froginmythroat (FIMT)

my brave face cracks
and i don’t know
if i have the power to put it back together
with letters or words

words with friends
words to myself
letters sent to you

why words haven’t made the white elephant disappear
words haven’t brought you to me or put me back inside my skin
but what encouragement is there in silence?
words always on my mind

multiple story lines weave us together
like strands of Deoxyribonucleic acid

G
A
T
C

partially untold, wholly unfinished
one story lingers and hovers
bringing with it headaches, sweats
and stapled eyelids
i’ve dreamt about it so many times before

its corrosive residue infiltrating the core
motility denied
a mutagen in the helix
an oxidative lesion
amortifying with a double strand break
turning all we could become into alphabet soup

drip
drip
drop

a river starts with a drop
enough drips will smooth a rock or mend a soul
in time

the constant rain nourishes the rice paddy
bathing the subterranean soil in droplets of succulence
sweet as manuka honey
it takes 3 to 6 months for the rice plant
to reach the mature grain stage

some say talking to plants make them grow
but they’re wrong,
just as words won’t make a sculpture from a rock
or a jealous mind twist a heart

time passes,
drip by drop

the birds sing softly in the morning
and the rice plant grows

– 27 June 2008 (#2) –

night shirt soaked in sweats of grief
a puddle of tears smouldering in the arch of my back

I wrench and turn with the should haves, what ifs and next times
Building an iron cage of rationality
to train the tempest
for tomorrow’s time of love

But ever recalcitrant it sweeps aside
that cold steel and black metal
of my cognitive creations

Stumbling, tumbling into reality
To bend space and time with
Flash floods of feeling

My body is dragged under the water
My face smashing on the river bed
Sharp rock corners tearing red my cheek
Silt and gravel puncturing my lips
Grinding the back of my teeth

I strike out at the water
Flailing fists
Which way to go?

No light penetrates the surface
Save for the black light of that cold steel cage

I climb back inside, stymied and stifled
Because death by suffocation is slower than drowning
And I don’t wanna die,
just yet.

– 2 July 2008 (#3) –