playing catch up
candles light
candles flicker with the inconsistency of belief,
whimpering prayers extinguishing the last hope
you clutch with you prolonged, lingering touch
embedded in my curls,
as if faith could rest in the hollow space between spirals,
as if your words are real because your eyes are closed.
meet darkness.
reality
eyes swollen shut,
today she cried for something real-
something more than
the babydolls with lazy glass eyes,
more than purple bruises like cancer over her flesh-
reminders of the nightmares that bleed
over into morning light.
today she cried for the one who held up her neck
when she wasn't strong enough,
cried for something as real
as the pain that never
left a purple bruise.
italian sonnet
you know so much more than I will ever,
how butterflies breathe and how bright stars cry,
and in your newness, I wish I could die,
be reborn as the flowers you sever
from the wreaths on your brow. I will never
be able to understand the firefly
like you do, only say yes as my lie.
You are nature, all you hair is feathers.
You are the wind I get lost in, the rain
I could almost drown in my love for you.
I will take your hand in mine and hold on
to believe that running away will ease the pain,
believe your eyes are the only thing true.
Take me away now, before I am gone.
the four
I don't know why
there is so much power in silence,
in our tentative fingers hooked
under quilts sewn by old feather ladies
in hollow frames of bones-
strength in understanding the height of one eyebrow
as we watch the world,
cast by everyone but the four of us.
it would hurt too much to applaud the mistakes,
to unhook our fingers-
now free to grab the fruit from the serpent.
so we squeeze our fingers purple
under the quilt weighted with all the things
the feather ladies didn't want us to see,
but we watch the world with wary eyes
and say the lies we want to hear,
but can't believe-
break the silence-
that will never be us.