Sharp tattered blackberry

Some pierce the grueling veil of normalcy by firing at the White Whale of truths

To force out the latency of a familiar sting of old news that has layered from false to true to reality

I find myself hating and loving the idea of childhood, of hot water hoses and creek filled secret spaces, of picking blackberries plump from the blistering humid heat

Bursting my skin with purple that sears through my eyes, my heart, my blood

Of love for a lost idea of identity and what loves actually looks like

Of bills, of gas going up, of groceries, laundry, money, of cleaning and cooking and driving from appointments to schools

I do not want this life yet every choice I made caused this life

I cannot articulate this deep type of tired

It’s a shameful feeling as I cannot rest enough and when I sleep in too long I feel it weighing heavily

The tattered sharpness of a person that feels a sting from long ago as fresh as a new summer blackberry fresh as a newborn

Bursting with plump new summer wine that smells like a peppery, floral cocktail

How dare you make me think of that moment when everything is falling into place like a chaotic cloud of abstracted, tattered missing limbs

That I really thought I would never have again or see again or feel again

How dare you make me reanimate

To that old shattered picture of something so sorrowful, so precious and deeply meaningful

How dare

These things become a wild, deeply dark purple pool of tattered blackberry galaxies that has black holes deeper than the ocean

So very beautiful on the surface but terrifying for its own sake and for its very existence

How dare it stain my skin like a lackluster old photo, poem or song

That makes me want to cry so hard I can’t get over the overwhelming urge to sleep

That sleep that comes back no matter how awful, aching, tired I feel

Some pierce the veil of the frightening just to know they are still alive

How dare we remind ourselves that we are so small as we speak mountains and write oceans

How dare I begin to love again after being so tiny, alone and battered

And how dare we continue to do it all over again

In the bruised purple glare of hazy, dark

White Whale mirror of a lost flame that burned through the barrier of truth and darkness and light and mortality