bemusedlybespectacled
I'm pretending that I can't see the slow
tick
of time
as I type the first words I have written in years
is it years?
have I waited that long?
how long did I ignore that steady
slow
tick
of time
as I let other things
take
my hands.
She is cheerful in a miserable place
her cheeks are round in a friendly face and
she is warm and kind like ovens standing on iron legs
she holds you with her hands that have kneaded bread
needed you to tell her that you loved her
like the mother that you've never had
did you?
Her mother's breast millk
pouring into an open mouth
salty and sweet
pure
full of nutrients needed for a healthy mind to grow
and grow
and grow
until there is another mother
and another baby
nature vs. nuture
so clearly at work
nourishing.
I curl inside the warmth of you
hidden within the maternal fold
waiting for that one moment
when I shall see light for the first time
and take my first shaking steps
tasting air
and leaping in it
and bounding with newfound exertion.
It moves beneath your notice
underfoot
with little legs that move independently
though its mind is that of the hive
moving as one
merely one dancer in a single troupe.
To gather food
to kill its prey
they're all the same
and yet
different.
It moves in hazy crazy lines
with no pattern to them but the faintest scents
and finds its way and winds its way to the sugar food it loves
and carries the burden on its back to its queen
not the queen it loves, but the queen its forced to serve beneath the iron will of the colony.
A pile of bones
not quite bleached
still with the trappings of sinew and bone
behind the white picket fence
under the fertilized roses and orchids
but not the wildflowers
they don't belong in the garden
she was a wildflower
too wild for this woman
who stabbed her with a spade
under the roses
her fertilizer is all-natural, she says.
When I was young, my daddy would play
the Beatles music, soft and bouncy
like the sheets that were tents
under glow-in-the-dark sticker stars.
"She's gotta ticket to ride
but she don't care!"
they sang
and I didn't understand,
not then.
She grasped the slim piece of paper in her hand, worrying it between her fingers, twisting it. Her future was there - so close. Just one step and she'd be out of this cow town, to the city and lights and freedom and smog.
She turned to him and buried her face in his shirt. "I can't go."
Sticks and stone may break my bones
but words will never hurt me
except they do.
They break your soul and crush it into dust
beneath the endless volley of rocks
stoning
and the abject horror of a person
left alone in the cold
defenseless.
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writing since 2011 · 31 entries · 29 days shown up
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