Broken

NOAA :

> SAGE<

Do you know how much sage I need

to cleanse this place? How much smoke

needs to travel the north wind upward

to adequately say this prayer?

I never seem to have the right words.

I can never just walk away.  I can’t accept
this world and its ever weeping wound.

I’ll let my fingers burn first.

I won’t let go of this last leaf.

>> WHISKEY<<

Despair is the demon you create then

throw your last precious black stones at to defeat;

rat poison in iodine masquerading as black whiskey—

it swallows you whole saying all will be undone;

take comfort in that, in hungering no more.

>>> SALT<<<

If I just focus hard enough,

my mind will melt that gun in your purse.

I’ll flush away the crack that flips the switch

just waiting to tie an old family knot in your brain.

I’ve tapped a hundred trees in this forest

searching for the sap that will heal your wound.

In my dreams I roll all your burdens into the mud like a laboring dungbeetle 

and push them over a cliff into the wide arms of the ocean below. 

It catches our tears.

Its salt envelops.

I have no other answers.

I have no cure.

>>>> LIGHT<<<<

In the old tales, there’s always a journey to

be made, a key to find, a secret trial to pass

in order to heal the unhealable fracture.

Because a fracture is not

one of these things you say

will just work itself out.

So unless you leave your bomb shelter—

stagger out into the blinding yellow light

and embrace the pressure threatening

to collapse your veins—this whirlwind

will never pick you up, never set you down

bruised but with your pit-dark hunger arrested.

The old stories never lie.

There is a way.

Anything can

change.

Magic holds
your hand.

>>>>> BREATH<<<<<

If this is all there is—what

more do we have to say?

If the stardust we’re made of

is nothing but cold fire, cold dirt

then where does this warm breath

come from that turns snow into spring?

Why do we tremble when the sun rises over

the mountains and our hearts ache for home?