my travel book centuries ago

burned the ancient forest where

you were my favorite tree

You are the reality I cannot close in on

what flew through my hair that I

mistook for permanency

I would like a chance to hold you, old friend

I would like to touch your materialness

But I beat against the kitchen table instead

keeping time with rhythmic

loneliness