To the catalyst -

Emmm - context on part II - I've been collecting signatures for a petition door to door. In Portland's signature downpours.

I.
These silver dollars of torrent try to pelt us
but your windshield stops them short
and in a way we stay dry.
Outside they hide the sidewalks
and wash away my old life,
already receding into a horizon
I can't see behind me.
We arrive on the moon, or summer camp, or grandma's house, or a dream.
It's the place underneath the stairs
where I hid on the first day of kindergarten.
Under here the immense world
out there exists as something
that does not belong to me
so I don't have to carry it around.
And oh, here you are,
here you have been.

II.
Sometimes I sit in your love
like it's a giant plush armchair,
I'm out in the rain
but impervious to that cosmic spittle
or to the spittle that spills from lips and eyes,
The spittle clouds filled with acid torrents of "no no no not tonights"
The hard hailstones of "can't you see it says no soliciting"
You'd think in this deluge
I'd emerge perhaps
a little waterlogged,
a sewer rat drenched
in all the world's saliva and birth control hormones,
scurrying home with my grimy scraps
that will mutate me back to the oblivion
from which I slithered, lithe as an ermine,
but
steam billows off my body
as though I am a banister in the morning sun.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this is one of my favorite pieces i have read on this site...

like realizing a love that has been in front of us all the time...and a reason that a negative past is far behind, disappearing out of sight and mind...and we can rest comfortably in the new love...and when we have the bad moments and should recede back into that darkness, we don't...because we don't have to go back there...this new love has taught us that we need only to move forward.

j.

[M. Shepherd]

That is so wonderful to hear, I'm jazzed you liked it. And yes, new healthy loves are empowering.. forward is the only direction we can allow ourselves to move.

[. serah .]

~ a major event helps us emerge... ~ almost all the dots get connected... ~ we realize what we stand for when we know exactly what it is that we cannot stand or withstand... ~ that threshold your friend spoke about so eloquently... ~ right there is that "giant plush armchair"... a sense of the 'self' and how it connects with the entire spectrum of 'selves' in the vicinity and all over the world... ~ a very astute and yet sensitive piece of writing...

[M. Shepherd]

It's nice to hear you expound on some of the ideas touched on here - yes it has been a coming-of-self of sorts, new connections discovered and explored, a new sense of self to be cultivated, a stronger, bolder, more aware self.
You're the astute one serah, how you read between those lines like the gaps are vast canyons.

[M. Shepherd]

And as always, thank you for reading :)

[. serah .]

~ thank you for your kind words, marcie... and you're very welcome... :)