heritage
Screaming tires on flooded freeways,
A sanitized skyscraper and smooth glass,
Fragile people, sobs of grief and the occasional miracle,
Crowded elevators on squeaking pulleys,
Stability in the doorway,
An orchid, petals wavering, weak,
Inside a beautiful red dragon,
Tears of gold, breathing mist into the frigid air,
The moon extending its billowing grasp,
She runs, laughing, into the heavens,
A lotus lays back into the mud.
Just a Mirage
The boiling heat is blurring my vision but I think I can see you.
This migraine is a constant pulsing in my head but I think I can make out your face.
My heart won't stop, every beat an explosion, a pound on the drum getting stronger and stronger.
My feet won't move in this sand, an ocean of fiery hatred that's pulling me backwards.
I'm crawling towards your face, clawing at the ground, I need you.
But you just stand at the edge of my vision, shimmering like a diamond, my precious gem.
With the onset of clouds you flicker, your beautiful face fades away.
A desert storm makes its way across the horizon, and I surrender to the infinity of the sand slowly turning to mud at my fingertips.
Don't speak.
Hold it in, hold it in.
"Silence is safety," but my stomach is twisting in knots.
My tongue aching for the words, my mind keeping them just out of reach.
One day all the words strangled down for so long will rise and bubble up and out my throat.
But for now I will stuff them in my heart and lock my ribcage closed.
Better safe than sorry.
FAT
"Hey" he pokes her stomach
"fat" he laughs, she pretends to laugh.
"You are beautiful." she repeats,
again and again but his words keep on sinking in.
She goes home, he forgets, but his jokes can't help but persist.
"Maybe if I just cut along the dotted lines"
Slim my thighs, she wants to grab a knife.
"No!" she cries, "I am stronger than this"
her mantra repeating, her head spinning.
She wakes up to this, she breathes for this.
Like her mom always says,
"I'm stronger than this."