Blue Balloon

The blue balloon chases the pigtailed girl down the lane. Oldest trope on the books but it happens. I myself have been hunted by glitter and butchered by confetti. In my eyes, coldness where light used to be. Distant mountains observe cooly, deciding who to collapse on and when. My name means party in a furry alien language of finery. But my hair, snaking behind me in the wind, is treasonous.

My Eyes Opened and I Wept

Miracles bloom like roses along the avenue of my gracious life. My blessings I can scarcely count as they bounce down the sidewalk in competition to see who can get the farthest from me. Is death the final form of ingratitude? Or a tiredness so deep it’s heated by the Earth’s furious core? My eyes opened and I wept. Dawn hovered over me, making threats not promises.

My Grandmother Was a Fish

My grandmother was a fish. Behind the iron bars of Memphis, she died slowly as my grandfather drained her blood to paint roses for his filthy lover. To me she was a wall made by the best mason, impossible to crack. Underneath, a heart poured out into a human sieve. The tragedy was she never said no. The bondage of the Southern Baptist woman, silent and sticky with secrets. She could have been in a condo in Florida with her little dog. Instead she swam in a tank in Memphis, her ocean of options breaking on someone else’s beach, and she dissipated into the vastness that is a God who sees every sacrifice.

Suicide Attempt

The old blue slide will be missed. Girlhood runs to the river and ends in the cold, fishful waters. My best friends are penguins smoking weed in Bermuda. My best friends are narwhals holding a beach party in Marseille. My best friends are a collection of yellow pills with “Take in Case of Unbearable Pain” written on the label, and I do. My girlhood was a tender thing at the fringes of polite society, feral and always wondering where home was. Now I follow prescriptions, pain, my dayglo God.

Smells Faintly of Freedom

Music is the most mortal art form. A song dies and resurrects over and over in the thin cyan air. Poetry lives forever. My poems are drinking wine in a stranger’s cellar, making love with the darkness while the sprouting potatoes watch. Art is the mess on the back of the wall when I blow my mind out with a 22. So many colors. A cornucopia of textures and scents. The best art smells faintly of freedom.

Letter K

K is the wettest letter, black with red polka dots and wearing her sick yellow rain slicker. K dances the Charleston, and she pop,lock, and dropped it on my front yard with her pet penguin. K is a rose bush hugger – a brutal job, but she’s sharp enough to puncture back if she wants. Roses know she’s coming when they smell strawberry soda and old makeup. K will never lie to you – but she might omit a few key details. When is the end of the universe? She knows, but for your sake she won’t tell you.

Trash Collector

A mother’s fear – a sharp, wrinkled, black thing – shimmies and shimmers across the planes on the wind. My job is to collect the trash blowing across the mortal plane and refine it in fire. I take my grabber and carefully clutch her fear and jam it down into my designer trash bag. The epoch of sour cherry dreams is over. The hills have rolled away from us. Christ floats over the horizon, beckoning gently. I wonder whether the fire will refine her fear until it is fierce and returns to destroy her, or if it will refuse to burn.