unfurl
like white waves crashing against black wet rock with the power of
i don’t give a fuck
as if to say
make myself small? i wouldn’t even know how
it would be strange to hear the ocean say
i am not water
or a tree
declaring it is anything but itself
yet
i wake up in this body and tell it to constrict
i am not a bee
i whisper while buzzing through grass
i am not the wind
as i blow through cities
i am a metal box i say
frozen with rigid fear
as the wild peacock curled inside me fights to be free
it is natural
for humans to deny our nature
a chronic unreality
core delusion
persistent fantasy
elemental mirage
all the while
the ocean within thrashes
waiting for you to let it all fall apart
to trust that you were meant to storm
so that you could know quiet
and the courage of it all
is what makes you unbearably beautiful.
my visitor
you likely couldn’t tell by looking at me.
if looking, you may see only a skeleton wrapped in white skin with tinges of pink and olive green. brown hair and artistic scrawlings dancing across my body
you may notice the jewelry, my hands almost always adorned with rings, a uniform of power, dressings of delight
although it is possible you would see more.
that you could tell by the weakness of my smile
droopiness of my eyelids
distance of my gaze
if you looked really close, you’d have to look really close, you might notice the tension in my shoulders, roiling knots and spasms, the almost permanent clench of my jaw
of course, if you are a being from another planet, an intuitive from this world, or simply someone who knows me or the counters of this illness, well, then none of this applies.
if that is who you are then you would see the shame in my shoulders, cartoon explosions of orange and red rising high into my aura
the jet black ink blots of pain protruding from my brain
the migraine undulating out and into
pulsing
back and forth
writhing through my neurology
with long brown roots hanging through my neck
reaching the base of my feet
not before knotting around my hips and joints
finding all the right places to nest
to burrow
to release the pain
trapped and stored in cells
desperate for an out
or rather
earning to simply be
allowed
as part, a part
this may frighten you at first
witnessing this beast of pain
but then like me you may see
that this pain is not a punishment
not a curse
but a misplaced protector
unlikely friend
forced surrender
muted
damp
silent
crushing, like rock and soil compacted deep
an excruciating mist that visits me more than 100 days out of the year
to say
it’s too much
it’s time for rest
it’s time for quiet
lay the rumination down
release the repressed
feel the unfelt
remember your wholeness
and migraines are
the way
my body knows how.
a scar of no
maybe it’s because when i said no he didn’t hear me
which is strange because he was on top of me
only a few inches from my face
weighing me down into the bed
and i didn’t whisper this no
no
i said this no
at regular speaking volume
the first one
the second
the third
possibly even a fourth
but i was laughing
a no wrapped in false joy
a no served with “maybe if I smile big enough he won’t hurt me”
i was young
hadn’t yet learned that a smile is weak armor
so instead
my no rode in on laughter-horseback
to a town where noes were a void currency
empty power mirages
ghost tickets
because it wasn’t that he didn’t hear me
it was that he didn’t listen
and once he was done
i was left disbelieving my own no
so i planted a garden of fake flowers and pretend trees
where no meant yes and yes meant no
because it isn’t that i don’t hear my own no
it’s that i don’t listen
cicada
not rich or oily or slippery, and yet I feel it
tingling in my finger tips, a soft tremble
back muscles strained and tense, so familiar it’s barely noticeable
even to the muscle itself
a subtle shake in the wrist joint
breathe constrained
terse
shallow
the groin is hardest to feel
hard as in no-fucking-thank-you
hard as in i-can’t-believe-i’m-still-dealing-with-this-shit-in-therapy-twenty-years-later
the floating, amorphous energy
orbiting in the skin and muscle above my pelvic bone
disturbed by the occasional and deeply unwanted pulse
pulse
throb
pulse
dark brown, if it were to have a color
silent, no help is coming, if it were to have a sound
my childhood bedroom, if it were to have a face
pulse
pulse
deeply unwanted, yet
here
still here
memories reanimated
shame reincarnate
ghosts buried deep until
triggered to the surface
rising out of the not-rich, not-oily, not-slippery dirt
into the cold night.
these days, i’m airing out my memories and you can’t stop me.
i’m cracking the earth open, from stuck to emerged
releasing a murder of memories into the sky, free for a moment and at once ready to die but this time, i will complete the cycle
i will know these memories again and again
i will shudder the land of my body, until i hear them crack and hiss from the impossible to take flight
cicadas bury themselves in the ground for years before they climb free. this year, two sets of cicadas are gracing the above ground, a combo show that hasn’t occurred for more than 200 years. one set has been underground for seventeen years, the other for fourteen. imagine the journey. the start and middle: years of growing, eating, pulsing into existence. then the moment, seemingly unexpected but planned from the start, at once spontaneous and predestined. now. now. now is the time to go. billions rise. crawl deeper into the dark above. there is life on the other side. your future. your purpose. imagine the trust. imagine. trust.