QueenofDawn

You wrote a poem about a tree.
You wrote a poem and wrapped yourself in a shelter of leaves,
crafted sunbeams from nothing but syllables arranged 
in patterns like the mosaic of faces you can’t place into proper pictures.

[From Anthology 12, page 26]

When the clouds drift across you,
heavy with rain and pain and somehow still empty,
drink maple and warm milk
while wrapped in the soft brown of your grandmother’s blanket.

Wake your body, still aching, mid drowning vision.
Discard blankets for trembling air, cold tracing each exposure as if it doesn’t know it hurts.
These clothes are stiff, but stiff keeps all of your pieces
together.

There’s sunlight bleeding through my eyelids.
I closed them back in May
and became occupied with the lines on their insides,
drawn like a child pretending cardboard makes a castle.
Zentangles to help me breathe,

There’s a persistent itch
stitched to the edge of my skin.
They say it’s a symptom
of being several summers too small
and living too close to my skull, 
tucked in, 
no care for the outside.

skidmarks
                                   and tar
         cold bits            of residue