Draw Your Heroes

I can’t fly or deflect bullets with my hand
But I can put pen to paper and create worlds

I can’t commune with the dead or crush resurrected corpses
But I can draw new beginnings and better times

I can’t wave a wand and summon marvels
But I can shape creatures out of clay and cotton

I don’t have a shield or a belt or a thousand mechanical servants
But I have a voice that can sing or scream or comfort

I don’t wear a cape or a suit of armor, for battle
But I do have comfortable shoes and soft clothes, for getting to you

I don’t have super powers

But I am full of love

And I can’t turn the world back but I can keep people looking forward

Kitchen Crises (averted)

A teapot does not lament the soft roundness of its porcelain curvature
Nor does it aspire to the lofty place of honor that is the flute in the cabinet,
The glass never begrudging its harvest moon use.

A spoon does not hate its wide breadth, its unrelenting width,
And a fork never says that it is too sharp, too abrasive,
That existence would be easier as a knife.

The sniffer does not sit and consider constantly its fragile state,
Waiting for the day that it breaks in either an explosion of fragments
Or a slowly stretching crack from the inside out.

Stoneware does not cry.
The cutting board does not bleed.

And the spork does not fear oblivion.

Treating Chemical Burns

Smell the morning, like linen and empty notebooks,
And touch the air as it hovers and sparkles, no matter what the clock says,
Spoon the possibility into your coffee.

Cover your ears when the coal train thoughts buzz like insects,
The humming that gets suddenly louder
And stops for a second when everything tenses,
Fleeing and then returning for purchase.

Heed the copper smell of the creeping what-if
That clings to fingers and never concedes to any soap, any balm,
And accept its presence
Because hands still work even when they stink.

The color of the Bad Day isn’t blue
But rather every color and even ones with no name
That are worn on breast pockets and ties
And in flower crowns and tie-dyed necklaces.

Inhale the toxicity of the clenched jaw, the sweaty palms,
Let it linger until you can’t hold it in anymore
And then watch what animals form out of the smoke
As you let go.

You are more than the sum of your beautiful pain.

How to Stuff a Rabbit

The first knife cut is the most important
Because it decides whether or not you have a hand that is patient
Or one that will ruin the room, that will torment those around you,

And you must be kind.

You will know everything as you shave paths
Through skin and body
Because you’ve never realized that there is something in between
Life and living,
Because for a person, once you pass the skin, it’s just blood.

Even in death, be particular about the company you keep.

And you’ll never get through it all because when you get to the ends
When you hold tiny hands in yours you won’t go around
But cut through, and there will be a piece of everything that it’s ever held
And you will take it through this final process.

Gently touch those you love as you disassemble them.

Rub and clean and pack and sew
Everything is details then,
Even in how the eyes stare up at you from what remains
And you know that the last requirement of all artists is to

Eat your carcasses.

Lead + Shadow + Gravel + Blue

[This one was 4, but I was like…”I’ll take it!”]

At the end of the world, there is a single darkness

It is round and perfect, and it waits for everything

And inside

Its metal body is gray, its dusty age a testament

To all mankind

It sits on a throne of rocks

The mechanical man with his azure eyes

Both the first creation and the last

And he casts a his hand out, a shadow that makes its way across the earth,

Never stopping, it comes in contact with each heart,

Travels over and is away

It mercifully poisons, it draws like a pencil through the words that are

Life

Love

Loss

And it pulls everyone back to its home in the end

Because Death wants what anyone wants

And that is to not be alone

At the end of all days.