Nothing Ever Dies, It Just Waits to Reflame

so when the sky opens up to me I take it
swallowing the cirrus wisps like cream in my coffee
when the trees start molting and showing their pinfeather leaves
I rejoice, hoping that they won’t leave me with only red and orange to remember them by
when the ivy hisses petulantly around my limbs I welcome it
the deep green like a reminder of words not yet reclaimed
I can hope for something truer than this
but what could be truer than blueskies blue eyes?
my notes spill over into song somehow
witch hazel iridaceae to cushion your fall from disgrace
I trail their affections and affectations like linen through water
even if I still don’t believe in Ophelia’s willow tree
her river can wait forever
I am too busy performing subconscious cardiac surgery at a touch
go away, please, can’t you see
the world blooms richly for me today and I have no time for their professions and professors
Mnemosyne’s petals are behaving well today
and I can see the firetiger with peridot eyes up ahead.

For Sale: used copy of The Feminine Mystique, never read

I count the walls in my bitter plaster prison
each one more blindingly white than the next
a mouse ambling about in a maze with no cheese
but what can it do when you provide no alternative?
there is no singular being here now
she's been built into a robot, can't you tell?
her perfect cadence and bland smile belie her lack
at least a robot never gets bored
never turns desperately to the wall and screams
“let me out, let me out, for god's sake!”
never wishes for a gas oven to while away the time
maybe following the bell jar's example
fireflowers exploding in her mind
tongues of flame burned into her retinas when she closes her eyes
cook and clean and watch TV
do you not have anything more disposable?
but maybe he'll be here when he feels like it
shrugging off his coat with a shinyshimmer smile
I should wear pearls? perhaps?
no wait, he likes emeralds more
I shall adorn myself with shards of beer bottles
under the roar of the dishwasher and the laugh track
but I don't see what's so funny
stop laughing
stop crying!
look, there's a wallpaper now, see?
if you peel it off, there's a woman hiding behind it
she creeps and creeps and I can't get my hands on her
the oven's on, darling
what does archaic mean?