down

I’ve let myself come down again

it’s not really quiet down here
whales
the earth shuddering
new mountains being born
the ebb and flow
as the earth makes love to the moon
and small bubbles

I am quiet
when I let myself
go all the way down

the ocean is not quiet, but it is dark
dark as a dungeon
damper than dew
I keep sinking

and my eyes slowly adjust
my lungs adjust too
it hurts like knives at first
but I adjust faster than i used to
like the sea lions
I can go down and get back up
no bends
I have learned from them
I hold the oxygen
and let the nitrogen out slowly
through my gut

my eyes adjust
and then they come
the glowing ones, slow and fast
like ghosts swimming towards me
maybe they are my dead
someday I will join them

I expect to return this time
maybe
or not
I don’t know if I will find pearls
or a leviathan
who will swallow me whole
and barely notice

this time I walked in
myself
I don’t blame you
or family or past or circumstances
it is time for me to go down
I go
down and down and down
deep

___________

Getting ready

Rainshadow Chorale is practicing, masked, but practicing, for our concerts the first week of November.

I think it’s going to be fabulous!

Our website: http://rainshadowchorale.org/

Now all we need is the audience! Mark your calendars!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: audience.

only when I’m hungry (1)

sometimes
I still miss you
then I have to check
if I am hungry

I’m doing well, you see
I only miss you when I’m hungry

I’m moving on
but sometimes I still get hungry

hunger is tied up with fear
in childhood
and grief and abandonment

When you fed me
that was huge

You don’t feed me any more

Sometimes I still miss you
but only when I’m hungry

I think you’ve joined the dead
the angry dead
who didn’t feed me
and didn’t love me

or loved me during anger
and wouldn’t feed me

Sometimes I still miss you
but only when I’m hungry

________________

Photo taken by my friend JB.

if I could bottle this

if I could bottle this beauty
if I could bottle this joy
if I could capture the heart
the stone shaped heart of a boy

if I could bottle this sunshine
miraculous stars in the dark
open the sun in the winter
train to capture a heart

I can’t bottle this moment
sorrow rolls in sure as joy
tears run dry in the future
my heart not always a toy

______________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bottle.