When I was seven, they had us stitch up some lavender pillows.

I didn’t care for needles then, and pain wasn’t relative.

I remember a laugh that filled the room,

stories of intoxication and how gravity could bend.

Our teacher played guitar sometimes.

When I was six, I sat in a doctor’s room clinging to my mother’s wrist.

I watched the other children frolic upon the violet carpet.

I remember singing happy birthday too early, the taste of cake on a candle.

I liked adventures with soap and butterflies back then,

With my smile stained by berry yogurt and stories I couldn’t handle.

When I was fourteen my dad told me of the grand life of Great-Grandmother Helen.

I remember laughing, the twilight in the window, staying awake all night writing poetry.

And I remember feeling the courage to hold a fuzzy, black caterpillar for the first time,

nostalgia over raising monarchs with my mother.

Singing in a closet while playing hide and go seek, daring to take a curious peek.

My youth was a kingdom of kings and queens,

a hierarchy practiced by butterflies, and it echoed bravery.

Blueberry ice-cream on wednesday nights, alongside my cousin’s velvet ballet tights.

The songs we sang at the old people’s home, the words I spat that stole the breath

of the gentle chaos of my death.

My childhood was filled with battleships and autumn sunsets.

It smelled of sinking into her warm sweater as she breathed,

taking in her smell of bluebells and callalilies.

It’s more of a personal account, I know.

But low in behold, these are the colors with whom I foretold.

Of razor love, the tremor of Serrated do-good and Death – the romance of rubble and sweat for the Garland duper; his chair set in shimmers. And the partisan: by all limbs caught in Paragon persuasion, and sidling a rucked Facade of slanting, impelled by the moiling of Ivory globes.

A slave to the arms that Wrench his Knees forward, in the obscene; For his Hands fell fastened in a damp shawl to the Masquerade Man. And the patter of Drums and Trumpets; his nutrition a wavering moan of Dukes laid out in colour – Staring thick and deep into hues that Glide shameless.

But who might Die to conclude these Noble? Halt them of their filicide fluke behind Flagpole Glory: And at dusk, the sound of the Paladins home; a sprinkle on his Terror. His chest, the Heroes cavern – behold the throbbing numbness of Foreign necks.

Faceless was the Villain he saw in those scripted dreams; loosening dreams, tied up in delusion. The Shadows that were slain, bursting from the walls behind him, Prehensile like his mind. Thus in heads, the Clemency of men unbound from their crimson Fright, squelch at him with the dignity of Alms.

But why still?– the Din of Daylight curfew in minds that question? The Paladin; his home now the Pedant of his own cruelty; a Strange steading of the menial, not hitched.

For Behold, the Garland duper; a man Sunk in deep Sage for the eyes; those Ivory Globes in a twisted thrall – his Chair set in shimmers.