it isn’t healthy, things she’s been doing
lately; the mixed-metaphors and walking
in circles in grocery stores—she’s done
this all before, years ago, weaving a careful web,
a comforting safety net to catch
her grief, a slippery thing, but she’s alone,
the only spider that hasn’t buried itself under
scorching beds of dry sand, desert feelings
tried holding her but she evades capture
lapsing eyes and hollow cries and
all the fireflies glow for her at night
committing suicide in windshields
and porch lights, I—
never asked her if she was alright
.
it isn’t healthy, I know, but her heart
lately, hasn’t been beating right
squirming behind the glass case
like a worm freshly pinned through the middle
put it on display while its life fades
our love, she claims, is the drowned
body of a dragonfly caught in a pool filter
spinning, spinning, spinning among dead flies,
a travesty to see perished such a beauty
and the stinkbugs, she says, are pilgrimaging
to purge their souls of sins
but the holy city’s closed its gates
so none of the pilgrims will be saved
they wander and wonder, weak and weeping
to be let in, to be let in… I
never asked her if she was okay
.
it isn’t healthy, these revolutions
lately; her body quivering like the wings
of moths newly hatched, quivering
like a creature with a short lifespan
she’s been following streams of leaf-cutter
ants; the only highways, she says, where
you won’t end up dead. Her fingers
collecting leaves as if she’s one of them
camouflaging bruised tissue with scraps of green
our love, she whispers, is like eating bees
easy, bodies brittle under the pressure of teeth but
painful to swallow, stingers sinking into soft flesh
makes her sometimes want to vomit for protection
our love, she gasps, it clogs, is suffoca—
suffocating. I don’t ask why she’s breaking
afraid to know if maybe I’m the reason
Just Thoughts 