persephone, you are not the only one who lives with death

This is the moment

You realize,

That no one has told you the truth.

Living with your God of Death

Is warmer,

Closer to the heart of the earth.

The time with your mother

Is filled

With silence.

You cannot tell her

How you spend your time,

How he feeds you pomegranates.

You cannot eat

The fruit she gives you, While looking her in the face.

There is nothing for you but the caves,

Where he peels the flesh

Of the pomegranates

With his lips, Not caring for the juice that sticks

To his fingers,

To his face.

Your mother is cold,

And she has cut your fruit for you.

No hands,

Just utensils.

She never used her hands

To hold you.

No one has told you the truth,

How cold it is

When you are gone.

How the crops stop growing,

And everything

Loses it’s colour.

fortune teller.

the town soothsayer
wears only black,
and says she knows
more than your children
will ever learn.

she is not impressed
when you show her
the weather app
on your phone,
because she has already
seen it coming.

she makes it a habit
to laught and cry
at least once a day.
even at the risk of
watching corny movies.

her only extravagance
is her hair,
which she pays a stylist to cut.
(it was the only thing
about her her mother
ever said was pretty)

she loves music when
it makes her cry,
and she will spend hours
staring at the moon,
just because it is there.

she will tell you what you
want to hear,
but only on her good days.
the fathers and mothers
avoid her, and tell their children
to steer clear.
they think her black clothes
are a bad influence.

if only they knew
she was wearing it for them.
she is the only one
who remembers their past.

wasted on the young.

what are we coming to,
when everyone around you
says "environmentalist"
like it's a bad thing.

because it's too much trouble
to grow what you eat.
we forget we are what we eat.

and so what are you, sticking your nose up
at me, but i can see you are
full of unnatural fats, red dye n. 7,
extracts, additives, chemicals
and bleaches.

your insides never match
your outsides,
but it always ends up the same.
bullshit.

so where are we headed,
that we take this life so serious
we can't enjoy a single moment
whether we're washing off dirt
from our nails or scrubbing away
orange dust from your empty dorito bag.

dirty tears.

i know my questions
are not always welcome,
but you will not feel right,
until you let me in.

at every touch
i feel you turn away.
you have no questions
for me.
my eyes can tell you
what the back of your head
looks like,
i can tell you the feel
of your hand pulling away.

but i cannot let you know
the colour of your eyes,
i have not seen them
long enough.

who stole the truth
from your life?
your tears dried up
too young, too early.

i can tell you that
the crease in your hand
and the scar on your hip,
they are perfect,
but you will close
your eyes and turn away.

who stole your life?
you are only waiting
to be used.

stamp that.

stamp out that light
the one left by your burning ashes
dust on the wheel,
my head is slowly being
screwed in with a corkscrew.

"Ow", to say the least.

not even good old sigur ros
can help you cope at this point.
no faith is lost
where there never was any.

but what can you hold on to,
except your fleeting hope
in tomorrow?
maybe the sun will once again be brighter,
the ocean may not be so deep.

but in the meantime,
stamp out the light
of your fire.
the one that burnt
the forest down.

the ocean may never
be deep enough.

corvids.

take matters of the heart
and put them in your hands,
in the end,
his story will remain the same.

it will not matter
that he did not choose you,
that is his loss; his burden.

how do you put a price
on the thoughts in your head-
put it to paper
and scan the barcode
on the jacket.

he once told you how he used
to talk to crows,
and none of them talked back.

but now he talks to no one
but himself.

Trials and Errors.

"What Odysseus does not know
will not hurt him,"
Penelope thinks,
each time she takes
another warrior man
into her bedroom.

By the time the sun
breaks the horizon,
all her knitting
has unraveled once again,
wrinkled in a corner
of the bed.

The next day, the men
will fight over
who will get
to join her.

Years later, on his return,
Odysseus thinks
Penelope is smiling
because she missed him.

But what a man
don't know
won't hurt him.

first rate tragedies.

there is a light
that looks like fire

-but it does not hold heat-

we call it
the Sun
in canada