Spider webs hold together and embellish
the left-overs of my face
Shaken by the wind, a banshees distant cries
The petals on my head haven‘t wilted, just dried
The loose braid of silver strands though it‘s
ends are split and broken is still tied
I stayed still in terror of the folds
that may remain lest I smiled.
living proof of sounds I have made,
The way my brows tell the story
of a girl who was defiant
I stayed still, hoping age would not notice me
Knowing I could not run away,
lest the rhythm of my cracking bones shall start
My voice like a broken oak branch, dry
Howling words I used to utter singing
Bells that though once started
But never stopped ringing.
Their chiming will follow me to my grave
And there will come a day
when I will march into it, proud,
Welcomed with velvet arms,
shut in a hardwood embrace.
It has been a blessing to live
To be a stormy ocean, never to be tame
A wild horse on a windy meadow, never lame
Between the folds of my face
Apollos’ kiss still lingers
Each tear screaming tales
of when each freckle was born
For my hair to be woven by a spider
Is a great fortune and a reminder
Of the fading red of a sofa well loved
It‘s cushion throwing dusty clouds
A creak, a hole, a ring I lost but loved so much.
I hope time will turn my face into a book,
Words that spill out in between,
like the pearls I hold in my mouth
As they dribble onto the ground
I hear the summer rain on my window
No matter how often I repeat these words
Tasting the syllables, the rhythm
I will never make them my own.
It‘s not the fading of Aphrodite‘s blessing that I fear
It‘s how my grandma has a garden she once kept pristine
just to powerlessly watch it overrun with weeds.
It‘s how my grandpa introduces himself to his own son
The one he relies on for all of his needs.
And I pray to the God I don’t believe in
hoping that before a single fold will start to form.
