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seeds. by etre-aime, literature
Literature
seeds.
darling,
everything's blooming now
spring just a wind gust away
& already the world is more green than I've ever seen
& I know why your cheeks blossom rosen -
you have bathed in this light your whole life;
you carry magic like the trees carry moss.
(sometimes I feel I know your whole soul.
sometimes I wonder what secrets sleep inside you.)
you, not quite icarus, never too much sun
only the dapple in the boughs of a redwood where you lived for a year
before they came & plowed them down.
you were young & wild before we met,
I know this for certain when we talk on gardens that grew ghosts,
we share histories we'll hold perpetually.
I thi
12/19/15 by etre-aime, literature
Literature
12/19/15
here, now sleeping through the daylight,
at night watching babies sleep & praying to whatever hears me that they keep breathing
(ba beat ba beat ba beat)
my heart a war drum, still as fragile as a feather
breaking & beaming daily
here, everything floods:
the basement, the pastures, the parks
there is a river where once there was road
& the starlings swarm in multitudes so grand it is as if god shook pepper from his hand, filled the sky
here, I don't readily cry, though I want to
cradling babies who are fighting to die:
the girls born boys
the girls born as someone's toy
everybody raped
everybody raging daily as if breaking apart the house
b
wandering. by etre-aime, literature
Literature
wandering.
chasing poetry like dandelions
not yet knowing how to wrap my words around this wild & wonderful world
knowing full well there are oceans nestled in mountains
& whole peaks in the bloodstream of the sea: shoshone
& where to begin with the stars when they scatter so wide & far?
still it feels like a dream seeing south dakota sky alive at night:
colorful constellations comforting holy, ravished lands
& every evening driving into sunsets, headed west with hopeful hearts & awestruck eyes
catching what I can through a camera lens
north carolina still an anchor in my skin - the blue ridge my kin
while wyoming & west virginia now old friends
lions + lambs. by etre-aime, literature
Literature
lions + lambs.
mama always said "you can't fix every bird with a broken wing
but you can try"
well, I've been watching birds die my whole life,
palms stretched wide to cradle hearts
titterin' out of heaving chests
and mama believes in heaven
and the book
me? I believe in molecules and dirt
* star-dust
lighting all of us like little lanterns dancing round a rock
and mama's wise
nurses her babies to full glow, blankets her plants when it frosts
carries her ghosts like they're crowns
sagely, she passes her stalwartness down
house-cats. by etre-aime, literature
Literature
house-cats.
Rose takes the red-velvet lined steps two at a time, ragged braids slapping her shoulders beneath her borrowed best Sunday dress. Across her left arm, Claude, orange paws stretching outward, all belly and discontent, bobbing as we climb the stairs.
I imagine we are climbing up a hill covered in poppies, and that we are great adventurers about to arrive home after a very long and very weary journey. Claude stares at me with his green, unimpressed eyes, and I imagine he's our captive, a souvenir from our time in the Jungle who's come home to live with us in our cottage on the cliffs by the sea. I think he'll like it here.
"Another lightnin' b
lynx lore. by etre-aime, literature
Literature
lynx lore.
grass underneath my bare, boney feet
heat lightning splicing through the air,
hot, & thick, & buzzing
summer nights,
feeling good about the fact that:
you don't know how I love Run the Jewels,
I didn't get them from you
&, you don't know what I thought in that van, but I do
&, I am trying to forgive you
but, here I am dancing, & lonely, & not
here I am unshaven legs & ten shades of I don't give a fuck
here I still love the world, bruises, scars & all
I catch myself breathing,
in four,
out four
so steady, so stretched, so still;
a lynx before the leap
June 7th, 2015. by etre-aime, literature
Literature
June 7th, 2015.
* *
cats draped across the porch like the linens out to dry *
*
*fireflies *
* * * *
speaking in Morse Code * as far as the eyes can see, * *
* * & further *
* *
Sadie, panting in the tent with me & Em,
* legs in the air, trying*
To listen long enough to hear the *
post. by etre-aime, literature
Literature
post.
Even now, I'm stitched together with every one I've ever loved like the glue that bonds the stamp to the envelope, eternally forever even when the adventure ends, even when the letter's gone, sent.
It's different in dreams now, the faces I meet are never the ones I want to see, the dead are never waiting there for me & I can't remember your face, just a long distant voice over the phone saying “hi”
Hi hi hi, some lives feel like an eternity, some loves continue to haunt me, to some I'd love to say I’m sorry, but to others, fuck you, you weren't worth the tears, stay the fuck out of my dreams.
bhava. by etre-aime, literature
Literature
bhava.
& sometimes when I walk it’s as if I’m transported to another time entirely & the feet that carry me are mine, but not mine, different in ways I could never quite say.
Step inside. It is raining. Or better, Maggs & I are in the fairy glen behind her house, bare feet & knees, & above us a soft rain falls on the trees, which we can hear but cannot see as we rest upon moss & green.
That there, that’s me. & then suddenly, I’m something different entirely, an earlier, native being, alive & awake & living among the trees.
Sometimes the things I’ve seen include places I’ve never been, not in this li