Of course, we’re always on the precipice of something. Let’s get that out of the way.
We made all sorts of errors: in judgment, in timing, in being alive. Let’s say that at the outset, as well.
We also walked, talked, ate, slept, gamed, framed, danced, pranced, and made, possibly a joke, less of a joke more of a frantic, giggle-induced admission about spinach farts.
All of that likely needn’t be said.
What we need to advance into is a bit of the old way. We’ve had drips and drabs of it lately. And I think we all need to scoot over on the couch and make room for a bit of the old madness. This is what protects us when the night is long and full of terrors. Our own little arsenal. Our own .45 under the pillow. Not that we do. Not that we would. But we could in this fair land where all is kosher and copacetic up and until the very moment it is not.
Everyone else gets to shoot their shot.
To hedge: I cannot tell you all the names of the flowers. I probably never knew them all to begin with.
However, there are memories stronger than diamond, more roundabout than a gordian knot, and they have taken up residence in this head. They say summer is coming and they will be back and in their glory. They are sleeping just below the ground and their roots are warmed by the smokes and fogs of the underworld.
In truth, the river Styx is warmer than Ovid made mention.
All the honey-suckled say is that I will be welcomed among them when shores and the seas part ways, when the Elfin Knight sorts out his affairs, when the cambric shirt is sewn. They laugh at their little joke, these johnny-jump-ups, but it’s better than mine and safer still to laugh when you’re not sure of the reason. Eventually, the flowers will return, and, eventually, there will be reason to laugh and there’s never been a lilac turned away from me on a June afternoon when the day is warm.
Must be the River Styx flows up come June.
I had a certain sort of beauty today. A blood red rictus cut across my face just beneath the nose and above the chin. Felt a little like a porcelain doll. Shelved, but ethereal nonetheless. I stared at my face until my eyeballs saw wonders. Stared at the rest of me as though the eyeballs are where I keep all magic. Which is only half-true. Eyeballs and a brain that turns the seas quite green and leaves the sky as white as Kailua-Kona’s beach.
I said: this is a girl who may well deserve love.
This is a girl who may well deserve what’s coming to her.
This is a girl who could be mistaken for another girl and not as she is, a keeper of shadow and goblin teeth. I thought that if you saw me, you might smile and not hear the buzzing of the bees or the nocking of the arrows.
I thought that I could kill you in a clearing without a noise to startle you away.
