#griffinwrites

[bitchesforprogress]

Primal

I took my pain and wrapped myself around it,

layers of twisting, snarling, howling thing.

The core burned bright, black, bright

and I bared my teeth in a mockery of a grin

and curled myself tighter around my agony

It’s funny, isn’t it, how we protect what hurts,

shielding our torment almost lovingly from the world

Our complex mammalian mind undone from pain

 and the primal cradling the vulnerable with unbearable tenderness

I wish I was as gentle and as fierce as I am with my pain

[bitchesforprogress]

I’ve always loved to gather facts,

so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,

 I gathered them about you

like how a cat’s black fur turns brown in sunlight

how your hair does the same

like how the human nose can detect a drop of rain

from one hundred miles away

and how I know which blanket you’ve held after you left

How certain types of fish

can go seven years without water

and I can call our friendship enough

How pound for pound,

spidersilk is strong than steel

and your laugh makes me weak and brittle and bright

How ancient Incas replaced parts of their skull

with pumpkin, silver, gold

it never heals quite right

where I’ve tried replacing you

squid have neurons so big 

you can see their component parts with the naked eye

You shift the weight from your shoulders

to the small of your back when you’re comfortable settling in

A settler released starlings in the United States

so every animal mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays

would be here

I met you in a hallway at 9:30 on Friday night

there's a town called Hell in Michigan

another in the Cayman’s

I’ve been to both, and this one too

[bitchesforprogress]

feral, fragile

I want to mold my hands to the shape of your shoulderblades

I want to kiss marks into the smooth arch of your throat

I want to map every callus on your hands with the feel of its roughness against my skin

I want to bite and to bruise and to take and claim

I wouldn’t be gentle

Or even kind

This runs too deep and fierce for that.

I want to feel your bones on my bones

I want to etch your body, permanent, into the shape of mine

I would carry your scent on my skin

Your hands in my hair

Your lips on my neck

But my knowledge burns like snow on too-hot skin

Sharp kisses fanged with bitter truth

And yet I lean in

I crave their sting

For if it’s the only mark of you I get

I’ll savor this so sweet pain

To known and yearn and not to have

To breath a breath of half-choked air

Scant oxygen to thrive

And yet I need like breathing

Through the burning in my throat and eyes

It makes sense

My want is a feral thing

And animals in pain

Still seek to survive.

[bitchesforprogress]

Stolen Moment

My grandma would always trim her pies, cut away the excess. The scraps of dough would be rolled out on their own, bushed with butter, cinnamon, sugar. We’d bake it in the oven till the sugar darkened, browned, and cracked. I remember the slight pain, of biting into it still too hot. The buttery flake of pastry, the burnt sugar’s bittersweet. The smell of it would fill the house before the pie was done. I want to thank her for those stolen moments, between the two of us. The joy of work and giving tastes like cinnamon, a baker’s treat.

[bitchesforprogress]

The Crow Princess

Sing to the birds and call them to hand

Ask them to tales of the sky and the land

They’ll say them, not words, with a cock of their beak

And the scent of their feathers and black eyes that speak

 She’ll see their beauty, the prism of night

A fragment of heaven gifted with flight

But her voice will be sad as if beauty is sin

And she’ll leave their black feathers for the darkness within

 Each day at the dawn and again at the dusk

She speaks with a voice cracked with disuse and rust

The birds, they don’t care, sing their own raspy song

And wait patient, at windows, till she comes along

 Her hands, they are gentle as she cradles with care

In turn they tuck leaves and bright stones in her hair

The ancient stone walls won’t let her roam

But they bring her spruce branches to make a nest of her home

 She gifts them with names they can’t understand

But they trust fragile hatchlings to rest in her hand

More gray kisses her hair with each passing night

Her birds love how the silver catches the light

 One day they’ll come when the young lady’s grown old

And the sunset’s last rays spark the sky to bright gold

She’ll shiver and sigh and fall to the floor

And in the mornings soft light rises one blackbird more

[bitchesforprogress]

In-Between

I don’t have words for when I feel this way

Fragile, raw, unborn

Scoured fresh with seawater

Not yet hardened by the wind

My skin feels tender, alien

Things too much and not enough

As if to speak would make me shatter

But the same silence deafening

I hate this fleshy inbetween

This half-baked, exposed thing

I fear she is is me

And I am her

Brittle, aching, bare

My bones are fragile

And they sit too close

To the stinging of night air

I’m hurt and scared

To be vulnerable

At the mercy of my mind

It trembles, painful, between dream and life

And leaves me aching there

[bitchesforprogress]

Do you know what’s wrong with me?

I need someone to be completely, utterly, totally in love with me

I can’t bear to tolerate anything else

And that’s why I’m alone

[bitchesforprogress]

Houston to Hubble

Houston, Houston 

You fall below 

Silver lost to green

 I leave behind my mother earth

 A birth of thunder, smoke 

I don’t feel as much I grow 

As fragile Earth does shrink

Hubble, Hubble 

Your contrails fade 

From cloud white to sky blue 

The planes that pass 

they write their plans

 in cloudy heaven’s scribble

 I see their words writ large as earth

 They too fade with the wind

Houston Houston

 Space isn’t quiet

 It screams with comets’ song 

That fierce and wild challenge

 To dare to burn to be consumed 

To give your life to speed 

My rockets palty fire aches

 I long to be as free    

Hubble Hubble 

El nino came

 And tore the sky apart 

Elements that shaped the world 

The rage, then calm, all play 

A game unbearably raw 

My towers clung to rock beneath

 And listened wistfully    

Houston, Houston

 Its lonely here 

The vacuum only grows 

We seem to feel that

 Empty must mean dark 

But nothingness? It burns

 Some days I long for shelter

 From such harsh unyielding light

Hubble, Hubble 

Its quiet here

 Though earth groans with life

 No matter how much 

People talk fight move

 Mostly, they stay silent 

I watch them from the walls and towers 

Understanding live things defined by stillness    

Houston, Houston

I was made to see

 But the knowing grows too much 

The makers face exposed and bare 

Not kind, not calm, not cruel 

Through galaxy, through nebula 

My heart looks towards the earth

 Houston, sing of home    

Hubble, Hubble 

 I watch with you

 Your heart, your mind on Earth 

You’ve brought me heaven 

Poetic, fierce 

And through euphoric blasphemy

 Allowed me to fly as well

 Hubble set me free