Wayward

Imagining change, burning our boats.

Darkness shifts underground, surfs on silent tectonic plates,

burning on beds of hot lava, synapses firing nightmare longings.

Dripping faucets resonate in a porcelain bowl. Eyes of fire melt

coats of sepia paint from the ceiling, covering skin.

Plaster peeling, wood chips carved away and open up to sky.

A blinding light in slow motion and all else fades away.

Rising out of a shattered box, with a rush and a

spark. Flip and fly, hair whooshing out behind.

Driving away, a house burns in the distance.

Smelling smoke, its curled wisps in the rear view

mirror, palate cleansing. Gray foreboding mist

tingle on the skin, creep up the spine. Streaking

dark red across a canvas sky, draping it all in black

lace, pushing sun and blue-orange dayscapes

into the corner, sweeping them off the page.

Following the sky to a salty shore,

tip toeing across a sandy beach in black

and white, a rocky and rain crushed cove.

Gnarled tree overhangs, twisted, swaying with

the wind. Slipping off the cloak that covers

bare skin, letting it trail behind, a fettered

leash of felt and silk.

Goosebumps encircling n*****s that graze,

wet licked by a breeze blowing prickles of spark

down the belly. Stand, stretch... and fall, engulfed

in a rush of tepid water, alive on finger tips.

Exploding mind mines, jarring, creating

living things that float and surround,

mock and pretend sincerity.

Labor full with swollenness and torn flesh

whisper screaming the seconds down

to the beginning of some

new untouched thing.

Author's Note