I am a broken thing now All of my feathers are frayed I hold a glass in my claws And shiver under its weight. The poison that heavied my soul Was a slow, thick drink. I was baptized in human tears Over a hospital sink. Or maybe I was drowned with human blood and hair I can’t distinguish exactly (but it smelled like hospital air.) I cannot watch sad films See the actors’ broken eyes Because my broken back Hauls the weight of their actual cries. The fiction is no longer fiction It’s wrenched itself off the page But real fiction’s worse than fiction Since nobody filters the rage. Nobody gives your hero The extra chance they deserve. They beat your hero with a bat And crush them like a nerve. They burn your hero with matches And go out to watch the game You document the wounds and regrets And remember your hero’s name.
Month: June 2017
I sailed a rowboat to the edge of the world
I sailed a rowboat to the edge of the world, where the atmosphere meets open space Launched straight up, as the smoke unfurled, as the waves grew small and the clouds uncurled I found myself in that place. Then at the cusp where the sunlight streamed and the edge of the world goldenly gleamed and my breath was frozen in the still night air, I lifted my arms, tossed back my hair And my boat tipped forward past invisible edges, like a thousand needles on a thousand ledges and I trimmed the air like I sculpted hedges For a single moment I was one of the stars, and the sunlight pierced my eyes and my scars, and I caught my breath in the breathless void, and the sun slipped behind the edge, destroyed. Then I shot towards the ground with incredible speed, as though I were riding a flaming steed, with the wind in my hair and my hair on fire and each muscle stretched and tuned as a wire, and I charged the earth as the earth stood still, racing the ice down an endless hill, and the coastline grew sharp and I thought I heard waves, and the dead raised their eyes from their ancient graves, as I roared and I sliced and I bled and I raved, And i burst to the ground with my head unshaved As I lay on the grass looking up at space And the breeze brushed the years and the tears from my face I sank back deeply and felt each blade Like a mammoth's fur, like the earth had frayed And I heard an owl weeping in the night And gravity held me and pressed me tight I remembered and sung what I'd heard before As I seeped down to sleep inside the core.
[Featured Image: High-altitude balloon by Noah Klugman; modified from source]
balladrael 
