Labyrinth

I've had to labyrinth my body to
make madness make sense. Now I'm
trying to untangle. I know a labyrinth
is beguiling. Believe me, I'm meant to
get lost in here. It's filled with countless
rooms filled with treasure boxes filled with
bottles filled with feathers. But then
what? What did you ever want from
a maze but the organization of insanity?

When you sneak up on the pain
it bites you but there's almost always
another blind alley to duck down, a
monster waving its arms, a ceiling so
high it seems like it doesn't exist,
a hard dirt-packed floor. Walls that
are cracked creaked mossy and moist.
Sometimes an old stone fountain, sometimes
the walls are bushes. Who knows? Where
does this go? When you're approaching
center sometimes you find yourself back
at the very edge. Love looks like loss. Loss
looks like love. We're meant to get lost in this love.

But when you tire of love that always feels like loss or always
leads to loss, tire of labyrinthine logic and the loneliness of
loving lacklusterly or overly lustily, when you don't want to
feel like a little girl climbing around in a pit, digging a
labyrinth to make living underground make sense, when you
want to climb up above ground and taste the light on your
face, understand down and up and family and tree and
truth and honesty and loyalty, when you
long for your big coming out, the revelation of your
freaky side, which is, hilariously, calm, practical and reliable,

when you are ready to stand, small and simple and
a little dizzy in your own truth, then today is the
day to make your own home, make your own
famiy. Today is the day to take the arm of someone
worthy of you and hold on tight and let tears fall and
let ache ache and reveal your own sadness to your own self.
Then you can be your own best friend, standing in a green
grassy field, tree in the distance. Then you can hold your
own hand. Then you can reach out for someone else's
hand. Then love and loss are not tangled together. They
are simply what they are. Love is love. Loss is loss.

stripping

A labyrinthine overcoat of sentiment and unwashed goats and lost love notes and dead end roads seen dropped at the scene of burst seams and bursitis, the worst dreams that incite us to walk on our knees while the earth underneath rumbles solemn, rumbles deep, crumbles promise, stumbles honest, fuck the majesty of madness, fuck the mazes that we weave to make ourselves as kings and queens. I was never a wizard and I've hated to jump since before I could dance so why did I wind myself up like a goddess? I was a child, so were you; not a monster, not a dead end, not a rapist, not a legend. They fucked us; fucked us up; sprouted us like beans in a styrofoam cup, tossed us on compost made of money and lost hope, now I'm broke up on big rocks taking off my overcoat,
a labyrinthine overcoat of
sentiment and
unwashed goats and
lost love notes and
dead end roads
seen dropped at the
scene of
burst seams and
bursitis,
the worst dreams that
incite us to
walk on our knees while
the earth underneath
rumbles solemn,
rumbles deep,
crumbles promise,
stumbles honest.
Fuck the majesty of madness.
Fuck the mazes that
we weave to make ourselves as
kings and queens.

I was never a wizard and
I've hated to jump since before
I could dance
so why did I wind myself up like a
goddess? I was a child,
so were you; not a
monster, not a
dead end, not a
rapist, not a
legend.

They fucked us;
fucked us up;
sprouted us like beans in a
styrofoam cup
tossed us on compost made of
money and lost hope.

Now I'm broke up on
big rocks,
taking off
my overcoat.