To drive a country road is new each time
The careless curves traveled
By careful drivers
That white sign reads “55”
Resident cars cross the yellow line
The yellow sign reads “35”
A fresh face heeds the warning
The beaten sedan would not traverse this street
If she had not been rerouted
By flashing lights and a helpful hand
On the steady path
They still don’t believe what they see,
wonder where the mirrors are set up
to cleave off half my frame, fraction figure,
my fractured image losing mass as the crowd
loses the ability to suspend disbelief. The magic
gets old faster than I ever will. The amusement
fizzles to pity. Circling eyes see only a great
constellation of shame floating above my neck,
peer down the well of my severed throat, xray
my soul, come to some conclusion. I am
spitting out raw oxygen, the words never catch
in the flow of it, my perspective lost in the plummet
beyond tightrope vocal chords, dancing miles up.
I’ll be a circus of dead flesh, tricks of the light,
and if you angle everything precisely as I stand
in the middle of this funhouse, caught between jaws
closing mirror hinges, the reflection will bounce images
of endlessness, and in the center of this downwards spiral
I’ll disappear entirely.
Nothing like returning to the place where you lost a fight
Because life isn’t fair
And you’ve been playing by all the rules that don’t exist
They’re not there
And all this time you realized
It’s not real that’s rare
It’s that all of the hopes and dreams you had, for you
Disappeared into thin air
Don’t think that people didn’t notice
They do, but they don’t care
They will take more from you than they give
And leave your shelves and cabinets
Bare
So please take heed to this advice
Or, ignore this if you dare
At some point the giver runs out of love
And there’s only pain left to share
catalyzing chaos
Into the earth I sink
Waves gently lapping at my toes
Soft grass cradles me
Astounded once more by how water breathes
And attempts to inhale me deeper in
With each great sigh of its ebb and flow
Tiny feet skip across the shallow surface of the pond
Clinging to the jagged rock faces
Rising from the silt
Giggles echo off the water
One girl cascades into the other
They tumble into the water like river stones
These Appalachian mermaids
Their grandmother was a water witch
She cursed them with a relentless craving
A weakness to the siren’s call
A destiny of being drawn back
To claim once more the healings powers
Of their ancestral waters
days of rain
endless storms
dreary and sleepy
but the sun, finally
blissfully warm
bright and airy
give me summer
for a little while
at least
Walking down the familiar, pothole garnished hill
Thinking of different meadows, greater heights
With peaks built of dreams waiting to be found
Dusty, sunny wind drifting down
A warm glow flickers by,
Breaking the disassociation, catching my eye
A sight everyone knows,
Your first lightning bug of the summer,
A reminder that you can always come home
Do I have to stop thinking about you? No.
I am in outer space while in inner space, alone.
What worlds can we explore, together,
Fellow astronaut and astronomer?
