losing shadows, setting fires

i.
I’ve been trying to escape my shadow;

it smells like cloves and cinnamon, 
a time I thought I forgot in the midst of all my dreaming. 
she complains I sleep too much, 
but my eyes never seem to quite close.
my irises shift and sink and murmur from underneath their lids
and I�"I try not to cry out too often, 
because the house is quiet. 

I do not want to wake them. I don’t even want to get up, 
make any noise at all. the morning silence in my way of living now, 
because everything is so, so exhausting.

I sleep in my shadow, and it rustles under my sheets, 
trying to squirm out from under my back.



ii
I’ve lost weight. my shadow is still
skittering up my spine, 
pushing its glass tipped fingers into my neck. 
we fight, again and again, 
but you know how it is arguing with yourself-- 

my bones are numb as if I’d
been sitting in my skin for too long.
they are steeped in the words I overuse, 
and taste like silver, like porcelain, 
like sampling tea that has no flavor. 
I just taste spoon and cup and saucer, and then, numb
as I am, drop what I am holding
and look at the shards on the floor, 
wordless as an empty bottle.
she screams because I can’t say a word, 
and it stuns me into even more silence.

I want to slip away, drink up the moon, 
lose my teeth and give birth to hollowness, 
but they keep calling me, and I keep crying, 
and I spoon food to my mouth and try to remember
how much there is left to burn, 
how many more fires I must set. 

I am already crisscrossed with flame;
she lights the match with a scream, tosses it in
like she tossed away dreams, decades ago.

swept up by the wind, I taste the blackness of night, 
wonder how long eating stars will keep me alive, 
and she wakes me from the only dreams I’ve dreamt.



iii. 
I lose my shadow now. 

it disappears into dimness, 
tripping over cracked pavement, 
sidewalks ruined over years. 
I am aged as them now, 
and my child is almost as large as me. 

I am eaten up by nothing�"
I eat nothing and my shadow, 
fed up with starvation, 
slowly withers away from my skin into dusk. 

she is there now, waiting for me.
she rebukes me for being shadowless, 
for lacking the spine that it ate away from me. 

I strike a match across my palm, 
and wonder what’s the quickest way to set myself alight.

Author's Note

Hullo lovelies. I'm not writing much anymore. Most of it I do write is mere ridiculousness. I'd also kind of forgotten about the site. Don't mind me.

Reviews

[bookworm]

I hope your author's note isn't true...that you're not writing much anymore. Please don't let that be true. I am sensing perhaps that you are unaware of your talent. I just reread some of my "work" from when I was your age and it sounded about as intelligent as a paper bag rubbing against itself. My work today doesn't really sound much different, except I cuss less and I'm more jaded. Please please please believe me when I tell you that you are truly talented. I'm embarrassed to admit how much crap I have read since before reading your work. I hope you will consider continuing on, the world doesn't need more tragic losses. Hint: Coral NOT writing would be tragic. :)

[Walk away slow poet]

I really liked the this, Love the emotional feel.