some spirit set off the motion
sensitive lights triggered a memory
the world had forgotten and you
never would. they wanted you tough
growing up. had you up early dressed and
out before daybreak
missteps and tears rarely forgiven they
had been beaten out of them before
you
#katyamills
Quiet life on softened streets, all the bad news backed away. You lucky kid. I washed my hair with 100,000 molecules. Each one like the full moon tonight, lighting up life in all the right ways. I made it to the site. I could peacefully fold my legs up under me on the couch facing the east, the house where nobody’s home, facing, pinching my slip as I picked it up and let it go hang around freely, pinching myself. You lucky kid you. All the pages were viewed, in a free sweep of eyes (not mine). To be sure they really existed, outside of myself. Not so easily destroyed by water, heat, air, time. Thumbs rubbing the ink to a fade I can no longer describe. Each curve of every letter like the full moon tonight, lighting up life in all the spectacular finishes. Flourishes. You lucky kid. Thinking of a friend, one I haven’t even heard of in years, a keystroke away, a daydream, attacking a search engine with a heart on a saturday in America, one truffle at a time, pulling lightly on the ends of twisted plastic until the whole thing rolls over and out, examining the condition of my condition, remembering the ionic bond even if it hurts. Life I love you.
There were years gone by questioning nothing. Not even all the dirty ugly predicated isms in plain sight.
Kids who grow up in any kinda consistent environment, no matter the level of dysfunction, ascribe their acceptance upon it. As did i.
Then came barreling upon me, an expansiveness i had never known. I wanted to stay tight. Small. To know your name when i saw you in the streets. For you to know mine.
To keep our hard earned reps.
Our shared histories.
The disturbance in my atmosphere saw me smaller, lesser known, more fearful, lesser understood anymore.
I could hide in the laundry bed of a thousand other passerbys. No one but my mom might miss me.
I might not even miss me, myself.
For who was i formed out of icy isms in a blind microcosmic state of purified disaster?
I was grown from the earth, in my mother whose very life depended on the earth, the vegetables pushing out of mineral soil.
I faced the sun gave life to the plants, like another plant was i. For when the sun fell, again and again i found my head down in the dark, gaze to the ground, eyelashes a flutter then clasped shut for the night.
Many a fire came over my soul, burning through all of my being. For a time, as a child, they tried to put me out. Still i burned. Incendiary. Until natural i burned myself out.
Only the rain that emboldened the soil to create its next wonder, could put out our fires.
Like a period puts out a sentence.
Like a woman puts out a candle.
Like a man puts out a hunger.
Like poetry and prayer extinguish the thirst.
K IS SILENT 