History of the Stars

Listen little one

And the stars will speak

Though the tales they tell

Aren’t pretty or pleasing

Earth’s history wasn’t always

Quite so bathed in blood.

But the stories of the stars

Tell of human history

And sometimes it seems

We could tell history

As bloody horror stories

Fit only to haunt nightmares.

No, not a pretty tale at all.

Not fit for you, dear child.

Scariest of all though, little one

Telling the tale will come to you

What you do, the stars will keep.

Whether you bathe the tale in blood

Or astonish the stars with peace

Is entirely up to you.

So sleep sound little one

This burden is not yet yours.

Some day, you will whisper prayers

Over the heads of your own sleeping children,

Wishing this burden wasn’t theirs

As I wish it wasn’t yours.

Good luck little one,

I hope you never need it.

Waterfall, peaceful running water

But as a scent

Tight chest, pain, anxious

Mom nagging, mom nagging

Don’t pick that don’t touch that

Hungry, can’t feed myself

Chest pain, surgery drains

Tired, so tired, watching the clock

For my next dose of ibuprofen.

Comforted by how little pain I feel

My skinny white butt.

 

After surgery, everything smelled like

Waterfall.

Mom’s hands, me, my face.

Good scent, but not a fun time

And every time I use the soap I’m reminded

Bound chest, no air, no food, pain killers.

Throwing up over a tiny pink basin.

Not a pleasant time or scent,

My heart spikes,

Waterfall

Wo/man cannot live on bread alone

And it is passion that drives me,

Passion that fuels me. It is not my body

That propels me up mountains, no.

My body is an obstacle, hauled

Huffing and puffing, tired and sore

Up every inch of that damn mountain.

My will, my passion, my mind encourage me

To climb higher, go farther. Write more.

Always write more. Even when I am ready to collapse,

My hand is curled stiff around my pen, even on the ninth hour

Still more, write more. I am in rapture of language,

Writer’s write always and evermore.

Opposites

Aren’t really opposite.

We oppose ourselves but are

Ourselves, opposite selves

All at once. Reverie is in

This opposition, this contrast.

Accepting two opposite ideas

And letting them be, letting them

Exist

Side by side, overlapping, tumbling over.

 

You can be an opposite, can embody opposites

And that is the magic of humanity.

You can hate your past and love who you are

Right now

Even if who you are

Right now

Is because of a past that you hate.

This is reverie, this contrast.

Reverie is not in absolutes,

But in opposites.