There Are Monarchs In Mexico Where Kings And Queens Still Reign Lording Over Salvia And Milkweed In Their

I cut off my hair And the great weight of my life Fell away with it

In the empty orchard Among the crisp apples And softer pears, Brown and green, The apples red and yellow, Losing their grip On their branches In the hour before dark Where no bonfires burn A quiet that is alone, mine

The air is full of Ragweed and dying grass, The sweet scent of Fallen fruits sinking Into the bed of the earth, Feasts for wriggling worms Before the frost comes Early in the morning, I am here with the last Of the colors of trees

Sheep getting sleepy, Too sleepy to count them Their sounds replaced by The last croaking frogs, The lingering buzzing of Wings on insects, Before they hibernate In frozen lakes Before the sun falls Further behind the barn

What are your dreams? They say What do you mean? I say

Don't you have goals? They ask Nope I laugh

How can you not? They say I guess I'm a sloth I play

You must have a job They say Certainly not I say

Contribute to society! They exclaim I have anxiety I explain

So what do you do? They question I write and I muse I tell them

But what about money? They implore I have enough to be free I retort

What makes you this way? They ask why I'm content all my days I reply

Such wasted life They dismay My world is bright I say

Why does our perception Of gender Change the tone In which we read someone's work?

My woman is stoic My man is soft spoken Anywhere I fall on the spectrum is loud Or terribly quiet

I can't stand the smell Of Clorox disinfectant wipes They remind me of all The times I used them To scrub your blood Out of the sheets on my bed And how many nights I Fell asleep to their scent While worrying about you

I can't stand the smell Because I used those wipes To disinfect the stuffed cat I cuddle with now for comfort The stuffed cat that smelled For days of your final weeks The stuffed cat I adore That doesn't smell like your Death or Clorox anymore

He said I wasn't the center Of the universe but I was a star He never orbited around me And I was strong but never asked

I was no galaxy I had no planets

But he was an asteroid that Got caught up in my pull He could never look at me Or be close enough to touch

I was too bright I was too hot

And I could not be cold or dull I was a wildfire untamed So I was just one burning star Among the infinite others

This goodbye is so Conflicting I am heartbroken I am torn It is so difficult To think of you Leaving my life And yet it's so easy To wish you well

Ungraceful am I For grieving so publicly Bereaved, forgive me

I think I misunderstood you Sandman, I apologize You were no devil but protector Throwing your sand in my eyes You kept me safe when I could not bear to be awake My Sandman, my savior I'm sorry, I never realized

When life got overwhelming You brought me a land of dreams A place to rest, to heal Created rejuvenating scenes You were no trickster Feeding me knock out mixtures I'm sorry for my behavior You've been a friend it seems

Love and hate coexist together In one person A continuous fluctuation between Sympathy and disgust I want to ruin her I want to hold her head under water And watch her squirm

So I can drag her out Give her mouth to mouth Cradle her gasping body in my arms While I scream at her for being stupid Spitting and wiping my lips That were tainted from saving her

I hate her and I love her I hate to love her, never the opposite Never have I hated a person before And I have no reason to hate her More so I hate our transgressions I hate the wrongness we shared And the shame of it all

My hate is usually dulled to apathy The forgetting It absolves me, that forgetting It takes the two emotions and washes Them away I cannot feel one without the other