An Uneasy Grace

an uneasy grace

we balance on the line of an edge running perpendicular across a point. tell me the world and its beginnings, a creation. tell me a lightbulb lightening-flash scorched earth sound. waves unfolding across a desert, land rising from an ocean. fire to water to earth to air from chaos and it burst forth: from chaos in a cacophony of light because nothing miraculous ever happened quietly, except, perhaps, that instant before the whole tangled mess broke and the inhale before a silent peace cradled down upon a body unbroken. the quiet god of a girl. is there a beauty in the quantum mechanics of things, black hole event horizons tell me how she does it. how she breaks down and gets back up again. nobody made a world in seven days, not even her, still sleeping it off like a morning hangover. tell me what god wakes up to. a graceless existence into which the descent is easy and we have fallen. sorry god. i believe in you. i just don’t believe you.

i. to live, we require an understanding of our our processes. 
how do we think? synapses fire. 
how do we breathe? expand and contract. 
how do we exist? i can feel it in my teeth.

ii. they ache (everything) to a point of exhaustion. i try for running, i end up exhausted. i try for exhausted, i end up running away. i open every window and leave the lights out to let the breeze crawl its way through this empty house.

iii. i’m making wine inside myself now, a heady intoxication. fermented, the warmth, it spreads through me- every step a wildfire.

iv. anaerobic /x/ adj. without oxygen, only certain things can survive. without oxygen, there is no flame. we ferment our own rejection inside us, call it acid because it burns. that sickness you feel is resentment, warming your bones. hatred. without oxygen there is nothing else and with oxygen-

v. look how brightly we can burn.

vi. to say the difference between us and stars: when stars collapse, we call it a supernova. they spread light throughout everything, permeate the dark.

we are made of stars, and our rib cages only send shrapnel in our shattering.

vii. humanity is a torch, burning through its bases with a wicked flame. at some point we stop calling this arson an accident and instead blame ourselves. we breathe in smoke but do nothing to put out the fire. stand in a burning house and watch it collapse: do nothing, and leave no one to regret how terrible it will fall.

viii. when the first versions of ourselves evolved out of the iron oceans, we call that the Great Dying because anything that could not oxidise could not remain alive. in other words, we took the air and made it poison. we burn, you burn with us.

ix. we burn to survive. a million combustions inside our bodies / raging to fight on against the darkness.

when we move, we are energy / we are wasted potential brought to light.

all that noise, all that emotion / it burns us out. in the end,

we are husks / we are ashes / we are burning and we don’t even know it.

REMEMBER WHEN YOU BREATHE :: o.m. 2017

talking down pluto

i don’t say this right, pluto says at the edge of a cliff, a solar system, a void. i miss my small belonging. i want to jump. i don’t want to. i want someone to miss me too. i think i know what you mean. it’s okay. i’m lonely too.

post-it note poetry

leaving letters at bus stops that say ‘WE ARE FOREVER’ when i mean to say timeless because forever doesn’t exist. the difference between me & you? i understood what would happen when i left and did it anyway. you mean to say forever but say timeless because you can’t remember the symbol for infinity but want to know how being left is a metaphor for buses leaving. somewhere we are strangers together ‘WE ARE’ on a post-it note poem someone’s version of forever because they thought red lips on two girls meant roses meant timeless.

of roses

a collection of poems featuring the pieces:

chain of gold

crown of thorns

blood of silver

silvered blood

the ending of the queen

poet ask meme

a. what other poets style do you emulate the most?

b. do you write with too much imagery or too little?

c. write four poems in one day or go three weeks without writing anything?

d. do you have your poetry organized or are you more likely to write half a stanza on a one dollar bill and then spend it by accident?

e. bird imagery or ocean imagery?

f. what was the last poem that you loved?

g. do you write about people or landscapes?

h. dreams or real events?

i. who do you write for?

j. what is the worst thing about your writing? what is the best?

k. what’s the best line you’ve ever written?

l. how much do you edit a piece before you consider it complete?

m. how long does it take you to write a poem?

n. ghosts or angels?

o. god or sunlight?

p. soft or harsh?

q. safety or happiness?

r. how long have you been writing?

s. who is your favourite poet? you have to pick just one.

t. what is your favourite line of poetry?

u. would you be okay with never being well known?

v. slow or frantic?

w. what colour is your poetry?

x. who, if anyone, do you send your new poems to?

y. is your poetry light or dark?

z. write a couplet (a short poem with just two lines) about pulse points.