The Poet's Novel

Good.

If the rose withers,

Fine.

It's not on you

to force nature.

It's on you

to learn the soil

you keep.

to light candles

in dark rooms,

Do not let your fire

fade

away.

wouldn't hear her,

—shouldn't love her.

Don't deserve."

And she,

its reckoning."

with kindness,

priceless worth,

and honeyed voice,

This final line

finally closed

shall be called,

"Mom".

~P.N.

As if clocks don't circle back around.

The Girl means "Forbidden", means "Against the Rules", means "Game Over".

Means starting over.

Means Buying Flowers. Unwritten Poetry. Red-Bitten Smiles. A Blank Page.

Countless, dangerous possibilities.

It starts between the shoulders

winding slow into the elbows, the wrists, the fingers——

falling the waist,

breaks under the knees and back twice over.

ii.

a deeper pain will make itself

Known.

it will burn,

then

it will pass.

As most things do.

~

Corrupt from jagged outline,

Tufts of smoke curling down my face,

Nails pointing in from the palms of closed fists,

And screams at frequencies too shrill for the human eardrum.

I.

I don't understand

where this sea urchin pain starts.

But I am airless

and falling.

and seeping through volcanic rock.

It is Impossible to measure the weight of the sky.

But the wet press of Rain,

the chill-touched Overcast,

the burn from each Daybreak,

And the hollowing of every Nightfall.

will be Impossible to forget.

I tried to be.

Cut corners.

Rounded the edge.

Smoothed out the curls.

Twisted my view.

I swear

I did not quit you--

I changed what I could.

I tried all angles.

Only to find:

"I was not meant for this."

--all ghoul and no words,

but stayed some kind of menacing

like It knew me

before I knew me.

Broke down through the ceiling,

spat my name like a reaping, I swear.

Left me 'Strings cut. Wings clipped.'

And y'all wanna tell me

these things don't stick?

That these things dont carve holes in you,

and call it home?

That I ain't no survivor.

Those backwood nightmares

be realer than you think.