Photo by Suzi Kim on Unsplash
labyrinthia
[lab-rin-thee-ah] n.
a derivative of labyrinth, a complex system
of paths or tunnels in which it is easy to get lost
or a complicated situation
when i was a child,
momma told me:
sticks and stones
may break my bones
but words
will never hurt me.
so i chose
a big grey stone
from a little tin bucket
not to throw
or break someone’s bones
but to write on it —
like it was paper
one word
in permanent
black marker:
perspective.
and then
i chose
a simple, white card
pinned to
a rustic frame
propped up
on an easel made of sticks.
and
i walked
under a canopy
of crepe myrtle trees
–bright clusters
of fragrant fuchsia blossoms
and shiny dark leaves.
and
i walked
in circles
made of sticks and stones
going nowhere
and everywhere
at the same time
clutching
my big grey stone
and simple white card
that read:
keep your head
up
and your heart
open.
it was those words
not sticks and stones
that hurt me.
this time
momma was wrong.
laestrygonia
[ly-stra-go-nee-ah] n. pr.
a tribe of man-eating giants from ancient greek mythology
i couldn’t throw daggers
with my eyes anymore,
so i chiseled bits
of mother earth,
chunks of grey rock,
to hurl at him.
and when the dust
from launched cannons
injected grey smoke
into my lungs cove,
i coughed up
every contact trace
memory of him.
but when the rubble
refused to leave,
my grey heart dimmed.
i, buried underneath
a quarry of pain,
never learned to live
without him.
ogygia
[oh-gig-ea-ah] n. pr.
an island mentioned in homer's odyssey,
home of the nymph calypso
god sent a rainbow,
a clear message wrapped in glass:
“be still and let him go.”
immediately, i wanted to write back:
“please, no!”
because i had saved him –
not his patient wife,
not his desirable mistress,
not even his baby mama,
i, an all of the above wannabe,
had saved him –
so i wrote a different note,
pushed it out into a dead sea
like the raft he used to escape me,
and i tried instead to just be
still. inside the glass, the scroll reply:
“dear immortality: just. let. me. die.”
when nobody wrote back,
i collapsed where sand and sea lie,
waiting to exhale violet blue notes
from melancholy’s elegy,
waiting to unravel threads of juniper
from despair’s shroud,
waiting to stoke peppery flakes
from grief’s pyre,
until one day, a circle of friends –
guilt, shame, and pride – emerged from the cave inside
to circle and pray over my lifeless body
like phases of the moon struck
to speak easy angelic melodies
finally lifting the weight of the world
from my shoulders. so full of grace bottled in afterglow,
i, finally floating, let him go.