Look at me.

I’m talking

to you…

may I ask

a question?

When you read a poem,

when you look at me,

have you ever

considered

what you are doing?

You are eating.

Each word you

look at

enters your mind.

And each word

has a life of its own

but like

a raw piece of

fish

a bad piece of

meat

there is a chance of a

parasite

wriggling inside

a word

hooks in your mind

now

consuming you…

A Poet’s Trojan Horse.

And look how much

you have eaten

already~

I hope you

continue to read

poems

I would love

the company~

The windup alarm clock jangles loudly, and I open my eyes. The morning sun is shining through my bedroom window, and I can hear Mom downstairs making breakfast.

It is my favorite time of year. I have a lineup built of things I want to do this summer, and I can’t wait to get started. Today, I think I will finally paint the dugout canoe that has been sitting abandoned in the garage since Dad left--kind of like us.

I jump out of bed and throw on my jeans. It strikes me that yesterday’s diamond-print shirt still smells okay, so I slip it on and head to the bathroom to brush my teeth and pee. I pass Ashley in the hall, and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I do my best Big Time Wrestling impersonation, and she laughs. For a kid sister, she’s not too bad.

Downstairs, Mom is whisking batter, and the griddle is already hot. Score! She knows how much I love pancakes. Soon there is a mound of deliciousness on my plate, and a glass of cold milk next to it. Best breakfast ever!

“Gerald,” Mom says. “The dog needs a bath today, and I have to get to work early. I also need you and Ashley to get your laundry downstairs.”

My shoulders slump, but I know better than to balk. I used to pitch a fit when stuff got in the way of my plans, but like she reminds me, I’m a teenager now. Besides talking back is one error I won’t be making again any time soon.

Instead, I grab Rusty and we head out to the back yard to play fetch with his ball.

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© 2023 - dustygrein

It crushes me and fills my cheeks with a flush

Coils around me until I can think of nothing more

So loud and sudden that it turns my brain to mush

I want to hug it until the blood starts to pour

I want to run a hand through your pretty hair

Until I accidentally yank it out

I want to be around to contaminate your air

Until the poisonous spores start to sprout

You're so cute I wanna squeeze you until your ribs break

Feel free to give me bruises and clot my blood

Being with and away from you makes my heartache

Kill me and I'll kill you with all this love

Oh the songs of the road

Through verse and chorus, stories get told

When you roam just like a rambler

Always winning, just like a gambler

The memories take me on the road again

Sometimes I'm running against the wind

While country roads may take me home

To the place I don't belong

Insisting the world keeps turning our way

Hold on cause life is a highway

As we ride, guess time will tell

Freeway of love or highway to hell

Just as free as we’ll ever be

oo many places I've got to see

This free bird you cannot change

There I go, now turn the page

The door slammed behind her. Her first day and she was going to be late. Eastward the night sky was just now graying. Maybe if she hurried!

The porch light caught its glimmer even as she skipped down the front steps and flew moth-like to its trap. It struck foremost across her face, sticking there, stretching around and into her painstakingly perfect hair. Her eyes clamped shut instinctively, the silken threads surrounding them, and her mouth. Fear muted her scream to little more than a warbling wail of dread.

With no clear direction to safety, her feet ran in place. Frantic hands slapped at her face, smearing webbing and make-up together. She felt it crawling, but couldn’t see it through clamped eyelids. Her stimulated imagination felt crawlies on her neck, inside her shirt, in her ears. The web sucked inside when she tried another scream. She spit, slapped, spit, and scratched as panicked tears began.

She clawed herself, ripping at hair, skin, and webbing, heedless of the damage caused. Invisible strands stuck to her fingers so that she had to stop to shake her hands before clawing again, then shaking, and slapping, all in vain.

Sensing something, her eyes opened. It was perched on the end of her nose, its hairy legs crouching, fangs pulsing, predatory eyes returning her gaze.

She gave a great swing that cracked her nose, splattering blood and spider guts over her outfit while hundreds of teensy spider babies scampered across her face in every direction.

At the age of five I lost my younger brother who passed away due to brain fever. I just wanted the answer to where did he go, who took him away and that how come my folks couldn’t get him back to us. They told me he is safe with God far away and well cared for. We will always remember him but he had to be there to be free from all his pains and aches. There was nothing more farther than the Sky for me at that time. Since then it kind of became my brother’s home for me. From then I never did anything without communicating with the sky because I knew no living without him then. Gradually it became a habit and it never ceases to amaze me till date.

I really did communicate with him talking to the sky. Watching the sky, the day time sky, the night sky, the hues, the clouds and each day it had a different story to tell me, all being told to me by my brother. We played with the colours in the sky, we hid in the clouds in the sky, we fooled around in the rain from the sky, we shared the glitter of the stars at night and we continued our relationship and he was still there for me always in a place which kept him pain free.

Even though I learnt the facts of life and death, it still reigns supreme in my mind for all my inspirations till date. I just love being under the sky as my roof.

How he loved

was pretend.

How he left

was real.

Gemnah Maley Bray

The canary died. There was running and screaming and light and dark. But before the bird died there was work. There was my father covered in soot. There was my father with lungs black with smoke. Lungs so caked with coal dust that with the right amount of pressure they’d turn precious and glittering. Instead, abused and worked to their limit. Unable to fill fully. Over worked and underpaid. There was my father with the bird and a light. His boots and a pick. There was the bird golden and slight. A beacon underground. There was my father and a bird and their last, gasping breaths buried underground. Lost between the light and the dark.