Month: September 2022

rollercoaster

balladrael 
I want to be the rabbit running across the yard
I want to be the crow chasing the eagle
I want to be the blond man chopping coconuts for tourists in Hawaii and surfing every day off and only taking cash
I want to be the writer in the woods
With magical food appearing on my table
I want to be the rock kicked out of the back of a dump truck on the freeway
I want to smash through that Lamborghini's windshield
I want to be the swirl of sand in the tropical wave
The paper umbrella in someone's drink, cast into the wind, ending up on the beach that's all trash
I want to be a yellow fish in a school
Always with my friends, all of them like me, all of us beautiful together
I want to be the geyser that roars out of the earth hot and boiling get out of my way
I want to be the ragged buffalo in the road making all the traffic stop as I stand there for no good reason
I want to be the bag of chips caught in the wind glinting in the sun on the asphalt path of the college campus
The stamp that splatters the wax on someone's pissy letter
The ugly signature that doesn't even look like a name but the lawyers have to accept it
I want to be the cloud that rains wherever it damn well pleases
The tattoo that didn't turn out right but isn't coming off because she doesn't want to bother with a laser
Or maybe the lasers can't defeat me
The current can't defeat me
The eagle can't defeat me
I am blinding, I am loud, I am everywhere
I am in your face, just the way I am, with my mistakes and my heart and my bad and good plans
I am the rollercoaster car gone free into the sky
Watch me
Watch me fly.

[Featured Image: rollercoaster, public domain]

grape

balladrael 
I'm a small grape, rolling off a table
They don't know their rubber soles are crushing out my juice
All the questions, all the lectures
"Why aren't you wine already? Here's how"
I'm leaking on the floor
Nobody seems to see
They just keep stepping on me.

[Featured Image: Commercial raisins, CC0 1.0]

not okay

balladraelLeave a comment 
The tangle of roots chokes me
It doesn't have to be okay
Ochre paint strokes over my face
Ochre paint gobs plugging my nose
I am a lonely node in a telescope image
A star trying to become another star
Strangled fruits on the branches
Broke free, tomorrow, yesterday
The universe wants me
I am nothing
A star trying to become a black hole
To finally eat
The mango juice dripping down my chin skin
The blood dripping down inside my neck
Circulating to the knotted circuits
They cannot know
They cannot drink
I rest my body in the fountain hoping the baptism will make me part of something but it doesn't
it only makes me wet
Wet, trapped, in the insect-floating water, my neck caught between two roots of the mangrove tree. 

The car engine is the least mysterious mystery
I could fully understand it if I wanted to
But I refuse
I don't have the time
Then I run the racetrack
The face of a clock
Wearing flip flops
Crying rain drops
I can't talk
My tongue is the second hand
My hand is the hour hand
Slowly, I twist myself into a car-studded stalemate
I should have stabled horses
At least they cannot be understood.

Pens poking through my skin with the brass ball points
Dating me in ink
Insert the dream nobody wants
The one where you peel your soul in front of the sad crowd
Where the dog barks at the possum and you tell everyone about the skunk
I hate it
I've had it
Writer's knob, writer's closet, screw it, put jalapenos on everything
Put chilis in my eyes just so I can tell everyone what it was like to nurse Satan on my pupil
Someone had to
Didn't they?

Again I can't see the path
I'm hurting myself
Caught in a propellor like a damn manatee
All scarred up but nobody cares
Can't you see
I'm in the crystal ball
I'm not an endangered species
Even though there's only one of me
Dispeller dispenser wizard
Refilling the gas station bathroom soap so you can finally clean your mirrors and get through to that wonderland you were sure was there when you were a kid
(Why was it always green tinged?)
But the problem is getting winded on the way back
Because none of us can ever stay there
Pierce me, I dare you
I'm going to tell them all about it
Write it on a can of tea
Sitting by my infinite green mirrors
So close to the heart of the universe
So close I can boil my tea on its heat
But always constrained to use echolocation to see and taste to hear
The tiramisu is Beethoven
Over.

The clack rapacious water striders
Fishhooks over fishhooks
So many fish throats and open mouths
Living alone in a tribe 
under the starred out jacket sequins don't cut it I want diamonds on a dune
and ice cream for dimes and for dinner
The road home the road back
The fossil, the sunfish, the fuel fee
The moonfish
Burning down the last sequoia tree
My backyard, my home place
The fire place sire place ashes birth 
Who gives a clutch about it all
Driving freeways in third gear
Roaring guts because I'm holding myself back
Always holding myself back
A bat on a motorbike
A bat should be flying.
Not shivering in cracked wood over a lake, waiting to die.