by Lily Lavender

i.

so here’s the story. glitter fell from the ever-dark sky and the moon shone twenty-four colors, and every night-blooming cereus released vanilla pheromones. the ground shook with music. a voice wafted thru forests full of phantoms calling for its mother. you brought your hand to rest lightly across your forehead as if the sound made you swoon; this is how a woman becomes a wing. tears from unlit bedrooms spilled into urchin streets, and every Gaslamp blew out at once. this town is a spiral and you find yourself annually at the center, time and time again. one year an adventure, one year a sordid affair, one year a siesta. the last lips you kissed held your name like a soap bubble aching to burst into iridescence. that was the year you learned how sweet lonely can taste.

 

ii.

tomorrow is when flowers bud. all my candy in a basket floating down the golden river, time passing, cars driving by. i don’t have to be anywhere; the clock is no martinet. tomorrow is another bouquet of memorabilia, jubilance and malaise snuggled close as a movie date. i do not terrorize myself with the past. tomorrow angels will sing, drink my sugar, drink my milk, drink my whisky, drink my i-love-yous and never look back. i found a rusted bicycle in the woods behind my house and it made me want to fly. i found a song my father lullabied me to sleep with on infant midnights and it made me believe in God. my God, my God – i have God in my beating heart and my crazy brain, and They keep me company on watery Tuesdays. They bring poetry to my anorexic ears and use Their holy tongue to lick my lobes and when They pray with me it is love, it is love, it is art and love and magic all at once. tomorrow i turn twenty-four years old, and that seems as good an age as any. i have fay friends like family and two feet that work just fine. i walk thru nature like my footsteps know better than i do, and baby do i let them lead. tomorrow is nothing like last year, or the one before, or my last life on great green earth. i am in love with myself because God lives in the happy cage of my chest, whispering a wet + wonderful “happy birthday.”

 

iii.

i cut my hair

but you can’t tell

unless you see

the scissors with

my superpower DNA

all over

their silver blades

i will die

an apparition

and be pleased pink

as a shadow

laughing

in lunacy

beneath the dancing

full moon