Now Through and Not For

To compass the very center for a thousand lifetimes is the life's work of one who writes for and not through. This poetry of purpose must find a way to break the ribs. Perhaps now.

Sunlight seeping through dagger holes, softened by the gauzy blinds. What bleeds will repair to bleed again – a self-generating reformatory of the babbling fool. The gods grant permission and so I turn, turn.

The jangling rise and fall of the mail truck engine chops its way through leaf-blower din. All you November jump-the-gunners! I say wait for the work to finish before you finish the work. Growing irritation is a sure sign that my constructed rind has become emaciated.

The shaggy cedar walls of the lonely cabin, calling. Your bitter moon brighter, turning. The faces in the woods, laughing.

In the sense that the everyday flattens beneath my feet, I need to walk. My ankle isn't healing, but whose fault is that? The robot faith that keeps my work tall and ordered is the path before me.

After I was raped, the idea of sitting alone in a bar has never crossed my mind. Riding a train with a book or walking at night and hiking the hills in the way I have always dreamt about is not manageable. A lifetime of being careful is not enough. Yet half of an entire nation is getting ready to vote for a man who rose to power doing as he pleases. Taking what he wants. Poised to learn from my oppressor, my head is down as I try to dismantle my own desires to take what I want.

Now, more than ever, I hear the leaves falling.