inked
trees all too green, she remembers a trip across
the way nostalgia always reminds her of when she was free-er
to gambol in the tamed thorny weeds
a time for taking and getting nothing in return
another trip, same and so far
she worried years and years til wrinkled creases
ached to reach the final destination almost too poetically.
she lost her magic, before she could remember
an endless emptiness that filled in temporality
the promise of love never fulfilled;
so taking to the pen, she wrote
a hundred thousand miles of emotion too strong to back out of
stories unraveled, knotted into chaos, hung from the rafters
her neck bowed by the strain of not enough
sight, a cloudy vision taken over by monotony.
same, she wrote, and yet again she was burdened
her wasted lungs incapable of shouting
fragments whispered, never to the right person,
never to the right path.
goddesses alive, she hunts for the starlight
knowing only it’s gone, not where to aim
words, their power reduced by shame,
crumpled in her hands. she threw them away
over and over, recognizing what’s missing
and too meek to parse the truth
she cut her teeth on over emotional acts
and scenery left undue
until it inched towards her, the painter’s brush, the world through new
skies, and with it the rain, ancient conduit of existence
peeling layers of shame from her overburst soul
and rending screams, the unflinching joy of being known.
she stalks her old haunts, knowing nothing to be found anew there,
but solace in the way she winds.
