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Part 1
I wake
covered in chalk
feeling like I’m just a heartbeat away,
feeling like a cat on this tree’s branch above the roof
of a log cabin
basking in the glow
of a honey moon and all I want to do
is run my tongue along her lips. Everything
is the same as the day before
and yet,
nothing is.
I don’t know where I am
or who or why. When won’t matter
once I find her. I’ll search everywhere. Inside
the walls
of the rotting cabin
and through and beyond
these vast woods under the honey moon
hope and pray she’s searching
for me
too,
then together
we’ll have our graveyard picnic
while bathing it its earthly glow. Deep down
I know the moon
could never love me, but maybe
she can, and then we can live happily
ever after wherever we are, whoever we are,
in whatever
when
this is and was
and will be. That is the magic
of a once-in-a-lifetime honey moon.
So here I wait
brushing off the chalk
as the breeze licks my ebony skin
and the honey moon drip-drip-drips, paints
my silky cheek.
Here I wait
from my perch
on the tree limb far above
a scatter of deer-crushed leaves,
each one holding parts of a me I once was.
I’m waiting too long
half exposed
in the honied moonlight waiting
for her secret language to lick and coat
the air in honeyed
dewdrops,
waiting for her
to shut down this world
so we can be together again
in this place out of time. I’m waiting
here
balanced
on a thin tree limb
in this limbo between worlds
holding the empty acorn cup into which
our initials are carved,
the cup
from which she sipped
the sweetest honey water the last time
we were together
liberated by the blanks
we colored in with somber sap ink
mere moments before the gods
tore us apart
and swept her away
in the reckless wind’s tsunami,
one last sting that pierced our tender
hearts.
I long for her
soft, feathery fingers
against my skin tracing a whimsy
of wet circles from my wrist to my breast,
long for her
to channel her wishes
and breathe them into my mouth,
my heart, my soul because we are the enchanted ones
chosen to create new worlds.
We’ll dig holes
into this one, shackle
seeds and stars to form a universe
only we can see, a universe only we can save.
I’m waiting
and searching
as my thoughts float
from me, become words in the air.
Is that her,
the dirt in the corner
of the cabin?
Is she
the dandelion fluff
tinkling like windchimes
tickling my cheek? Is she the sweet
sorrowful sap sobbing down the trunk of this very tree?
She’s here
in the waning
of the honey moon.
I feel her in the weeping
willows, in the splintering soil,
in the layers
of leaves brittle
as the palimpsest that holds
our history and we will find each other.
Maybe
she’s the pile of rags
heaving like a heartbeat on the deck
far below me.
I flutter
and flit down,
down, down, and land
in a soft bed of leaves, a cloud
of earth-dust
poofing around me,
cloaking me as I crawl
toward the furry heap of rags
through the green and tender slivers
of nascent stems through the buried wisdom
of our childhood tales.
I feel her,
my fingers grip
the pulse of her anxiety,
her anticipation. She’s everywhere
and nowhere everyone and no one, but she’ll always
be my home because I
have arrived.
Part 2
It has happened! You are here,
she purrs on the wind
breaking branches
with her urgency.
Just as my belief was beginning
to wane with the honied moon, she has arrived,
my hollow-
cheeked girl, glistening
like glass shards,
her just-licked lips
glowing with her gaiety
and the pulse of my anxiety
is speeding up. It’s warm, it’s hot,
it’s enough
to burn the log
on which I’m perched
near the pile of rags now rising
into a furry furious mountain, now growing
into a wild beast
that hammers the window
with its paws, growling and roaring
I protect this place!
and the earth
beneath us shakes
and quakes and threatens
to split open and swallow us whole
if we don’t hurry and shut down this crumbling world
in this place out of time.
We must hurry
to create something
and etch it into this tree
before the warm honey moon
melts and drips like molten lava,
scorching a world turning to hell beneath
our feet.
We must hurry
and capture the sweet
somber silence before it dissipates
leaving us
with nothing to create,
until we do, we’re everywhere
and nowhere, we’re everyone and no one
and will never
have the chance to be.
Come, my love.
Reach for my hand,
lace your feathered fingers
into mine, a contrast of coarse and comfort.
Come, my love.
Let’s do what we can
with what we have and see
where it takes us
and when
and why. Let’s see
who we’ll become when this life ends
and the next one
begins.
It’s been days
since we’ve found
each other beneath the honey
moon, days spent hunkering down
inside this cabin,
nestled deep
below reality’s surface
and waiting for the storm to cease,
for the man to wolf and the wolf to unwolf,
to fold itself again into rags
for us to wear.
So here we are, curled up
against the warped wooden walls
and waiting
for our spirits to come and carry us away.
It’s dark in here, dark and quiet and from your silence,
I’m forgetting
who I am, remembering only
how much I want to walk through this darkness with you
after walking through so much light
alone.
I long for the day
we’ll find our own sunshine
and climb upon its arced luminescence.
We’ll float
across it, tangled
in our tenacity, then tumble
together
into our own world,
our own forever.
We found each other at last,
but alas, the honied moon is beginning
to bruise and bulge and blacken and the earth
beneath us is shaking
and quaking.
It’s threatening to split open
and swallow us whole and when I reach
for your feathered warmth, I gather only bones in my hands
where flesh and blood
and love once were.
