wyrdwind

Make Believe

I put my stuffed animals together

so they’d feel loved if I wasn’t there,

built houses and worlds and family to spare,

when my dead grandpa joined them

perhaps I should have been scared.

But this was a man held me and sang me,

fed me and read me every day of my life,

so what if he died?

Left a girlchild knows to be treated right,

besides, I see with more than my eyes.

I made do.

You’ve got Dreaming and dreaming and that

over there, music and noises and turbulent air.

If at three in the morning a semblance of peace,

some glow of affection wrapped around me

so for once unguarded I sleep,

that’s fine.

You have your words, and I have mine.

Were you better off inside those lines?

People pretend all the time, that this

is all there is. Opium den of acceptance.

I’ve got a golden eye in big furry darkness.

Don’t worry, I know the difference, I’m fluent.

It’s painfully obvious, you see.

Kuromaru

My organizational method

is Butterfly.

I keep everything out in the light,

what’s chaos to you is choir to me,

colors you can’t imagine sing, isn’t

obvious until I speak. Define

what an object means, the basis,

breakage, I still know

where the beginning and end is,

symmetry is how you maintain it.

Beauty is the story

of a court maiden who loved insects,

family hated how she dressed, no attempts

at a husband. Asked a dark sorcerer

to intervene. Society

resents this type of joy, you’d be pretty

if, so pretty if. To break her spirit

they planted kodoku beneath her bed.

For surely she wept for the blatant

disrespect of her peers, the open dismay

of her family. Once that foul insect emerged

surely his form so disgusting she’d

turn away.

Well this demon once born would bond

to his master. A disaster,

such was his power. By court order,

her pupal stage pet to be put down.

But she wouldn’t allow this.

Wounded by a gift’s retraction,

what should have been given with love

was merely a deception.

She’d never be enough.

She never gave up.

When he shook loose his cocoon,

something they’d never seen,

expected some vicious, torturous thing,

but no matter a sordid origin story,

nothing a demon can’t do or be, tamed

when his weird girl’s love gives him wings

and a name.

Bass Instincts

Now I like to have beasts,

little ones, or a man at my hips

at all times and anything less

ain’t no kinda life.

Not if he’s bland or annoyin’ though

and it’s pandemic grocery store pickin’,

inferior monocrop so borin’.

What’s a man

but hands, heart, and mouth open.

Tears aplenty no whinin’.

Wild, loyal, and grateful

whatever comes.

Needs ya more’n air in his lungs.

There should be blood between ’em,

Baby Boy throws down in arena—

don’t matter which one—

only cares you’ve seen him.

This is what a man does,

all else a snotty chihuahua

flashin’ teeth thinks he’s a big dog,

want ’em act right, huh?

Well you gotta be a woman.