This Is Not A Poem Comments

& it all goes in cycles, the way we're born, the way we live, the way we die. i've been the flower child & the woman holding the flowers at my grandfather's grave, ready to jump in with him & let the soil cover us. not letting go is a habit of mine. like wanting control & chocolate & another chance. yes, he calls me his strange angel & i cannot disagree, but i prefer unique, eclectic, accelerated, streaked w/conscience & perhaps a resemblance to musical riffs hidden in the walls. & roxy, i swear, i do hear the caged bird sing, even when the cat anais black turns away hungry. i listen for the chimes & the drumbeats of other lands, pound ancient flamenco in dirty bare feet on his dirty bare floor, patterning the rhythm of his guitar. i fall into his eyes long before his fingers awaken from their journey. we walked in the orchard in the rain, made love under the blossoming peach trees, bathed one another in the porcelain claw foot tub at the top of the stairs, & slept on clean cotton sheets older than bone memory.

he put the desire album on the turntable, came up behind me, held me backwards as we swayed together close to an epiphany, while the breeze came in through his sheer white curtains like pledges on our skin. yet we know vows sour. we understand that words are simply combinations of a 26-letter alphabet that are merely symbols. we become incomprehensible. we don’t take or give oaths anymore, having seen shattered glass and bleeding ears from the fallout.
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