Time
is killing what we have,
killing us while we wait here
for what comes next. Our love is under
so much pressure. I fear it won’t last much longer
before it explodes.
We must keep moving
through this nightmare and finish the track
that time has laid out for us, finish whatever this storm
has in store and let it play out
the way it was always
meant to,
for while my body’s
a midnight church, yours
is a carousel.
My body’s
a midnight church
and yours a carousel. Our touch
is toxic, forever touching
never,
but this isn’t the end.
It can’t be. I knew you before
we ever even met, knew in my heart
you’d find me the night of the Honey Moon
and save me
so that I could save you
and together, we could save
the world.
You are the rock
in my foundation, the fate
etched into my life’s scroll and together,
we’ll create the seismic shift
to change
the tides of ugliness,
to turn them inside out and upside down
where beauty lives.
I knew
before we ever met
that we were meant to be.
What I didn’t know is that your death
would bring me back to life. What I didn’t know
is that it would all begin
with goodbye.
Part 3
It won’t be long
before I melt under the moon’s
sultry glare, melt and rot while my honey-blood
oozes, dripping down,
down, down,
coating everything black,
carving a hole into the sky for the door
to other worlds. In a blink,
the feathered fairies
will flit
and flutter while I wilt
and weaken. They’ll chirp and chime
like charmed beasts as they fly off into the void
and enter a world ruled by the queen of wounded magic.
This
is what happens
in those fleeting moments
when the moon kisses the sun mid-day,
It’s how I was born and how
I will die.
In the depths
of the false night,
we must find a way to slip into the folds
of the bruised-black moon.
For a moment
as long as a song,
the wolf will forget.
He’ll look up and not down,
see answers to all he’s ever questioned
and truths to all he’s ever
doubted
and that
will determine the fate
of us all. So much happens
in the midnight moments when the moon
kisses the sun mid-day
and the world
goes dark.
An Interlude
Not long ago,
I met some fancy fairy folks
who’d lost touch
and yearned
to meet again
under the watchful eye
of the Honey Moon, whose time
was waning, whose façade was beginning
to bruise and bleed.
Time
was essential
as was the rag-wolf-man
who lorded over the rotting-wood
cabin
and the rest
of that world. He
spent his days roaring
and stomping, not sure if he
was meant to threaten or protect
only time knew.
And so,
the flitting fairies
must figure not only
who they are and how they met,
but where they were headed
and what
their purpose was
before the world in which
they found themselves was no more,
before it bled
into a honied oblivion
drip-drip-dripping into eternity,
leaving behind answers to questions
unasked
and questions
no one could answer,
and so goes their tale.
Part 4
We’re a braided
bundle of arms and legs
and hair and love cocooned inside
the viscous honey of our precious honied moon,
balancing
on the brumal beams
that have frosted her fiery radiance
as the world around us
disintegrates,
but at least, we’re together.
We’re stuck,
together, in a fast-
approaching oblivion swaying
softly above the warped-wood cabin
still guarded by the rags-
wolf-man
who’s also stuck,
frozen mid-rage as this world
shuts down, down,
down,
his shoes abandoned
near his paws. We’re a terrified
tangle of wings and wishes but at least,
we’re together and your smile keeps us afloat.
You smile
so that we won’t lose
each other again. You smile
because you are a carousel, and I,
your midnight church.
I’m smitten
and scared of the twisted
aftermath of your smile, but I’m ready
to ride this out with you,
I’m ready
to spread my wings
and flit and flutter and fly.
I’m ready to start again with you.
We know it’s time
when the fireflies flicker.
It’s time to remove our training wheels
and plunge
our plumage into the pitch
far below, but something’s amiss.
Our talons
are tangled. Our beaks
are broken. We’re not yet ready
to fly
or fall or flail
or float, maybe because
blurred images are all that remain
in this fast-fading firmament and we can’t see…
can’t see…
can’t see or hear
or feel in the overwhelming
oblivion. Nothing is clear
and when an aperture opens,
it lets in
more darkness
than light, more doubt
than determination, but then,
the fireflies
dive down, down,
down, as if to lead the way.
After lifetimes of darkness,
we see moving shadows along a creek far below,
a creek
full of answers
babbling in tongues
we don’t understand as the
water heaves as if breathing its last breaths
or only breaths or maybe even its first, but none of that
matters. What matters
is that we have been holding our breaths
for longer
than possible, almost as if
we’ve forgotten what breath is,
and still, we live.
In the weightless stillness
of this world, we live and we know
with every feather and fiber of our being
that this is where we belong. This is our forever home.
We have made it
through the blur tumbling
and freewheeling through our ignorance
and have arrived, but alas, we’re not the only ones, for along the creek’s
rocky, precipitous edge lies a beast of rags
and wolf and man
and he is heaving with the waves,
the darkness to our light, or maybe, he is the light.
Maybe, he has been
all along.
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Jenny Morelli is a NJ high school English teacher who lives with her husband, two cats, and myriad yard pets. She seeks inspiration in everyone and everything and loves to spin mundane, everyday things into fantastically weird tales. She’s published in several print and online literary magazines including Spillwords, Red Rose Thorns, Scars tv, and most recently Bottlecap Press for two poetry chapbooks. JennyMorelliWrites.com
