​The metallic air hangs heavy with the deafening silence of war. I cannot hear, nor see, nor remember; I am as ancient stones underground must be – laying still and unmoving in the earth as extreme pressures crush them; having experienced so much that all they can bear to be is cold, ashen granite. Into this abyss comes, as from a faraway fantasy, birdsong; a high trill of youth, hope and light, reaching me in my darkness. The sound feels strange in this grey, bleak desolation, like the ghost of happiness, like a figment of some faithful imagination. All at once, I am pulled back and my senses are assaulted, making me dizzy and turning the edges of my awareness fuzzy as nausea settles into the pit of my stomach.

the purple lights start to fade, the crowd dying with them.
     your eyes once hidden in the crowd glow vermillion,
     failing to camouflage themselves beneath the shadows
     of your white pupil, an outcast among the filthy onyx pupils
     ​bulging at the centers of the undressed dancers’ eyes.

The kind where
you ransack your drawers
Launching cannonballs of clothing into the air
Clawing for that one joint
you knew you misplaced once.

if time is queer and life is a journey,
if a hill is an obstacle and oceans make waves,
if the tip of my nose turns red in the cold,

a Garden is still a Garden.

She takes care of Her Garden.