Eleesh Masch

We choose to sit at this table with rice

And fish cooked over the stove for hours.

I stare at hands my mouth will soon clean nice

As I listen to words your fear showers.


My dull eyes pan to a full water pitcher

The mirror beckons brand new conversation

Sugar-coated words from a mask teeth richer

Hiding a raw tongue that threatens foundation.


I pick through the Eleesh, soft meat that hide the bones

That pricked me so many times before, remember?

Each one lines my plate, a sun with rays I have loaned.

I mix boneless meat with rice, placing the embers


Into my mouth and savor the taste earned.

No grain of rice on this plate now burned 

My Eleesh rays still reach over the edge

Sitting with only your words left to dredge.

They see me fall

I climb the hills to reach a steady high

Whispers carried by the winds in lament 

Claiming these peaks unworthy of proud sighs.

Every journey back feels more permanent

As I feel my temporaries fading.

Thank you for the breeze you have kindly lent

But I am tired and done expecting

When, to you, I’m cursed to be anything.

 When they sleep, I walk

These nights creep up on me with these moments passed

When our words would bounce in glee through our beings

Understood for what they were

Expressing our union and love sparkling as one.

You’d call us water and oil

Until the energy only from 

Our mixing comes to be.

You are now crystalizing

And I see only shards of

What you play to be gone.

I rain on your faces

A breakthrough thought to have begun

Yet each drop only glides down to the earth

Waiting to make their fall from the sky again.

Tonight I birth a drought

My water lost its path once won.

I carry on lacking this sustenance

Unknown to a certain return.

Sunflower

I’m left here knowing I won’t turn to you,

I know I’m not who you need me to be.

My complacency disappoints you, too.

And warrants your enduring doubt in me.

You say you know what you are, hurt so true,

I thought time could bring you back to me.

But time’s been unkind and had you accrue

A spite and cowardice you’ve grown worthy.

I’ve turned away after searching for it,

Confidence dissipated from our trade

Of blurry thoughts that land in a dark pit.

Following our unknown comes a quiet,

Time said “lower your hand” and I obeyed.

But I wait, forever a hypocrite.

 Sands

Twisting my hands, I take deep breaths

Oxygen lulling the waters in my chest.

My moon glitters the dark greens and blue

And I’m unsure of how to proceed.

I look back and doubt a

Remembered peace.

I see screens in front of faces and

Mine flickers before me.

The waters crash into it and

Waves bounce back to rock my heart.

I can’t read blurry stars and

My moon is pulling to unknown places.

Glitching,

Air fill my lungs.

Let my waters reach a shore

Where the sands have the answers.

 Diving Woman

As I become lucid again I find myself climbing

I don't remember where the waters dripping down my body are from

But I have bruises from the pushing and probing

And when the pain starts to bloom again

I finally do remember the exhausting fight 

And I'm inclined to rest at a spot up ahead 

The stillness welcomes a defeat 

Where

All I can do is sit here and listen, 

That's all I got.

Little did I know 

This seat is a diving board

The spite is tight and ripe 

And I'm heading down under again.

Second Face

There’s a table, a person, perhaps a drink in front of me

Space but no mass my brain will register.

The world stops inches from my forehead

And there’s myself watching from the roses underneath

Unwilling to reach, unwilling to meet

Not even in a rain that could mean a reunion

So desired yet persistently denied

This, I know, will repeat.