i call it my collection

Your first drink burns your throat But begins in a fire in your soul A forbidden taste singes your tongue And a thirst begins within you Not for liquor, But for another opportunity To play with fire To touch the flames

There are some red flags which are a furious, puckered crimson Declarations of war But some, when gazed through glassy eyes, Look like the sweetest, haziest pink

You need no decrepit portraits, Nor philosophers’ stones No Hesperidean apples need tempt you And you’ve no need to guard your heel

Forget the piercing fangs The mystical elixirs The lyres The eternal springs

You won’t have the golden ichor of the gods coursing through your veins But instead a river of ink You won’t swim in the waters of the styx But lay shrouded in papyrus

Because if you make a writer fall in love with you You'll live forever

I used to be afraid of burning too brightly Of taking up too much space Of letting my sparks fly as I walked in the room Of everyone turning away

But I no longer worry for those who choke Who say they are blinded by the smoke For they are those who extinguish their own flame And try to drown others’ the same

Because I keep my loved ones warm I light their way and in turn they light mine We give each other space to blaze And relish in the shine

It pulses beneath the pale sheet But the lip of the paper keeps it from tumbling out So instead it squirms, writhes and lashes It seeps up to the brim, staining the surface

If you peer with careful eyes, You can see the wild ink Three words written unabashedly But buried beneath a cautious page -K.S. 

“With every word that falls off of my tongue I wonder Can you taste the love?

Within my words Between the beads of ink Can you see the light?

I don’t want to say anything too soon But my whole collection is turning sunny and bright”

“The earth Jagged and rough, but fertile nonetheless Was salted and razed in a destructive show of prowess Leaves wilted and flowers died as January came, and hope said goodbye.

But

it won’t be long before a defiant root sprouts from the barren ground Power will drain from the tycoon, who in a fit of madness, was senselessly crowned

Soon the war will be over And the hate will be undone Justice will come one day And we will break out from under the orange thumb.”

-K.S.

In response to the US presidential inauguration of 2016.