I am free – to look through the year's particularly traumatic flipbook, seeing in quick succession my:
Heavy September. Ignorant October. Bittersweet November. Newfound December. Blissful January. Fighting February. Dead March. Dreary April. Lovely May.
and what has proven so far to be a Reborn June.
I am free – to lie in my bed for hours and watch my near-future film flash across my ceiling, with eyes hungry for something easy to look at and something even easier to take care of.Yes, I am free – in a sense, from who I once had to be in the shadow of painstaking, stressful arrangements made without the knowledge that flowers always die at some point.
I am free – to write whatever I want, and I won’t forget it.
I am free – free – free – to get close! to parts of the rainforest I’ve only seen before, but never treaded barefoot, digging my toes into the soppy dirt.
...after all this time, I imagined freedom tasting more like a peppermint tea, one that strips my tongue of all its bumps and breaks away the cloud of metaphors and imagery circling my brain.
But today, yesterday, this May, this Summer
tastes ubiquitously sweet,
solidifying a film of syrup
around my worn-out, onion skeleton.
Maybe I was wrong about freedom.
But in all likelihood, I am wrong about everything,
everything and anything that carries the scent of you.
To be completely (almost) honest at this point,
in the midst of a garden blooming
Ripe Rights
Maybe I was wrong about freedom.
But in all likelihood, I am wrong about everything,
everything and anything that carries the scent of you.
To be completely (almost) honest at this point,
in the midst of a garden blooming
Ripe Rights
&
Yellow Yes’s
Yellow Yes’s
&
Sugary Soons,
I can’t figure what’s Wrong.
What is wrong with me, to hunch my shoulders looking backwards.
Or, what is wrong with the blankets,
that they have to be so small as to not encompass both our shivering bodies.
(So, I scribble secrets about you in my sleep,
since I (like you) am a tremendously light sleeper.
But secrets jam in my ears and nostrils ever still!
It is a gamble to write to you – no, to post, for you –
because our ignorance keeps my flame from being doused.
This I hope you understand, since the Summer depends on it, after all…)
Here is one such Secret:
It is harder to sleep next to you than to sleep at the mouth of a waterfall; my heart beats harder than the sound of glaciers colliding;
sleeping next to you…
is sleeping on the floor of a rainforest;
with strange foreign sounds all around, and it could rain at any moment,
and my life would just change right there.
I have never had a troubled sleep as wonderful as that.
I woke up feeling the youngest I’ve felt in the past year,
because the selfless sweetness that once defined me
had taken over once again, even if for only one light-blinding night,
where everyone was beautiful and no one hurt.
My old self was back, ready to give my all for nothing in return.
Nothing for flowers that pale to your summer-set eyes,
nothing for giving you my coat in the gentle rain,
nothing for holding on to your finger to keep from getting lost in a sea of sweat,
nothing for pulling couches together to form a bed so that you could sleep before all others,
nothing for turning off the light for you, so you don’t have to stumble through dark, dry rooms just to find your pillow,
nothing for leaving the warmth of the bed to get you water for your magical throat,
nothing for leaning close into you to whisper that you were, without a moment’s hesitation in my naturally hesitant mind, the most beautiful girl that beauty-blinding night.
Yes, you are my Butterfly of the Now,
gently warming the frost of the Past,
by always fluttering here: Now.
I owe so much to this,
for making me young again;
my teeth once again glow;
the sparks of my night-fingers fly once more!
I only wish I could tell you everything:
about how I am saved,
about how I can make it up to you,
through lemon-water and slow, moonlit dances
and falling asleep together on the rainforest floor.
The dry, grey dirt will once again turn the color of midnight
as we lie with our mouths open, catching the Summer rain,
with my hand tangled up in yours; I would give you
everything you never needed,
but what in gentle sleep you might one day see:
this youthful, soaked Summer love.
Sugary Soons,
I can’t figure what’s Wrong.
What is wrong with me, to hunch my shoulders looking backwards.
Or, what is wrong with the blankets,
that they have to be so small as to not encompass both our shivering bodies.
(So, I scribble secrets about you in my sleep,
since I (like you) am a tremendously light sleeper.
But secrets jam in my ears and nostrils ever still!
It is a gamble to write to you – no, to post, for you –
because our ignorance keeps my flame from being doused.
This I hope you understand, since the Summer depends on it, after all…)
Here is one such Secret:
It is harder to sleep next to you than to sleep at the mouth of a waterfall; my heart beats harder than the sound of glaciers colliding;
sleeping next to you…
is sleeping on the floor of a rainforest;
with strange foreign sounds all around, and it could rain at any moment,
and my life would just change right there.
I have never had a troubled sleep as wonderful as that.
I woke up feeling the youngest I’ve felt in the past year,
because the selfless sweetness that once defined me
had taken over once again, even if for only one light-blinding night,
where everyone was beautiful and no one hurt.
My old self was back, ready to give my all for nothing in return.
Nothing for flowers that pale to your summer-set eyes,
nothing for giving you my coat in the gentle rain,
nothing for holding on to your finger to keep from getting lost in a sea of sweat,
nothing for pulling couches together to form a bed so that you could sleep before all others,
nothing for turning off the light for you, so you don’t have to stumble through dark, dry rooms just to find your pillow,
nothing for leaving the warmth of the bed to get you water for your magical throat,
nothing for leaning close into you to whisper that you were, without a moment’s hesitation in my naturally hesitant mind, the most beautiful girl that beauty-blinding night.
Nothing: except that you saved that night for me,
and my May, and already my Summer.
Yes, you are my Butterfly of the Now,
gently warming the frost of the Past,
by always fluttering here: Now.
I owe so much to this,
for making me young again;
my teeth once again glow;
the sparks of my night-fingers fly once more!
I only wish I could tell you everything:
about how I am saved,
about how I can make it up to you,
through lemon-water and slow, moonlit dances
and falling asleep together on the rainforest floor.
The dry, grey dirt will once again turn the color of midnight
as we lie with our mouths open, catching the Summer rain,
with my hand tangled up in yours; I would give you
everything you never needed,
but what in gentle sleep you might one day see:
this youthful, soaked Summer love.
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