When Heavy Metal Floats

I think, lying here next to Shadow (we share her bed of cedar) that somewhere there is a boy holding a gun; a soldier is being told he will fight a child army in Africa; someone is crying; someone is hemorrhaging; someone is being beaten, screaming; someone is cold and lonely; someone is wondering at the sky, why is it so beautiful if there is no hope?

I implode. A great rocket of a bullet picks me up when I look to the noise. It grabs me under the rib cage and throws me into the wall. My arms and my head and my hair fly forward of my body, my back crashes into the wall where my mother hangs the dead butterflies that I collect for her.

I crumble to the floor and this house is still here. I’m still here. Shadow cocks her head.

Turned on a dime, the rest of my life. I wonder how many ties I’ve left dangling - the ends burning and I don’t know when they’ll run out; sticks of incense become strings of ash. I think that I’ve built bridges and not cared to cross them. I thought I knew what I wanted, I usually do, but then I find myself most occupied doing the tasks that I deny myself. I love these threads and these needles. The paints and the pencils are familiar, but they stretch me differently. I wear make up when I sew. I get dressed to craft in sweatpants and lipstick.

I am. God knows. I do. Pray. Write. Linger. Binding leather to paper somehow creates truth and I believe it -a fool for the strange. For God I swoon because I thirst for His mystery. This world is most amazing with limited understanding. Give me the red moon; I don’t need to know why.