Danielle Favorite - 2
seeing redThe medication turned
her eyes pearly-white, made her crave salt. She denied the existence of day, only wrote at night, click-click-clack on her typewriter while the moon watched from the sky-light. 40 mg of chemical acrobats to balance her brain. She wrote about red things: strawberries, heartbeats, lips and the words they sang, blood in a bath-tub, roses and exit lights. a sexual discovery
I fractured the moon and drank
its secret milk the night I first saw my naked self in my mother's full-length mirror: pale and dark-eyed, whispered light, white pinpoint pupil, tethered and star-bright. Ribs are for counting, a spine for arching and lips for peeling my name from your tongue. three things
feet, bricks and rain
that's all this April Tuesday is: my paper-smooth feet against sanctified, red bricks as the sky wipes away my tears with its own. An old woman with a broken face asked if I'd like to buy seawater, 100% natural and great for healing scars. My skin tingled but I said no and then went back to watching my feet bathe, like fictional birds, in a puddle the bricks had collected just for me. She shrugged and continued walking down the street, muttering about worms living in the brains of the youth. I hugged my scars close like attic-light holds dust and heard Lake Michigan call out my secret name, the one only my heart's tongue speaks, over and over with each wave-crash, echoed through the rain. I wrote this while waiting for you
The halite moon
is quieter than the other moons; my eyes reflect its salty gaze. You talk about titanium and teeth whitening methods (strawberries crushed with baking powder). Tonight, the moon is soft, a snake egg left unattended and you are red from too much whiskey. I once stepped on a small chunk of dry ice. At first, nothing, then a demanding, searing burn. I kept walking. You would not recognize the urgency of misting ice; you are never bare-foot. Reader, I've been where you have, tasted the same light. This paper is my palm. Press it against your bare chest, warm it with your heartbeat. Together, we will whiten the moon. New Moon
This night is deciduous
and I am lost in Ursa Minor with a dead flower, alive with fire. I want to tease my name from the lips of every star that pulses within your heart-- you, with the blue bandana, you know who you are. Let me be the voice BarterI don't want your heart--it's covered in old algae and
leftover oyster shells, cracked open and empty. I want your vocal chords and tongue! The tight spaces between your teeth and the curves of your lips. Give me your minute hand and the lines on your palm, I don't want your stomach lining or your church face and I certainly don't want your red wine-- it's as dry as your fingers used to crumble rye bread. I don't have much to offer-- just some needle and ink, an old Tulip and my handshake. I can hear your voice just as surely as you see mine on this page we both, at least for now, pause on. DisassociationThey tell me to pray,that He is always listening,
but God is blue from love and my hands have forgotten how to hold. God of moths, God of the lonely, God of scalp and skin and rust. I like staring at hymns, not reading them, but watching as if they'll sneeze or turn into tiny birds. I started out deep blue, but I've faded to grey and they keep opening my mouth, trying to pull out prayers, but they had already flown away like birds from an olive tree. Comments?
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summer's end lakeThe sun is almost empty.
The last of its honey-light slowly drips into the linear crack in-between lake and sky. The embers in my heart that keep me alive are fading from the cold air I breathe in as I stand on a grass-stubbled sand dune, watching the sun dry out and the lake wrestle with its grey self, spewing angry white froth. The wind is so sharp if you were to shout secrets in my ear I couldn't keep them-- sand fills the air instead. Water as old as the moon
I'm only a wisp of light
caught in Lake Michigan's stare, a black butterfly, an almond tree, a drop of amber blood. Bathe me in coconut milk because my skin has forgotten how to be skin-- it is more shadow or reflection or water. Pick me up: I am a feather to some unknown daydream. I want to make your heart shiver like moonlight on a trembling lake. I've gone to the bathtub
Go away reader--
I'm naked and bathing in orange blossoms, trying to wash the stare of his pistachio eyes from my skin, you do understand, don't you? Thorns growing inside my glass-veined heart? If you promise not to taste the water, you can stay, maybe we can listen to each others' pulses: yours dry like merlot, mine underwater and buoy-belled. You know, he had too much hair on his back anyways. The moon is too round in my throat for back-hair or hard eyes. Reader, please hold my heart for me, my lungs are dry; I need to fill them with water. La fille d'oiseau
there are ghosts
in the walls of my memory, I hear them scuttling at night-- beetle shelled and glass-toed. Moonlight brightens my teeth and wings sprout from my thin shoulder-blades. Feathers: dark blues and greys, patterned with winter constellations. My finger-bones sharpen into talons-- I slice off my clothes, crack the window-glass into sonic air. I feast on dreams like lamp- light on gypsy moths. The night embraces me: cold skin, soft feathers and screeching heart. Susie's pool
You stole the stars from my breath
so I sank to the bottom of the pool and listened for rain. The moon is naked with pewter; it drips into my heartbeat, slows it down until you pull me to the surface, like a star to the earth. Michigan October
The sun has left my skin,
soaked into oak leaves and now I'm a soft sigh of chai steam, dressed in a pencil skirt and blouse, walking to work. My black ballet flats flit through gatherings of red leaves like flakes of dried ink leftover from a love poem. The sun wrings out what light it can spare, gently like my lips murmuring lyrics I only half know. Squirrels tight-rope walk electric lines, trees scatter the wind and I forget I'm attached to my name. And the cow swam under the moon
My sanity tastes like ocean-
tangled yarn. It hangs from my cranium, dripping, while I dream of sea-dragons arguing the mossy concept of reality. I toss and fall into some dank corner of my heart-- when I wake, the air tastes like speckled rain sharpened with salt. I glance at my fat goldfish who swims the same circles every day and suddenly I'm going not where I'm supposed to, but where I shouldn't.
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