Detoxify my every bone

I swallowed whole my love for you

But it stays with me tried and true

It flows through my veins and beats on my heart

Today I discovered I stand at the start

Every step that I take brings me closer to you

If I wanted to stray, I’d never come through.

Last night my eyes dashed in my head

Dancing, thrashing, burning red

Culminating in a smile

My back was arching all the while

The mind beat at my forehead’s back

Bashing the sorted thoughts I’d tracked

My heels sliced at the sheet below

The tongue in my mouth a fuming stove

Enough about me and what is mine

Flurries of fury could be thine.

Flowers falling, falling high… Germinating from the sky

Lift your hands

But don’t let go

Passion like you’d never know.

Take her with you, lift her up… Like she’s buzzing on the cusp

Leave me stay, I’d rather be

Here alone than flying free.

My feet grow fonder of the ground… Every shuffle, Every sound

Scrapes more dearly to the bone, and so I must wonder on.

Against the mass

Beneath the sky

Where petals shall not graze my thighs.

You grow weary, you grow faint… Then I’m fastening my pace.

Not fast enough, to flutter yet… I shall wear bows sewn to barrettes.

They’ll weigh me down

They’ll let me stay

Child-like and never slay

Sweet Child of Mine

My brown –eyed girl.

I’ll not wear gloves nor don my pearls.

I’ll be this way, until I die… Boca Arriba… Satisfied.

Dash the Glasses, Never to Drink.

We’ll never live again this way again,

Cross the line—then come back in.

.

Back into the Life we Love

Where everyone dies without their gloves.

I know, I’m well aware we’re rich.

But it’s bitter-sweet—Apple Crisp.

.

Unless I can sometimes walk away

To Go see the Old Mother Sing and Sway

I’ll never be quite satisfied

Unless you’ll buy into my lie.

Whether you’ve got it or not.

When it fits in your palm, believe me it falls

Just when you think that it’s caught.

When the slate’s erased,

You’ve cleaned your plate,

The world starts to drip from your chin.

Too hard to swallow.  Too much to contain.

The world is a’fire, laden with flames.

Think back to the last time you experienced pure bliss.  In your mind, you recall the scene in an out-of-body fashion.  You can see yourself smiling, maybe even crying, or perhaps in complete calm.  Bliss.  But do you feel it—right now?  Does the image, the impression, or the music of the moment enable you to do anything more than revisit that point of ecstasy as a third party observer?  Are you reliving that feeling?  How is it that we can go back, but when we snap into reality we seem to feel just the same as we did before departure?  Picture an infamously cheerful painting, a joyful noise, a lovely sonnet.  As an observer, can you feel the happiness? Are you convinced that it really does exist?  Pleasant art can be, at times, unrelatable.       Paintings by Norman Rockwell, Georgia O’Keefe, and Vincent Van Gogh can easily depress the viewer despite the intention of the artist to convey splendor and delight.  Norman Rockwell’s America is asymptotically more All-American than our own, and just a glance at his work can inspire Longing, Regret, and Dissatisfaction.  Similarly, consider the latter works.  The beautiful images draw from a world where only nature exists—a world of unaging, undying flora.  Would the emergence of a human destroy the work?  Probably.  Even Van Gogh’s humans seem only to represent the Community, the Friends, and the Life that casts him away.  There is always something lurking behind these brushstrokes—even if the darker reality of the piece is only in our minds and completely unintended by the creator—its presence is real.  Perhaps this is even more evident in Literature—in the works of Wordsworth for example.  Consider the Lucy Poems.  We can’t help but to feel, when presented with the image of such a pleasant child, that we have killed her ourselves with the ricocheting blades of experience.  Music, when intended to inspire joy, often inspires distaste for reality, or Simply Sounds Sappy.  Now come around to the opposite end of the spectrum.  Bypass the non-reality of refracted rainbows and imagine the lowest point of your Life.   What do you see? Do you hear a song, have an impression?  What words come to mind?  What is the lighting?  Don’t close your eyes—it will only get worse if you do, because you’re starting to feel it.  The pangs of whatever off-the-wall emotions you felt are dragging on your heart.  You’ve probably started reading more slowly because you’re stuck in that place that Actually Revisits You every time you’ve been able to put it down.  Let’s stop talking about it.  The truth is that I can make you feel pain without bringing up your own story.  Mine’s worth just as much.  That’s the whole difference.  To feel bliss, we have to relate to the words of the song; we have to understand the story; we have to recognize the scene.  And so it is not with pain.  Johnny Cash’s Wayfaring Stranger will bring tears to any eye, despite the fact that even he could not truly relate to the words.  Hemmingway’s stories create a torrent of Squalor and Conviction in the minds of men.  And the closing scene of Moby Dick causes the reader to realize that in reading the novel he truly has sprouted new wings of freedom, only to have them driven into the mast of hell-bound whaling ship.  You’ve probably picked up most of what I’ve put down here, but my conclusion is as follows:

Art is Depressing as a result of Authorial Anxiety.  The artist can hang on to a Low much longer than a High, and it is easier to draw someone into Sorrow than Bliss.  We can recognize this and in our efforts to revise your vision we will attempt to reveal the problem, because the problem is so clearly depicted, yet so unnoticed.  We love the few joys we get to feel in life—we treasure them.  Why should we try to convey our joys if they will only seem tainted or trite?  We reserve them because we are self-centered.  Don’t blame us, we have to be. That’s what it takes to explore your own mind for 24 hours a day. Good art makes the viewer forget that he isn’t a part of the world presented in the piece, and joyful art usually seems worlds away.  Sorrow is easier to go back to, easier to define, and easier to convey through words, images, and tones.  Noteworthy: People tend to enjoy Tension more than Tempo—and therefore prefer Sensory Agony to Comfort. 

This Essay Contains Several Generalizations, but is Certainly Relevant

Her thoughts forced her mind to envelop her heart, only to spill from her mouth.

Speculation is gross.  As it lays on the floor in an un-swallowed heap,

Children avert it like gum under their fingers as they tap on a desk.

Pinned and Pressed Dresses with upturned noses Slice it under the Tips of their Heels.

But then there are those- those glorious gossips.  The Saviors.

Seeing the Heap, they love the heap. Life is nothing without a heap to make new.

In that world- it means something.  In that world- the heap is bliss.  Those Gossips have created the Heap.

It thrives in that world. You know which world. The one where I actually care about the people we don’t.

Of course not.  These things have as little to do with the Old Black Mother as she sits Swaying and Singing as with School of Rock.  Maybe off-the-wall generalizations don’t directly address you as they sweep over the entire population of Modern American Women ages 14 to 51, but perhaps the words printed by under-acheiving Journalism Majors slaving to carry the Burden of Pop-Culture on their slouchy but perky shoulders have roots in truth, or at least experience.

Generalizations could apply to no one, but some accommodate All.  We all have problems.  Worse? We all have the same ones.  Maybe it’s a simple truth that only Fashion Magazine Interns can understand.  Maybe it’s not.  But in some regard, At some time, In a harmonious singularity, we fear Love, We Hide From People Who Know Us (or we pretend to change our affectations until they can no longer recognize us) and we speak love With Chocolate.