she had been a child once.

believe it, I know
it’s not easy.

she who shivers under heavy shawls,
she cannot see, her heart is
lined with not.
she has forgotten how to be.
but listen to the clover
and the old oak mirror
she had been
a child once.

once it were,
she had her early yearnings.
oceans flowed between
her eyes, her hair
dusty summer tumbleweed.
she skinned her knees,
drank sweet tea, painted
whales and airplanes and
kissed him. and then
she became one.

their music drew her.

they were desperate dancers,
diving, dipping
drowning her dreams.

she sobbed and slithered.
once she woke leaning on
the mountain, screaming to
the silent sky.

and suddenly she found she was
standing in an unending planet.
all the blood of her laughter washed
up around her, the skeletons of
happiness pierced her feet.

they bled the being right from her.
now she sits
staring staring
staring uncaring into the flames.
they are dead, in body too,
their slippers tied around their necks
shreds of tutus strewn about their bleeding eyes.

she is deadalive,
and when the last drop of tea has been shed
she will join them.
away she will float,
lighter than smoke lighter than bells
no substance just pale nothingness on the breeze
and she will land in that placenot, that nothingmeadow
that field of dry,
silver lilies lingering all along
the fallen fireflies.