Dearest reader,
I was just a wallflower
Milk teeth
With corduroy sleeves
Careful not to crack the delicate spine
My frigid hands brushed over a page
It had a quite bewitching face
Its ink bled into my brain
Words sizzled into skin
Cutting the bindings to reality
Profoundly charming, helpless I was
A thud, I fell into the entry of this dreamworld
Unscrewing the lid
Overflowing with beautiful dreams
Unmappable streets that soothed an itching
Destroying all clock towers
I began to waltz
Ash
Aspen
Oak
Birch
All leaves falling into place on the open space with the glued flowers
My head snapped to the pulse of a feline
It flitter, fluttered its sugar maple leaf wings to me
I jumped on, held on for dear life as we took off for a ride and left chemtrails behind
Downright lovely
We see the forest meets road
Thick spongy barks, old growth
I watched as your breeze reinvented the arboreal cathedrals
Your paws abrasive to the green
As you see, chlorophyll isn’t a thing
You showed me scenes, your bare paws float
Through the unmistakable, lapped water of a creek
Below rustling leaves
I hum to us, may this sacredness never be buried
For once, unhurried
Pebble after pebble, divided the flow
Tiny, insignificant, until it isn’t
Remarkable
How the pine needles dripped & dripped
The paper boy delivered good news to the stoop by peddle
Your wings flapped to the sound of my belly
Nothing to keep you from flying aimlessly
Bits and scraps of coffee whiffs
In a dimly lit cafe on an autumn afternoon a stranger sits
A freight train accompanied by precious cargo
We soar away from the laws of nature
Bolt and go!
Dragon flies coming up from the prairie
Children’s feet lodge on the outdoors, some stay on the floorboards
Now I can’t bridge what life was like before this came to be
Young habitat, thought is stashed right below me, a place with no scoreboard
How can this unfamiliar grammar—
This is life?
And isn’t it so beautiful to be alive?
—grant me such a glamour, out the slammer
“Same time tomorrow?” I said
Wings flaked away, winter came, it tilted its head
The film strip in my mind said good riddance
Un-outlined in a click
A mercurial awakening
I swallowed, my tooth was cracked from biting down on childhood magic, mystifying
My knees and palms scraped
That is how I understood death at an early age
You’ve taught me things, but what will be when I outgrow it
You knew there was a chance…
One day I’ll simply become too wise
Become exhausted by this variety of life
I know it will never be again so
The joyful breaths of disconnect
But right now I have my warm, flushed hands
They clutch the book that fell shut on my chest
Aftermath consists of dreams, schemes, wishing for a time machine
Magnificently cursed what was chipped away
King of this season
Mesmerizing fur
You’ll change the seasons to fall,
You have changed it all
Now I look out every window
This will be a story
You’ll always be in memory
My little autumn rescuer
