Everything

How do I say my stomach is in knots? How do I say my brain is rotten? How do I say my warm, beating heart, full of insect wings, turned icy cold? How do I say: hold me. Overnight, I grew a shiny black hump. I turned into a beetle. All six feet want to run, like horses with wide eyes. All four eyes want to glance away, like a man caught doing crime. How can I say it? I can’t even say it. Stop throwing apples at me.

Oh forests galore, soft mossy floor I walk with care, then quicken my pace, searching for a pop of yellow ore. It must be a myth, an old wives’ tale. I’ve never seen such beauty. And I remain unchanged. But if I find it, at day’s end tucked between forgotten tree stumps, I’ll emerge from a forest changed, something is different either the world, or me, holding, the golden dream

Some people are made of flower petals, or hard, stony rocks. Some are black holes draining the light from everyone nearby. Some people carry the elements inside: water, wind, earth, metal and me: fire. My mother once brought home a psychic who told her I was too much fire. Said to drape the room in blue with curtains, sheets, my clothes too to cool the heat that lives in me. A little color theory. But there’s a small ember tucked beside my lungs deep flames simmering like the