Alpine Lotus Leaf Flower

sometimes,

I fear,

I feel too much.

on the two angels that visited me at work

matching white coats, dirty from being on earth too long; a kaleidoscope of color inside the younger one’s hood

they are mean to each other, but that’s just how angels are. it’s all they know. the taller one rolls its eyes— all of them— every time the younger one can’t make up xer mind. the younger calls it a slur in a language no one can speak.

more than a few dollars short for the wire cutters and sealant they need, so I hand them a twenty.

the taller one insists it doesn’t know me, I don’t see how that matters, so I tell it, “it’s a gift.”

but the word “gift” feels like the word “offering”

a last ditch attempt to appease a god who ignored me all my life

maybe this is a last piece; a last peace, a treaty.

and echoes in my mind whisper:

“be kind to strangers

lest they be angels in disguise”

something is rotting.

the smell pervades the house, wafting through the halls, seeping under the doorframes.

it’s subtle at first. easy to ignore. i turn on a fan and soon enough I’ve gone noseblind.

it’s been three days. I found a little mouse dead on the floor. it’s small. too small.

the smell gets worse. the fan is on all the time now. I put perfume under my nose to block it out. eventually, I grow numb.

a week. there is no escaping it. I have looked everywhere. it has stained all my clothes. It is here, somewhere, the source of it.

it has been months. I cannot leave. I am weak. it affects me constantly.

something is rotting.

it is me. it has always been me.

To be loved means to be consumed. To love means to radiate with inexhaustible light. To be loved is to pass away, to love is to endure.

—Rainer Maria

-despite everything, there is still love

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my lungs.

they are too small for my body.

they have not the mass to handle each shuddering breath, each desperate gasp that begs “please, please, let me express something”

my body.

it is too small for my feelings.

it snaps and groans and stretches to try to accommodate the maelstrom within my chest, to no avail, so the scream claws its way up my throat and out my mouth, hurling insult and injury towards anyone nearby.

and I stand in the aftermath,

in the rubble,

and wonder what I have become.

I used to think you were a smart man

now I’m not so sure

in fact

I think you told us several times

when I was younger

that you were anything but

you scared me too much to test that

I hope the people who live in our old house

look at the dent in the freezer

that you nearly broke your foot making

because you wished you could have done

it to me instead

and wonder how it got there

and soon enough they will discover

the lines I scratched into the wood

into the walls

little traces of anger

it fills every support beam,

every wall,

every floorboard like rot

spreading

consuming

devouring

have a cat.

How to Save Your Own Life, Erica Jong

I stood dead at a grave that was not mine

a friend of a friend long since gone, though

killing me only now.

grief is as death,

is as life,

is as humanity.