Old

 

what she feels is 

no longer

yet the cells still remember

expanded in size but

not courage

wisdom another promise

time forgot to

keep

Life Debt

It was an unsettling, they said

a conspiracy of silence

to blunt the sharp sticks that

pointed at them

once before time

we felt the smallness

until we morphed into

strangers

and became what they hid

now we watch from the rooftops

balance on wires

impervious to the buzz and

the hissing rain

scavengers, they call us

a blot on the landscape

their duality lost as 

they pick and they

pick

at the bones of

existence

Fever Dream

 

Just to the right of Orion

the galaxy we lived and 

died in

soon

I never told you that I

soon

I never told you that I

I hear all my tomorrows cry

cry out for you

yesterday is so very sorry

and me here at the end of

the story

with broken sky no good

for flying

I took a left at the belt of Orion

only to hear the jackdaws

lying

lying for me and for 

you

I never told you that I

soon

could I have told you that I

soon

in this world we saw right through

could I have saved it

for you

Exit

I felt it

the galaxy moved and I

was seen

an echo lost in

the static

I am cold here

but leave me this sadness

it is the truest dream I’ve

ever known

Backwards

 

I am the servant of time

of a truth I cannot

form

made of wisps and

dirt and stolen pieces of

lung

I tried to breathe around it

that was always my way

until the gasping became a

forbidden scarring in the

mind

do not talk of journeys

of hope without destination

decades mean nothing to me

I am still there

counting the tick tocks of

passing

serving a master who knows

I will never be free

Safe

My head hurts.

Hmmmn, says George.

 

Yes, I answer.

 

Sorry, but I can’t help you there, he tells me.

Have you seen the statue?

 

What statue?

 

The statue, he says impatiently. In the

middle of the courtyard.

 

I don’t go in the courtyard.

 

I suppose not. You don’t

really go anywhere.

 

Neither do you.

 

I’ve got the dolls with knives to

worry about, he reminds me. What’s

your excuse?

 

It’s not just the dolls, I answer. 

Everything has knives.

Buried

 

I saw her, once

while everyone was sleeping

the indifference about

made her feel safe

“Show, don’t tell,” I said

and laughed at the irony

she wasn’t amused

after a lifetime of keeping

the pictures in my head

from the words in my

mouth

so in silence we stood

the victim and her warden

the baton in my hand

and a girl

imprisoned by 

doubt