The carpet used to be a plastic kingdom,
Where Barbie lived the lives I used to crave.
I hit the age I always dreamed of holding,
Expecting to be grown, and wise, and brave.
But looking in the mirror, nothing shifted.
I see the same kid staring at the glass.
The wisdom that I waited for evaporated,
While heavy, adult breaths begin to pass.
Sixteen is brushing closely down my shoulders.
The slack is gone; the childhood curtain falls
.I miss the days of crayons on the floorboards,
Before the stacks of textbooks built these walls.
I miss when dreams were wild and unattainable,
When being a princess felt so safely far.
Because today, the dream demands my labor,
And pressure guides the course of every star.
I pour my life into a future uniform.
I fight for perfect scores to bridge the gap
.But now I fear the sea of other perfections,
And losing my own map.
[ Poet’s Note : Companion Poem to
attenuate: Aug 26 ]
her gracile cancer ridden body disturbed soul shores, re-assimilating into ether
simultaneously
embodied light attenuated as rain sleets soaked washing trauma embedded
molecules —
shattered dreams attenuated floorboards, oregons shivering sunlight through colourful veils
meanwhile
gracile human pendants attenuated threads of Leo’s mane, gently swaying in cool breeze
…
grey matter spilled into hot black and white hands
healing —
blue veins attenuated
their hair one corn, one wavy
lips grim thick and thin
clothed in hospital tunics
spaceship hovered silver sleek
cancer attenuated —
You once moved like music
had your name written in it.
Every step was prayer,
every spin was a story
the air remembered.
The stage was yours,
and we borrowed light
from the way you carried it.
Life changed the rhythm, not the dancer.
The world got loud,
and somewhere the beat got lost.
Now the streets hold your footprints
where the floorboards used to.
Madness did not erase the grace
— it just hid it under harder days.
We still see the art
in how you tilt your head,
how your hands still conduct silence.
You taught us that beauty
doesn’t need a spotlight to be real.
So today we honor you: the dancer,
the dream, the human.
May you be seen, may you be safe,
may you be remembered with love.
They rise like heat-mirages
at the edge of memory,
shimmering figures who never learned
the art of being seen.
They move through our days
soft as dust lifting from old floorboards,
leaving only the faintest signatures~
a tilt of the head,
a stubborn kindness,
a way of listening
that feels older than we are.
Invisible ancestors
thread their breath through ours,
teaching us how to stand
in storms we never witnessed.
They murmur in the marrow,
a language without vowels,
a pulse older than sepia photographs.
Sometimes they arrive
as a sudden stillness in the room,
as if someone stepped in
and chose not to speak.
Sometimes as a dream
where a stranger’s face
feels impossibly familiar.
We carry them
like lanterns under the ribs~
their light small, steady,
refusing to go out.
We live our lives,
their shadows entwined in ours.
And though they left
no names to call them by,
they remain the quiet architects
of our courage,
the unseen chorus
that steadies our trembling hearts.
The hand that strikes is first the hand that holds,
a resplendent trap wrapped taut around my neck.
The copper taste of split skin coats my tounge like gold,
this red froth of iron: a beautiful wreck.
You choke the ragged screams inside my lungs,
then drag my lifeless body from the grave.
At night, I hum the violent anthems you have sung,
bleeding my own pale carcass to mirror all you gave.
The bare floorboards drink the fallen raven and swollen bruise,
as calloused fingers dig beneath my flesh.
But there is no part of me I would not lose,
to keep us tangled in this scarlet thresh.
You pry my sternum open at the seam,
and tear the dripping organs from my chest.
I offer up no prayer, no penitent scream -
for to endure this form of devotion, I am blessed.
You are a brutal god, whom I adore,
a violin verse between venom and Venus.
Hurt me, then hurt me once more,
leaving only my broken soul lying between us.
Archegonium, arcanum.
Shaped like a flask or tom-tom drum.
Sagebrush and pitcher plant, sweet wine.
Red rhinoceros, yohimbine.
Ricochet, round rebound ride roil.
Oracle, bad dreams within boil.
Karyon, at the center found?
Nucleus, cell. Synapse, surround.
Terminal, termite, thermite, torch.
Chew through the floorboards. Borax, scorch.
Yataghan, yashmak, christen clepe.
Hound, underground linger and leap.
Ktenology by kumiss?
Knissomancy, thy kurtosis?
Yperite, yon ypsiliform.
Poisonous gas, the foe keep warm.
Yonderley yucca, yex yusho.
Stain their skin as you kill them slow.
Xiphoid, thy sword-shaped clenching force.
O katabothron, at thy source.
Xography, cast a xoanon.
Tridimensional, O black swan?
Ballerina, thy blessed balm.
Dancing like dew down frond of palm.
Keckle the kedge, keelhaul the keeve.
Languidly, liquor, lest love leave.
Kier filled with kilderkins of kif.
Cannabis grown by coral reef.
Oceanic rift, occipital.
Taligrade, talionic, trull.
Knarred knobber, knubble. Knor, sore knout.
Krasis, kraurosis. Crisis, clout...
Waiting.
On what can only be described
As hopes and dreams
For someone once told
To hope and dream.
