I, Dryad

I am growing as fast as I need to.

I used to stress over milestones.

Independent at eighteen –

(House, car, job)

PHD fast track by twenty-one –

(With someone else’s money)

Married by twenty-three –

(It didn’t matter who)

Exactly three children by thirty –

(By Whocares, my darling)

And of course I laugh now.

Not because those things aren’t possible –

They were possible for me.

I laugh because I know happiness.

I’m not sure I’ll be happy forever.

I’m sure happiness doesn’t work like that.

Pursuing checkpoints along a road…

Gave way to being swept up by a river…

To the edges of a glade full of trees…

And I became a seed there…

The boughs of my branches stretch up like thousands of roads…

If I look to my roots, what should I see

But the worlds I have seen

Outside of my wildest dreams.

No road could have taken me here.

I am growing as fast as I need to.

Triptic Paranoia

I heard something secret today.

Its seed burrowed into my ear.

It’s an itch just out of reach

But it’s bloody from my scratching

And it started as a seed in you – and bloomed into fear.

Galled. Passed. Passed to me.

Inseminated by an idea, it rattles

Like a bone – A Rune in my head.

I swallow to pop my ears – to consume the secret like an eater of sins…

You know, cows swallow stones

So do dogs, if they’re stressed

Deer and giraffes and lions–

They feel something indigestible

So they eat something indigestible.

Three things may happen then:

1. They expel the offending food and stones

2. The rocks help pulp, pass the food

3. They die.

I’ve eaten quite a few stones:

“What I heard wasn’t for me – wasn’t meant to hurt me.”

“What I heard was premature – perhaps you mean later to tell me.”

“What I heard doesn’t matter – and if it does, you will inform me.”

I smother fire with fire.

I sow to under-seed.

I fight fear with frets.

It’s only a little secret–

Only a tiny deed.

These are only little stones.

What may happen now?

Three

Things.

A Wet Match

No, I don’t want to talk.

Think I’ll just sleep the dark off.

Pillow hits my head and I see stars.

Looks like it followed me into my heart.

This place, these days

This crazy haze

Has swallowed the light around me.

So I rage, I slave

I over compensate.

In the end, I keep the fire burning.

No, I don’t want you to fix it.

Couldn’t begin to explain all this shit.

I open my mouth, light the matchhead.

But reaching out burns us, so I catch it.

These hands, this land–

As I understand

Is an asking in all its ugly truth.

These eyes, my lies

Your binding ties–

What of all your reckless youth?

I can’t touch your life, your smile.

Your kindness and cold lingers awhile

And I find myself walking dread miles

Just to find the flame that scorched us out of denial.

Is this you? Is this me?

Is it us that threatens we?

I’ll get out of my way if you leave this place.

I’ll burn off the dark that slowly hates.

I’ll cut the happy lines from your face.

Just promise me to leave me to my fate.

Because I promise: I won’t stop.

I’ve still got nightmares and pain to quit.

No, I don’t want to talk.

No, I don’t want you to fix it.

I Lost a Friend Today (Flying Kites)

Happiness is a temporary high–

A string that keeps me aloft.

It doesn’t linger like misery.

It doesn’t pervert like hate.

It doesn’t comfort like sadness.

It’s bubbles like liquid fire and light, and it spills out of the top.

Happiness, for me, is always fickle.

The moment I name it, it flees.

Named demons do the same.

Even dryads fly to their trees.

I thought it was a state of being

Until you were wrenched from me

And took my kite’s spool with you.

Not your fault, really.

I tied my red thread to you;

Tethered high, full of fire and light.

“I’m happy?”

Uncertain, dubious, terrifically ecstatic.

Yes. I was happy. You made it easy.

Happiness doesn’t loiter and

Neither does it hold or corrupt.

Even if my string is severed–

If gusts come and go, come and go–

If I refuse to fall yet–

I’ll whip a bit higher above your footprints

On a temporary high above the temporary high

And I will be happy again

Until I tie myself to someone else

That I will be careful about naming

For the same reasons I named

Happiness a leash…

When it is only the wind.

Confessions of an Unprofessional

Typical me:

Having a scheduled mental breakdown in a port-o-john.

(Tuesdays, amIright?)

Could lament all my faults –

Yell at the weather –

Scream at the sunrise –

But another day will dawn

So I take a deep breath.

I think about how far I’ve come

How far we’ll go

And how lucky I am too even be

Alive.

This too shall pass –

Yaddayaddayadda –

But

Right now

I am still

Pissed.

Dizzy

And I love that

The way we go ’round

In some dazzling dance

The only other sound

Our shared romance

Whirling all about

Stuck in some trance

And without a doubt

I love that