busy beavers

count their luck.

they wait for the moving truck.

they're going to a bigger city,

where mr. beaver will buy his wife something pretty.

although busy beavers chip away,

they always have something left

at the end of the day.

busy beavers don't slow down,

they have to build or else they'll drown.

zippy,

i like it in my tea.

sometimes it makes me feel a little more me.

i squeeze it in all sorts of ways,

and on my tongue the sensation plays.

what a word secretion is.

it makes me feel like i'm living in the cracks of this world,

where the light barely reaches me,

where i reach up my hand to touch the sun,

and my soul is leaking out.

secretion feels dirty, like the grease

bacon leaves in a cast iron pan.

i don't want to touch it,

for fear that it will burn me,

stain me,

leave me raw.

secretion is visceral,

unreal,

medical,

medicinal,

and it's just a word.

running on empty,

i drop my bags at the door--

i'm sprinting to reach

the edge of the moors.

leaving behind

the blue lights and turning off the screen,

i want to go to a place

where i can lay in fresh green.

where the wind whips

romantically

and the birds sing

just for me,

i'm running on empty

and i can't wait to leave.

Where have the long days gone,

Days when my girl sang at the willow pond?

Where has my own heart fled,

I see you there, with your gown stained red.

Could I do nothing?

Nothing, to save you from that trial?

If only I had the thought,

I could have been there to ensure your survival.

Clothed in the linen of night I came to you,

I came upon the bank of the angel's tear.

How blind I was, I didn't know it was for you

that she wept, for you that she flew.

I came in darkness, but fire surrounded me.

I pled with them, your kingdoms men.

I told them I was one of them.

Look, I said, I have your scars, I too know

the girl who sings at the willow pond.

She has cut you, I know. She didn't let you near.

For that you take from her all that is dear.

They let me at their table, your figure bound

below their feet. They told me dance! if you are able.

Dance I did for fear of divulging the truth.

Dance, we did, all upon your pretty youth.

Could I do nothing? I ask, to stop my feet.

They bade me to eat, and so I did eat.

I fear I was poisoned by their food, and their words,

what's more. I danced, and I didn't recognize you anymore.

I meant to rescue you, I promise I did.

I just turns out I couldn't save your purity in the end.

“Let me go!” she screamed at the sun. “Let me be free,” she pleaded with the moon.

“Let me join you above the world,” she cried. “I want to be beautiful, like you.”

The sun beat down his answer, burning her scalp, leaving her raw with humanity. The message was clear: “You must remain here.”

The moon was gentler in her rejection. Her cool, white light soothed her burns, saying: “You will be alright here.”

For days on end she did not sleep, talking to the sun and moon. “Gravity is so heavy. I just want to float.”

The sun reminded her: “You would have to die first.”

She said nothing.

The moon reminded her: “You will die anyways. Be patient.”

“You are right,” she sighed. “But it seems so far away.”

“Be patient, ” said the moon. “Be patient.”

Calliope, still young, gazed across the charbroiled night sky.

Constellations moulted before her eyes, as ages passed by.

Her namesake: a muse; foretold in hidden verse her future–

She saw it in a dream– Calliope would be forsaken by her very own suitor.

Calliope gazed across the cerulean sea, years later.

Her stomach swelled with salt water,

In her arms, her newborn child stopped seething.

Then her sweet daughter stopped breathing.

Calliope nearly died.

She cried.

cried

And cried

cried

And cried

cried

And cried

Until the salt water in her stomach flooded the shore,

Flooded the hillocks, until she promised the moon, oh she swore

Upon the river below that she would never let this betrayal

Go. She would avenge her daughter, and it would be fatal.

She cursed her forebear. She screamed that magpies

Would be the least of her worries, that all they would do is take her eyes. (She would do much worse.)

She challenged the Fates to stop her. “Snip my yarn!” she taunted，

“I will follow the immortals below. I don’t care if you’re alive, Calliope. You will be haunted!

“You foresaw my downfall, you knew I would be swept up in the current.

You did nothing to stop Poseidon, and now I’m no longer a parent.

Everything that could have been prevented, you kept unseen.

Now I learn that even before I was born, you saw it in a dream?”

She cursed her forbear, but thought nothing of the man

Who impregnated her. Who, with naught but the push of his hand

Sent her into the seas to drown with his own child in tow.

She said nothing of him because she knew it would be so.

Even without a dream-sent warning from the muse with her name,

Calliope knew that the man wasn’t even close to sane.

She saw it in his eyes as he pushed her against the marble.

She smelled it on his breath, something much stronger than cordial.

So all her untethered rage was sent to Calliope:

The wisest, the one the other muses look towards lovingly.

Calliope regretted the death of the child,

But the Fates consoled her: “This is how her destiny was filed.”

Calliope sent Zephyr, the mild western breeze,

To dry the tears from her younger versions' sleeves.

She sent hummingbirds towing flowers ripe with nectar

To cure the pain of the young mothers robbery after her third trimester.

But all this Calliope ignored.

It seemed that of her pain, she did not wish to be cured.

After all, it was the only thing that kept her going;

Without revenge, she said, she would be nothing.