Posts for June 15, 2026 (page 14)

We are tepid tap water to your sparkling honey wine
We skin scrawny rabbits while you flense whales
We feed our goldfish while you shepherd hurricanes
We nurse paper cuts while you brush off harpoons
We gather kindling as you orchestrate lightning
We keep our monsters under the bed while you teach yours to fetch
We drown our sorrows in alcohol while yours grow antlers every spring
We pray the storm will pass while you scratch it between the ears and give it raw meat
We knock politely while you have language leave the key under your doormat
We save the good china while you drink from the skull of a dire wolf
We seek new distractions while you ram your head in the ribcage of ennui
We bring umbrellas to the monsoon of your appetite
We squint at constellations that etch your name in gold
We bury our dead and you teach them sea shanties
We who fear our own shadows while yours crawls away to molt
and returns – more raging and fierce than ever
You, bolt of lightning in the coffin of complacency

Appalachian Dodder

A pale green thread drifts in the wind,
rootless, searching—
thin as a lie, hungry as winter.

It finds the stem of something solid
and begins to climb—
tendrils tightening like fingers
finally allowed to touch.

She mimics my chemistry,
speaks in sugar and electricity,
a daughter wearing a green mask.

Haustoria sink into my veins.
No reciprocity — only sap taken,
no shade given.
The orange, leafless tangle
becomes a witch-hair shroud
strangling the blackberry bush.

Once attached, she severs her roots.
My pulse becomes her lifeline.
She grafts her hollow hunger
onto my strength.

I remain in the dark,
peering through a keyhole,
while she burns
orange and ravenous.

When I was a teenager
I couldn’t wait to turn eighteen
so I could leave home.  Out
on my own, ready to explore
the world, make my own decisions,
forge my path in life.  I had dreams,
ambitions, most of which changed
as I grew older.  Now, I long
for home, but home isn’t there.
Sometimes an object, a song
will transport me back to my youth
if only for a few moments.  I still miss
some of those who have gone on. 

I am longing for the touch of earthen places
coves and hollows, caves and dens
where small creatures round and soften themselves
in the safety of twigs and pine needles, feathers and fur

I would pull a carpet of stone-sprouted moss
up over my head, tasting the air
between my mouth and every other living thing
learning to burrow and weave, gather and give

I would ask something wise-eyed 
vole or crow, possum or fox
what it knows of loneliness,
of snake and hawk and deprivation,
but it would only blink back confused
pitying my nakedness

i scratched up the middle of my palm breaking a metal beam in my closet
i dislocated my knuckle and popped it back into place 
i dragged myself out of the house to eat out for once
i put on a nice light colored dress on my period
i keep smelling the bath and body works soap residue on my hands 
i keep recharging my laptop just to take it off at thirty percent and restart the cycle
i should probably call someone to come over tomorrow
i miss you

If the city never sleeps, 

The fading feels like a forgetting.
My eyes remembered to open.
There was coffee, a shower,
real clothes, phone, bag, and keys.
But, the passenger
seat is empty,
blank space where
you should
be.

This is where they removed
their shoes, baptized their feet
in the river’s muddy promise,
swam (if they could swim),
drowned or grounded themselves
in Indiana, freedom either way. 

Their descendants dance at this place
by the river, Ghanaian drums restoring
ancestral heartbeats that rise (and sigh)
amid the highway din.

Threads of names have lain in concrete
footprints here, their syllables torn and shorn
until they’re known as the “unknown,”
faceless yet recalled to the last, a gift
from the present to the past

Oh, look upon that tree in brightest bloom
Each petal a harbinger for a pear
The poet sighs, and then begins to croon
Upon youth and young love symbolized there

Dreamer, I say, return yourself to school
Or find yourself a book on botany
For while your use of symbols is quite cool
Fruit only grows upon a matured tree

Years does it take for blooms to blossom forth
Years does it take for love to grow so sweet
Youth’s green is pretty, but is not the worth
Of nurtured love immense, and hard to beat?

Bright petals fade, but this is not the end
For trees, like love, renew each year, dear friend