i envision an erosion

and now? nothing matters at all. Last tuesday you wheeled your lavender

heart to the river and let the silver water rush over the jagged cracks. like

rubber cement sealing the highways together in patchwork patches, the new

lines stand softly stark from scarred asphalt, gnarly and strong and real. there

must be some kind of harmony to match this somber tune, for there must be

some sense in tragedy or else what is the point, the purpose of grief? if there

is an answer to this adage i have not found it yet. does it lie buried under a

sweet gum tree, where the air is thick with honey and time is stretchy and

distorted as rubber? the clinical white ceilings long so earnestly to trade places

with a reverent blue sky. above a golden valley there must be peace, i am sure.

i like the sound of pebbles shifting under my feet and the simplicity of single-

syllable words indicating feeling. in youth a field of poppies lulled me to sleep,

warm petals tickling my unmarred cheek. all against the sunset they turned

into a paradise of flames, licking at my clothes and turning me into rosy ash. 

in death we are beautiful before we are dissolved away into the motherly

unforgiving tide. i wish that real death could be so poetic; if only a funeral

could be bright with flowers and not dark as our weeping souls gathered around

an open casket. all around the dais we bleed and bleed until it blends in with

our black clothes, and even under the widows’ veils you can hear the sobbing.

it carves me into crumbling cliffs and every butterfly is an earthquake against

the shoal. when the tsunami comes can we stand by each other’s side? i am

afraid of everything and anything, none of them matters of great consequence.