April 20: An Ode to Writing

Stringing together words

with thread of silk; there comes

a time when dreams stain reality

and the metaphors build cities

in your belly, unwilling to leave;

you, as a series of similes, as a

continent of darkness in oceans of

light, listening to deep underwater,
watching the shatterglass surface
as if from afar, the gentle bloom

of words rising like a trance
in music and memory;

embracing the depth and form of
water, you let yourself rejoice:
here, where light burns the murmur
of your skin, you declare yourself
a new-born god surrounded only by
the countries of void, the stories of
loss, the coastlines jagged by regret.

You need nothing else. You are
immense
in your kingdom of words.

Emerging from this tidal paradise
is madness, is impossible sanity.
Your heartbeat thunders the song
of the waves. The clocks float past,
impatient, leaving pulsating numbers
in their wake. Your shadow calls your
forgotten name. Searching in the dark
mysteries of your mirror, all you want
is wholesome countries of yourself, the
simple comfort of identity holding you
to your singular self. Your shadow calls
your forgotten name. Your shadow calls.

All you own
is fragments of faces,
the wreckage of memory and desire
hidden under the darkness of alphabets;

the words pile higher,
smelling of lies and water,
debris and disaster;

language blossoms in your eyelids

your fingers 

your curled toes

in your chest rising and falling

with the beat of music: hiraeth