There is something to it

Something like that translucent shield we throw up to ignore the pain. Something like reading history through wax paper.

Something about showing a crack in that shield. Something about fractures. Disjointedness. Something about distance. Like how light becomes brighter the more constrained it is. Something like containing the light of the self in a thick skin, and the light pouring out through a single crack. A concentrated beam visible only at certain angles or when obstructed. Something about mimicking true life in words…something about only being able to capture truth in the briefest instantaneous fractures of self. Something about truth only existing in the flare and burn.

Love

This entry is part 11 of 12 in the series Undrafted, February 2015

I dance in honor of your wisdom and beauty,
and I dance in honor of your wrathful rage.

This is the only devotion I know.

Words are infectious

A red truck speeds down the road with its hood all the way up.
My neighbor wishes the driver ill and calls him a nigger. “No, really, he is and I hope there’s no more,”
and then the mexican staggers off.

I was hoping nigger close your hood,
but instead there were shouts
and the truck tears ass in reverse
back down the road
being chased by a blue car.

In the morning

The sun inches above the highway into the kitchen. Yellow stained curtains diffuse its golden light on to the back wall. From the darkened hallway emerges an ally who, when passing into the light, explodes in blinding radiance.

From the edge where haze meets shadow a hand appears reaching for the window. Outside below in the courtyard a giant bonsai grows gnarled and blackened with disease. A wind kicks up and scents the kitchen with cantaloupe and scripture, a daisy in a green glass vase on a cream tablecloth. The glasses are aluminum and the water is cold. This kitchen smells like the blissful instant that explodes out of reach when you have seen your uncle for the last time.