Take A Bite Out Of The Apple

The snake whispered to me

she hissed like soft wind weaves through trees

she coiled like a secret around my weak and bony wrist

her delicate tail spiraled to hug my intricate fingertip

her slow-burn dancing made me feel naked

my back was scratched by the apple tree’s veins and

my eyes remained fixated on the sliver of the snake

I knew she could bend well beyond her limits and still refuse to break

she was a fluid like a waving flame; pulsating heat too dangerous to touch

but she skated across earth like it was cold and dead and hardened ice.

a spotlight stabbed a chord into the celebrity of the moon

I was both mystified and confused

She turned her mysterious diamond head

she told me a secret

she said, forbidden fruit is delicious

this apple is pleading and screaming for your brave and brilliant bite

she placed the apple in my hand like a kiss

I surrendered and bit hard into that shit.

it’s sour internal organs exploded on my lips

took about a second for me to do the whole thing in

I even tore and swallowed the stem

The snake, she laughed, she said she liked my style

she yelled you’re well overdue to run free and wild

you've been tied up in a web of the single red thread

you've evaporated down the hourglass until you were almost dead

but a spider’s art continues even when it’s pulled to break or bend

strong women intentionally unearth their own buried dread

so the worst can happen

on their own fucking terms.

knowing it will come anyway

they grin while watching the world burn

they know there’s a calm deep on the ocean floor of their breath

coming and going in waves

some people say down there

it is as dark as emptiness

but the snake’s nonexistent fists

punched a spotlight through the unforgiving opaque and expanding water sky. swallowing me alive.

the serpent morphed into a lighthouse to call me back to life.

The Woman Clothed With The Sun

bursting with symphonies

freed us of painful memories

we raised children and softened hardened men in our complex silky webs.

we stomped and screamed in a circle until we were purified through sweat

we cried for all the times we couldn’t before

the times we locked salty tears behind closed doors

water can crash or it can flow; choke our throats or snap our bones.

I sobbed in sheets of glass. my legs buckled like cliffs eroding

reflecting glimmers of starlight on the water diamonds dangling on blades of grass

I laughed

right in the devil’s face

stuffed his body and placed it above my fireplace

two opposite poles stretching on the same spectrum at the same pace

my arms flew open like flowers blooming in a brainsick and twisted ballet

we fell to the dirt and began to pray to no one in particular.

I can paint my own final hours

rescue myself from a towering prison tower

I refuse to be a fairy tale about braids and princes climbing long hair.

the world spins women’s intuition

premonition is truth in symbols and visions

but I never made the fucking decision

to be in such a powerful and painful position

The western woman’s vast freedom

looks like the impossibility of monster boulders balancing on tiny pointed tips

how does so much weight depend on such a delicate toe. she has to learn to slit throats with a flick of her wrist

then hang her raincoat

sink into the couch, legs crossed watching television

smirking. a mischievous vixen inhaling weed into oblivion

because fuck you and it helps me meditate

we need to return

to forests, mountains, vast deserts

the true nature of this planet is to move slowly and with intention like the flowy boneless snake

my head is red with screaming but my hands will never shake

burst light through cracks of floorboards

sparkling with blood pooling after murder,

a tarot card held in the limpness of a lifeless palm.

our feet had brilliant minds of their own

soul-starved to their brittle bare bones

not permitted to use their dancing shoes

not allowed to speak up but allowed to be used

this abuse can be amusing

if you can choose to turn the other cheek to the blues

so I put on those dancing shoes, we were dancing fools

tossing untamed hair to the angry heart of the drumbeat

I am not afraid of pain.

the serpent twirls

female darkness is magnificent and awful

sensing the unseen defined by an expanse of terrifying unboundedness.

Am I glad I bit the apple?

it freed me of my bleeding shackles

I will continue to fight this battle in a war that can’t be won

my eyes will remain feral and burning

I'll growl at all the ghosts I’ve been

Wisdom told me, unveil your cleverness like the Fox.

The snake whispered to me

she hissed like soft wind weaves through trees

she coiled like a secret around my weak and bony wrist.

her delicate tail spiraled to hug my intricate fingertip.

she talked about the angels

they are not what we expect

they too can be a mangled and tangled mess

but miracles still ripple outwards to the beating of the drums