PRELUDE

Where there’s a date marked in split-point graphite there’s a hollow memory. Aching to reconstruct something substantial from myth. Aching to reimagine you as perfect form. We can’t be characters, someone says, but the voice is piped through a broken reed & anything cut from elder can’t be trusted. If I wanted a story I’d write one, but here I am bothering bees for their secrets like some kind of ornamental hermit. Yes, I know, you can’t force it. Why do you think I’m up til’ sunrise, bruxism lullaby pounding my head? In the garden I sit with my crown of mosquitos, my bruised knees. Funny how scent will time travel you, temporal keyhole, black hole hippocampus. Just for a moment the night blooms snatch me - antique emotion, this warped record on repeat. Remember being 17? All I wanted was the freedom to be lonely. The dress is old too—inhabited skin, & ghosts thread soft prayers through my tangled hair. Sometimes I think I’ve forgotten how to be human. But maybe that’s the most human thing of all. 

pick up the pen

wash your face