On Wednesday, the farmers down the road
copiously sprayed their
phosphorus and nitrogen onto the soil
like it was a 21-spice seasoning
on a mediocre meal,
meant to enhance and elevate
averageness.
They probably believed that
if plants had souls,
the extra flavor would save them
***
Somedays, you felt depleted of
something hard to name,
maybe something without one.
Not sadness or happiness.
Fullness?
You didn’t know
***
One day, the clouds rolled in
with their misery,
crying over the dusty plains.
Sludge dripped down divots
and trickled through tributaries.
The rivers of regret,
the streams of sorrow.
Where would the water lead?
Perhaps to the end of the world
***
There were so many blank pages,
open roads,
and divergent paths.
And people you never knew.
All the time that fell slowly,
and softly away
***
The algae received kindly,
frantically taking in the flavors from the farm.
They felt the warm sun from the fields,
the swaying husks and kernels scattered
on the cracked earth.
A life they never knew, but knew only
through these moments.
And so they took,
voraciously, vigorously, violently,
until they grew
***
How many hours have you spent worrying
about time, productivity,
the small inadequacies?
You thought the more you filled your life,
the more it would fill you,
save you.
It didn’t really matter though.
You were still not Enough
***
And the festivities ended
with the leaves turning a crispy brown.
The ponds that once thrived
were suffocated by a green film
that rested on the surface.
In the depths,
everything decayed,
and the fish were slowly strangled
into sleeping.
The algae apologized for their indulgence
but there was no time for sorry or
for saving.
In their guilt,
they died too
***
It was too late
to say goodbye,
to say What if life was different?
It was time to go,
while you still had your soft, broken heart
beating steadily on
***
Once you saw a girl snap a stick in half, and
scrape the thick algae off the water,
so it could see
the cotton candy sky.
But the green ribbon slipped off,
continuing to divide
the living and the dead
***
Did remembering count as loving?
You only asked because you were beginning to forget
all your memories.
Which were delicate silks of time
Which drifted away from you.
Or was it you who was drifting from them?
***
Maybe it could be restored–
the little pond, the swimming ducks, the broken world.
There was action and there was hope.
You needed both
***
When you crossed out of your former life into a new one,
you broke your shell of death,
and began to dance.
What was it like when the world was made new?
There would be time for answers, but for now
it was enough to know
it wasn’t the end