natureorcreation

[natureorcreation]

snow white and the seven epiphanies

it hurts to know i cannot love the way i want to we fill the cut out cavities with hands we plug the holes with writhing fingers it startles me when the insides flail out the tiny creature inside facing death like another quick jaunt over the river oh oh oh oh oh ohhhhhhh i am coming to terms with the fact that they might marry someday she picks up the pieces with painstaking attention gathering half before abandoning the task the mirror reflects the glass still embedded in the planks of wood i cannot commit to having a child i already feel a sense of loss

[natureorcreation]

Fifty-Cent Bridge

Don't you wonder how the tiles are ubiquitous? You watch them ripple underwater and inside mountains, beneath bare feet and overhead. The flash of light between two consecutive tunnels wakes you with a subtle grinding. Your teeth remember even as your lips hand off the story to someone else.

[natureorcreation]

183

Remember that, as people stop feeling the painful things, They stop feeling the rest of it too. This life is the practice of forgetting what it means to be alive.

Remember that your heart beats 115,200 times a day. Remember the last time you cried, The last person who made you smile, The last time you noticed the sky. Remember saying "I love you" every time. Can you feel it?

[natureorcreation]

182

It doesn't occur to you that something like a body could float, it's as foreign as heaven and the way there. Your thoughts abscess on the drive home, as your knees bend in prayer at the asphalt altar. It still feels strange to breathe in rotting air through rotting lungs, it's still surprising to be falling apart.

[natureorcreation]

181

Let me list all the ways to keep quiet. You know those stories they tell you aren't stories, how they pile up until they weigh heavy on your soul? I dropped my history book in the hallway, and it clattered so loud on the linoleum, that's all I have to say about that.

[natureorcreation]

180

Neon lights draw him into the future and the past, and all he notices is the chrome reflection and the breakfast sandwiches. Typical, how the eyes wander in so many directions, you never quite know where he hides it. The will to set another date forms knots in your stomach that you have no choice but to evacuate. The bile matches the crime, the drapes are hung and there's nothing for him to grab ahold of. Maybe it's nothing, but it glitters in the night sky just the same.

[natureorcreation]

179

I can feel you in the room. They talk about you as if you'd gone, but I know better. The air is heavy with you. The last time you were here, we filled the memory until a little red light came on announcing that there was no more space in this moment for us to live. These sheets still feels like home, because you slept in their fold. The kitchen, the ants, the desk lamp, every piece of this image has a blur, billowing at the edges. I know the shape, I know the hue. You aren't yet a ghost. You still cast shadows in this room.

[natureorcreation]

178

I fall asleep before I know how to process the news, before I know how to hold it in my mouth, to let it escape in gasps and sobs before the language rescues me, a rope in the water, but unpredictable, like the stories playing out inside my head. I don't say the words at first, I extend the letters tentatively, just far enough to snatch them back before the light hits them. The brine floods out alongside everything else, and somehow, I smile, knowing it's a start.

[natureorcreation]

177

The flies aren’t lazy, you insist, and I want to believe you, like you believe in progress, that entropy is not lost on us. They’re only slow because they are so small, and I cannot bring myself to notice the layer of crystalline wings powdering the floor. Sometimes gravity is still the losing force.

[natureorcreation]

176

Find the place where the moisture leaks out, treat it with the respect you afford the women in the pews who wait so patiently for the wine to make its rounds. Their eyes crinkle kindly at the babies clamoring for sweets, as the young mothers hear the burden of scolding and shushing— this place is meant to find you.

[natureorcreation]

175

To wage war upon an empire smaller than your fist strikes a body in a violent manner, rearing faithfulness and ego under the same collapsed roof. The enemy travels quickly, striking the requisite pang, waging survival against the minute hand, as loss dictates the rest of the day. This is where the young ones find you, where they know to look, beneath a thick veil of pride. They leave you to your strategies, you find change in their wake, those heavy, jangling promises that find their way on paper at the flip of a coin, no less.

[natureorcreation]

174

Two fingers trace translucent veins like roadmaps, mirrored images and pulses telling a story no one wants to sit for. Tell me, did you ever think of this moment, or just the after?

[natureorcreation]

173

I get lost in the shadows between streetlights. I forget how contrast leaves me so often in the dark. I hate how the light leaves me. I am saying these things over and over again in hopes that you will hear me. I race from the gravel to the grass, and the child overtakes me as soon as I lift my foot. Sometimes I move so quickly, I forget that there's something sloshing inside beneath the surface. Sometimes, I yell for you to stop, even when I know you can't. You want to blame this on me, too, this trachea beneath your boot. It is always the one who left it there that takes onus for a crushed structure. I'm still waiting for the cracks to mend.

[natureorcreation]

172

i, // flinger // flung i like the tiny forest // i cultivate on my skin i like the way the motion travels // wavering // with a tiny voice i shiver in the knowledge // two folks got together one night and made me // two seconds and it's gone

[natureorcreation]

171

My eyes dart from corner to shadow to pane, each moment drinking in the memory of spillage, the dancing, lovelorn pulse a reminder of the vein. Intense, the ribbon runs like rain, wondering of aptitude gone awry, the parsimony and lemon in the air, floating softly just beyond the pane. Like silence running through the water main, the notes collide in empty space, waiting for the child to arrive in a cloud of dust, for you, again.

[natureorcreation]

170

Radio silence.

Before you turn this body into a combat zone, before the syllables must be conscripted to the cause, there is nothing but a signal between us.

Radio silence.

I can feel the electric impulse jump between a rum-drenched mystery and this, a sorry welcome for the heroes back from war.

Radio silence.

It’s not a notion but an order,  not a place to rest your weary head, you’ve made your intentions clear enough.

Radio silence.

Boots strike hard against the impending moment,  and you can feel the impact, but not the waves of light.

[natureorcreation]

169

Long after the echoes go quiet, the bullets in their resting places still, the ringing in the ears of dead and living cannot be hushed by tragedy or will.

Long after bodies turn to dust and ashes in a universe begging to bend before the gale, waves of sorrow carry us ‘cross oceans, the longing beats our spirits ‘til they fail.

In time and rhythmic pulsing hope awakens, the cells bring weary heroes to their knees, a symphony of love too late to surface, a rosary, a lonely set of keys.

The night bears on without us, keep our silence on your tongues.