The Prisms Scribbles On The Caveman's Walls

I imagine heaven

as that pitch black

place between all

stars and time and

collisions of gravity.

There, I am without a body.

There, I am without a mind.

The world was bright in the white of the hospital room.

A midnight baby, blue and backwards, feet already reaching for the ground.

I hate to sound ungrateful for the lifetimes of accidents.

How mom fell in love with the prism in the living room window,

the light in the morning, the rainbow on the wall.

I know.

I am free.

I am here

and I am free.

In the hallway of that old house I walked on the ceiling, a mirror in both my hands.

I lived on cheerios, and make believe.

I hid from red eyes and red faces and slept on the sounds of giant stomachs.

The body was a lean, blind thing, green and budding, the sleeping prey.

The boys, they wanted proof I was a girl.

I told them I was playing dress-up.

I am playing still.

The sky was dying a brilliant death, bleeding unnamed colors.

She said it looked like the ocean upside down.

We slept together in her bedroom, in her childhood bed.

It was like an egg in there, the walls yolk yellow, the ceiling white.

Now I see the stars caught in her eyes.

Now I have given up darkness.

I have given up my heaven for her.

I don’t want to fight with anyone. I want to be free.

Our world is killing poets faster than it ever has before.

I am not a fighter. I do not want this chemical war.

I will have to be a builder, for a body of my own.

I know.

I am free.

I am here

and I am free.

So I am writing my own language. I have etched out the word daughter.

I have choked on sugar water spat at me. Do not call me sweet, or sweetie.

I am not your mother, do not call me, do not call me anything, but me.

My lady, she is waiting for no one but me.

My lover with her tongue still burning.

My baby who is always learning

calls me what I am.

I want to be that prism

in the sun who

catches and cradles

and reflects and is

nothing but light.