Glow Worms, Moonbeams, and Desert Drifts

 Glow Worms, Moonbeams, and Desert Drifts

Wombat Shit and Animal Reports

Did you ever have to complete one of those silly animal reports back in elementary school? 

• If yes, you have my permission to go ahead and skip this next section.

• If no, let me lay out the general procedure for you:

(*Skip this section if you already know it all)

Teacher gets up in the front of the class and invokes their android tone, saying something along the lines of, “Today you will be completing an animal report and you get to decide which animal you will be exploring.” At this point, the majority of students groan that note of reluctance harmonized with boredom we all know so well.

The next steps proceed something like this: You choose an animal that you love, research them at the library by reading a book, an article from the internet - at the time via dial-up I am sure - and then you write a few sentences about the creature. If you are lucky, maybe you are even asked to illustrate the animal, but only on a special day. Otherwise that’s it.

(*Start reading again here if you skipped the above)

Now in my adult mind I’m fairly certain that was my teacher’s way of taking a break from lesson planning that day and simply giving us busy work. Despite the monotony of the assignment, at the time I actually loved doing this work because I was obsessed with animals, especially birds and all marsupials. My dad doesn’t know how to physically eye-roll but his mind’s eye was definitely unlocking record-breaking somersaults of boredom after listening to me talk about how a wombat pokes its square butt out of its hole to defend itself from predators - I mean if wombats had a defense department, all of the funding would be filed under the category, “Mooning Outsiders to Protect our Homes.” By the way their poop is also square, a fact I technically learned as a 3rd grader, and later verified with my own eyeballs when me and Keish visited Australia two decades later.

Unsettled Perch

Pilfered pillows caress their mother’s melancholy with a

pause

      teardrop

chill.

Find the space between the movement and stillness and

listen

      whoosh!

Shudup already!

Seared sand opens its mouth and 

drips

      pitters

splats.

Hungry roots reach out and 

scratch

     nibble

            bite.

Swallowing the droplets, amarillo sunset cups spring forth and illuminate 

deep

    desert

                drifts. Wait… no gravity? Are we on the moon?

Keen to sneak and snack, finch families frolick. 

Amongst the harsh desert drifts they leave no seed unpecked.

Mystical Vibrations

Earth calls the name of the wind

Mountain mists breathing lazily

Alpen glow shining incandescent.

Bullets fire

Ballistic melodies chime

Hope fades, ears close.

Why is it?

“America seems filled with violent people who like causing people pain but hate when those people tell them that pain hurts.”

― Kiese Laymon, Heavy

Why is it so fucking easy to attain a gun in these “United” States of America?

Why is it that the government of these “United” States of America puts more energy into enabling the killing of its own bodies than it does enabling the survival of those same precious bodies?

Why is it that the government of these “United” States of America spends more time discussing the minutiae of how it wants to regulate female body parts than it does protecting its citizens from lethal bullets?

Why is it that no matter the body count the government of these “United” States of America recycles the newscycle, puts on its airpods, and hits the shuffle button?

Why is it that in these “United” States of America - supposedly democratic at heart - the majority of voices heard on the streets are the screams of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends?

their screams like glossy rose-red extensions, daggers drawing blood at our throats,

and yet those same voices

all silenced by the government of these “United” States of America.

Why is it?

It’s fucking simple:

ain’t nobody wanna confront the truth

violence runs this goddamned joint.

Tidal Waves

My calloused feet feel out the temperature, breathing in the salt water like grandma’s swedish pancake hugs,

Once emerged, they swish the sandpaper ocean floor, freeing themselves of any dead skin and sending out warnings to any rays nearby.

I plop my board down on a mixture of kelp, seafoam, and saltwater,

my hands take over, entering their robotic paddle state, 

Steady strokes jettison me and my partner forward with purpose, 

a course set, my gaze drifts forward, but remains in the present.

A gentle glimmer of sun greets me at the lineup - 

I don’t actually know the person behind the smile - 

but we know each other through the oscillating tide,

Moon waves that are never the same but always the same.

I sit in front of the swell, 

gazing lightly both at and beyond the horizon,

The gentle lap of the ocean on my knee cap

slows my heartbeat.

My eyes are both wide open and squinting,

seeing nothing and seeing everything,

In my periphery a blue blip shows its face,

gliding gracefully above its neighbors and beckoning to come with.

I like how the elderly sun hits a cresting wave

as if she winks at us in her final hour of life,

Her luminous pink glow intertwined with the bump of white wash

flirts and compels one perfect last ride to shore.

I dip my body back on the tail, 180 degree turn of my body 

and sync up with the coming wave in my mind’s eye,

Petrichor

Out of the shower with a slight smile,

feeling like a freshly peeled orange

Opening the door to face the day with optimism,

Immediately pierced by a wall of resistance

As if you, combined with the air outside,

are mango sticky rice,

The roles of this play: 

You - the mango.

Air - the sticky rice

Pants, shirt, socks, shoes - they all stick to you as if pasted with elmer’s glue,

only it never quite dried like it should

In Seattle a haze means fog and air to breathe,

In DC it means I can’t breathe

But honestly, it might be worth it,

Mango sticky rice has its usefulness

Now it’s 3:00 p.m.,

you hear the smell before you breathe it in with your nose

Thunder vibrates from the cityscape to your bone marrow,

you walk outside to get the metro

Leaving the petrichor outside you open your studio apartment door,

only then do your realize that you are yet again mango sticky rice

But this time it tastes like a summer sigh of relief.