on the counter is the mug with the chipped handle and a ring from the cup of ice water that I poured in the orchids, there is really only one orchid, but it felt better than saying that I split it with the monstera, that night I will not sleep, the bedroom door is painted in three parts Bit O Sugar and one part Lamb’s Skin with two packets of glitter to remind myself that I love the sunlight, the idea will clog up behind my eyelids, twinkle against the worry that I might forget these thoughts by morning, and both will coalesce with the sound of the fan and the sound of the wind, and I will bolt up from almost sleep and remember that there is a light I forgot in the violet room, it will be bouncing off the mirror, I will pretend to sleep, and the black sheets will pretend to be satin, there is still packing to do for the weekend, the floors are not swept, this is most likely not a poem, but you’re reading it, and I wait for my coffee with a headache

I know that there's toast burning.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I can sense it with every passing second, smell its charred edges

It slashes harshly, a dull buzzing in my skull-

But it is not there.

I know there must be toast, though.

Somewhere in this kitchen there is a fire that I cannot stop or control

But it seems so far away when all there is to see is smoke.

I can't even touch the kitchen, anymore.

I can't feel the table I thought my hand was on, I can hardly smell anything at all now,

The smoke only grows thicker

And I am pulled into the gray,

A gentle tug.

The tug of a child's smaller hand wrapped around mine, promising me it will be safer this way

So I follow.

And within the smoke,

Rather than the toaster still teeming with fire, a flame that will likely begin to lick at the rest of my kitchen -

Tables, cupboards, so many compartments turned to ruin

Yet so easy to forget -

I am in a forest.

The smoke has become an inescapable fog

And I lay myself to rest,

Allow my eyes to go unfocused

And my limbs to grow still

Because

Who wants to be stuck in a room with burning toast, anyway?

I'd rather stay here for a while till the heat of the flame jars me back to life.

There's so much less chaos among the towering, winding trees that I might

There's so much less chaos among the towering, winding trees that

I might

Just

Disappear a while.

I am the slow leak in your ceiling. The one you chose to ignore. For a while it was manageable, the dripping. You just put a small pot on the floor to catch the water and walk away. After a few days it would fill up and you'd just dump it out then put it back in the same spot. Eventually you didn't even have to look up to see where that same spot was because the pot had left a perfect circle on the tile in the exact place it needed to be. So clever you are. A natural in adaptation and resourcefulness.

Consumed by your newly found skill set you became unaware and negligent. While you were cutting corners and improving your time management you were forgetting to look up. If you had, even just once, you would have quickly noticed the water stain that was getting bigger above you and the damage that was getting progressively worse. But you didn't look up. Instead you ignored me and underestimated what I am capable of. Days became weeks. Weeks become months. Dumping out the water from the slow leak became part of your routine. Life was as it was and all was normal-- until it wasn't.

The day you realized what you had really done was the day you came home to a caved in ceiling. The smell was horrid, months of ignored mildew, a handful of different colored molds. All of your negligence now soaking up the floor at your feet.

I am the slow leak in your ceiling. I am your white lies

Focus now.

The glass is gleaming below me, I can tell the glass is thin and cracking; the small cracks can be heard with every step I take, and every snap threatens to cause this gleaming bridge to shatter.

The void beneath is seemingly bottomless and dark. Light dots the darkness.

I can't tell where they are coming from.

crack

crack

crack

Each crack makes my heart race. Each crack makes my stomach lurch and makes it even harder to focus on now. My focus is below in the bottomless, unpredictable depths.

My thoughts and my existence are chained to the worry of what is beneath me, to the threat of breaking glass.

I rise, my head skimming the ceiling

It finally melts through it

I reach heights that stagger me

Positioned high above the parish line

In my nightshirt

Floating in the cold air

Around me a layer of

Room-temperature buffer

I can see the nighttime and glittering

New Orleans to my left

I go higher and higher until I can follow

The curves of the Mississippi

Cradles them both

Only one thing

Sifting this high up

To me

From down there

Faint atonal music

Tuning of an orchestra

No sound in hertz

But essence

All that music is

Easily reaches me

The soulful identifications from the beings

In this city who

Blow into horns

Drag hair across strings

Interdigitate with ivory

Making pure harmonic and melodic sense

In each of their pockets of attention

They blend into a sublime celestial arrhythmia

That makes perfect sense

When my mind cuddles it

And I walk on clouds

I Float away

looking down

upon the body i left behind

The woosh woosh of wind

the slow darkness

woosh woosh

then all is dark

like space sound is gone

i am gone

One water drop dissolved into the sea. I need to have a think it thought. Floating to the bottom it absorbed the wisdom of the waters. The cold currents, the warm drifts all fit along side in the moment. The droplet was heavy now and all the way at the rocky bottom. It stared in the dark. O it said! O it is time, and the water began to rise. It followed the changing tide. Surfaced with an eye on the sky. H! said the remnant to the sun and they both began to rise like helium, and laugh like nitrogen. Till the sun disappeared behind a cloud, so many clouds, so many other pieces of condensation in conversation, and once again the tear had to fall... into the ocean...

I need to have one more think, that's all.

04.02.2023

Disassociation challenge @DianaHForst

My mouth is full of cotton

My head contains only static

My nose only smells burning or rotten

My ears hear but never listen

I am dead, lying in my open casket

But I also live, watching nothing on t.v. but colorbars

I have to choose one, hide it and mask it

And try to respond to the one left

My mind is a labyrinth,

A maze of twisting turns.

Paths that lead to nowhere,

And bridges that never return.

Each step a hesitant one,

As I wander through the fog.

The shadows loom around me,

Like demons from a bog.

My thoughts are like a river,

A stream that never ends.

Flowing on forever,

Through bends and curves and bends.

Sometimes it's calm and peaceful,

A gentle, soothing flow.

But other times it's violent,

A torrent of pain and woe.

My heart is like a bird,

A creature that's set free.

But sometimes it's trapped and caged,

And struggles to be free.

It beats within my chest,

A rhythm all its own.

But sometimes it's a whisper,

A barely heard moan.

Dissociation is a storm,

A tempest in my soul.

It tears me apart inside,

And never lets me whole.

But even in the darkness,

I know that I'll survive.

For though the storm may rage,

I'll always be alive.

And so, I fall incompletely,

inadequately -

to pieces.

Depression's dirty hands smothering me.

I hear the toll of the dark bell;

I hear the moans escape my usually mute mouth.

I am lost again.

Detached and gone away

from this reality.

I do not know who I am,

or what purpose I give to this dimension I am bound to.

Once a mother,

now banished and ridiculed.

Once a daughter,

only to find it doesn't matter with me.

Once a lover,

but oh, how the love never rides for me!

Just who am I to be

in a world so uncaring?

Launched into the depths of madness

that I cannot break free of.