I.
Fear is a snake coiled in my belly. I can feel it blinking. When I charm it out there will be deep grief so for now we sit with each other, one spark and one darkness, waiting for the moon to fall.
II.
I dreamed of a red Volkswagen Beetle in the sky. I dreamed of pink clouds until they were real, polished there on the horizon. I dreamed of crying; fat tears leaking from doorways; fat tears on my own face, remembering who I have to be.
III.
Like an aching fist I pray and pray and pray. It makes the heart quiet. It changes the world. I stand by that, but I won’t say it out loud. Whisper with me: It changes the world.
I pray for hands like harp strings. I pray for ghosts and ghouls, an apparition in the driveway. I pray for the dead mother raccoon making her way home even though we didn’t bury her, we just dumped her in the trash can.
Lump in my throat I pray for safety. I pray for the same shooting stars that arced over me on my worst night to arc over you on yours. I pray for every night, just silence. Silence meaning safe. (I pray this into existence the way ink makes words real on a page. My mind is a miasma of miracles and near-misses). I pray for certainty. I pray for the lunacy of this blue, swirling world to suck us up just one last time, just one last time for this round of eternity. Protect us, I pray but scream. I pray for a wisdom that feels ancestral, like a thin line I can trace through the channels of a heart. I pray and pray until I go numb.
Comments