chiaroscuro

today i flew over a freshly birthed heart made of green and tussocks fresh flowers budding in dew richly perfumed graces wispy as all the swathes of silks in the world i would like to be a little less ambitious centered around some less wild mania let me find some golden-eyed child chase me into the fey hills of endurance where ruins whisper and stones sing where the kindest things cradle  and the harshest evils murmur

One day I will be braver I will gather the courage within me like sunshine submerged in the heart of small growing green things and let it flow out from me   It will guide my footsteps to a steadier, brighter future than my current platitudes    One day I will be braver and I will sing the song I've been humming all these years maybe with a dance for accompaniment's sake   Letting me breathe for the first time in years a peachy tint to my lungs and my tongue and my lips   One day I will be braver and I will open a funny little door and poke my head out, bird like, chick like so I can see the sun and smile at its grace.  

 there is a white background behind me.  the absence of darkness compels me forward, up stage left.  I am surrounded by the scribbling of a lunatic a twitter post written at midnight.   The pencils quickly sketch me from the waist up I have no feet or ankles or knees no flared hips that the old women worship no legs to propel me forward, up stage right.   My diamond chin, the slant of my nutty eyes Nutty but like a paste, an almond sweet flavored flatly break the crust, like you do under the river bridges and smile, like you do when the money's tight.  The hair billows, pensive and thoughtful and empty a space to be filled in, upward strokes, downward strokes a swimmer going upstream, against the grain it falls over my skull and lays across my line of sight.   I see nothing, for I am a silhouette against a cross-hatched background the noise of the paper and the lead makes me scream I'm heard amongst the silence that is this white space and perhaps for ...

 there's something to be said about the despair in your smile like rainwater dripping off of firewood the piano is wailing as the sirens blare in the distance the bartender is barking at you as you lurch from side to side   the city smiles and your hand in mine is calloused and warm I hold onto it for if I let go I will fall into myself  into myself and my misery  I'm not sad, a pillar in a temple is not sad it's more of a resignation, an acceptance a star-crossed letter delivered to you by hand slowly i pick up the pieces and I learn to walk in the footprints in the mud by the green pond where the ducks swim and the herons sleep.

 I am but a drop in a bucket of water trembling over the rim, waiting, wavering surface tension, like music, like rests I am waiting, in a cocoon of skin and hair the sun rises, and sinks, over and over waiting, I write, I sleep, I live Thriving day to day, living day to day waiting for the trumpet call, waiting for resonance Am I another keeper in an dead grove? The fall leaves crunch underfoot as I walk forward, forever walking forward Every day I look back; the path yawns shortly I can see so many spiderwebs before me Branching in shimmering octets of sound Will I choose my own harmony   Forever I walk forward Forever I look back, and then I squint at the sun So far away, and yet it surrounds me   I have yet to tread my path with determination I have resigned myself to follow the highway But one day I will make this path my own. 

to be hurt, to be held to be caressed, to be cursed to be kissed, to be bit to be loved, to be desired to smile, to grin to whisper, to hiss to touch, to scratch to be sweetened, to be warmed to sink, to rise to tread softly, to be tread on to be stroked and soothed, to be struck and torn to hear his voice, to hear her voice to see their eyes in the dark to be gripped, to grip to fall, to be swallowed to plunge, to crest to fall into an endless pit or to ascend the brightest star.

her arms drew forth the curtain, ivory skin against silken drapes the fragrance of her laugh drifted from inside, all i see is candlelight heels clacked against marbled floors, a thin whisper of smoke the knotted hems, the plunging chains of gold, all melted like graves i followed, confused, intrigued, entranced; her statuette leaned over to embrace me   a thin rapier hung from the wall. his portrait, forbidding, fearsome, glowered at me the fireplace cracked, the broken wood screamed, all was unsettling the silken ropes twined about my neck and wrists and ankles hummed like saints the blackened lace underneath my blunted fingernails scratched and then i sank into the carpet, swirled, dizzied, blinded by the splashes of ringing laughter   i never did wake, i do not think for even now her fingers, delicate bone, cinch around my jaw stroking, prodding, caressing, grounding the whisper of her necklace trails between my breasts as she leans in, purring I clutch the coverlets, powe...