Here lies my past,
Settling in,
With the dust that lines
the windows and the floorboards
Of a house that remembers it all.
The musky aroma dwells in my nostrils,
While the promise of roses
Taps on my window.
With a broom in my palm,
I sweep,
And I sweep,
Waiting.
The curtains are open, fresh bread and jam sit on the table
Outside in the rain I sit wishing for a bite if I was able
As night closes in the warmth inside I still see
Jumping puddles and wet, a crack in the door is there for me
A wood stove brings light and a place to dry off
The floorboards and an old linen bring comfort from the storm
Rain stops and the moon shines in windows below the loft
A little mouse am I, but happy, dry, and warm
My nose still smells bread and jam, but I begin to dream
I don't want to leave here, this place, my heart strings gleam
All is quiet now, everyone has retired, the kitchen still illuminated in soft light
I scamper around the old table and there I spot it, crumbs! I timed it just right!
This cottage is beautiful I think I shall stay a while
A small gap in the stones by the shed will be my own at night
The occupants here play melodies from a grand piano which brings me a smile
This family, and me shall live together and coincide, a place in the world, a little mouse am I
dust drifts through doorway of the aging house
floorboards singing old secrets
to the settling sunlight
Dust rises when the light moves~
a faint shimmer lifting from the floorboards,
the world exhaling
its smallest, oldest truth.
It gathers on windowsills,
on the lip of a forgotten jar,
on the spine of a book
whose story no one touches anymore.
It is patient.
It knows the direction of all things.
The wind lifts it,
a quiet rehearsal of our undoing~
how even the strongest bone
will one day loosen into particles,
how names will thin
until they are only breath
and then not even that.
Dust remembers what we forget:
that form is temporary,
that the body is a brief arrangement
of borrowed minerals,
that every heartbeat
is a negotiation with impermanence.
Still we rise each morning,
carrying our small certainties,
while the day leans close and murmurs
its gentle reminder~
return,
return,
return.
The ship may list, the deck may rise,
And palls may blur the painted skies,
Though deep within the shifting tide,
Your tired, aching steps confide.
The floorboards rock, the timbers groan,
But you have claimed the deep your own.
With parted knees and shoulders bent,
You move in quiet, sweet content.
The rigid stance of coastal streets,
A memory that now retreats;
Instead, you yield to every roll,
Allowing waves to shape your soul.
For when the ocean claims your feet,
The racing pulse begins to beat
In perfect time with foam and spray,
Where gravity is washed away.
So let the vessel dip and dive,
You are the rhythm made alive.
No longer fighting nature’s might,
But walking with the dark and light.
The dark room is a canvas of hidden shades.
Vibrations from veins in the sky thrill as they fade.
My reflection catches a sudden, wide smile,
Awe-struck by an ambience so raw and frightful.
My heart skips; the pulse is electrified.
Pulsating sparks strike sharp like hidden teeth,
Illuminating bare floorboards and weary bones.
Unfettered liberty shocks like the first brush of lips.
A current travels all the way down my spine.
I marvel at this ecstasy, this fire’s heat.
Life's force takes hold when abandon grasps and tears.
Reluctance surrenders to endeavors of splendor.
Stark white strobes strike—the dark is vanquished,
Leaving the room to shake in the heavy wake.
Coiled in piles or stretched along the floorboards
Day by day more and more cables and cords
The midnight knew my hidden name
Before she learned to cry;
The moon, a pale and trembling flame,
Hung like an ever-watching eye.
The floorboards whispered, one by one,
Of footsteps buried long ago;
They walked where neither star nor sun
Had found the courage yet to go.
The walls inhaled a silent breath,
As though the house itself could mourn;
Its timbers dreamed of love and death,
Of broken vows and hope forsworn.
A voice arose without a tongue,
A shadow moved without a face;
The ancient bells were never rung,
Yet echoed through that haunted place.
I fled—but every road I knew
Returned me to that shadowed door,
Where grief, more faithful than the dew,
Waited as it had before.
Then softly spoke the endless night:
"You cannot outrun what you keep.
The deepest ghosts avoid the light—
They make their silent homes in sleep."
So here I dwell, and here remain,
Where memory wears a spectral shroud;
For every heart that shelters pain
Becomes its own eternal cloud.
the rooms grow smaller
quieter
after every departure
clicks the latch
they're built to keep
weather out
not harbor grudges
that echoes leave behind
forks, vases, plates and pens
settle into their places,
as though, they're expected
the yellow walls
once held afternoon teas,
until the laughter
sealed the paint
and screened the light
the banister
smooths its touch
before any hand
remembers its feel
the curtains
lift their seams
peering underneath
themselves
the stairs
borrow sunlight
for the tread of feet
the kettle
answers itself
in a kerfuffle
chorus of steam
the floorboards
clear their throats
one board
too soon
the hallway
widens for every
shadow
still waiting
outside
every afternoon
rehearses mornings
one curtain call
at a time
the dust learns
the shape
of fingertips
the chairs
lean much closer in
to listen
the doormat
combs its
greeting nap
every echo
tries on
a different voice
as the house
leaves
the door
ajar
for no one
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