A World Within A World

Open and exposed
we watched the tide.
A trail of white lingered behind the breaking waves,
bread crumbs left behind for our thoughts.
I looked at her, wind blowing that long straight hair
like it was in a battle with the elements.
We were forest creatures,
standing beside this place of water.
Sounds we had still not become accustomed to,
scents never experienced.
If we remembered the trail of ants
over stumps left behind,
if we thought of mushrooms
and ferns and the rotting mulch of our
rain-drenched home-
no, I could not think of it. 
We would fall.
There are some things we cannot do, not now.
A dotted line entered my consciousness.
Two double-stranded helixes.
A diagram.
Pure form, all lines and angles, twisting,
Making bodies, shapes, information.
I looked again at her,
A world within a world.
A rose, within a rose.
We watched the tide, the fading white to blue,
Blue to white.
Long trails along the water like our thoughts lingering
on far away places.
She was an angel beside me, one angel
consisting only of truth, of beauty which opened wider
the more I looked. 
We were forest creatures
made on the kitchen sink.
Dirt, the remains of bitter greens
and a splash of water. 
It was simple once,
perhaps it still was, but my mind
was running with shadows,

words,
with extra words
which seemed to spill over into the water
and run away from me. 
I could not even make a move
to chase after them,
I could not spook the angel.
I stood still
presenting myself with a bit of falsehood.
Direct correspondence could cause the
winds to change.
The gray pearl might dart, might
jump into the choppy waters
that seemed to so adequately mirror the
tumult inside.
We had wanted for nothing
there with the shade, with the dampness of
winters that never quite left.
Not now, there are some things I cannot say.
Not now.
The water speaks,
a rose opens.
The fractal widens,
showing itself finally to
my fractured mind.
The cracks widen,
it seeps in, finally finding the opening for which
it had long awaited.
My gates had been sealed,
tightened and bolted.
The sea air has done its work,
smelling as sweet
as all that has been forgotten.
Unhinged, I now grasp.
Another speaks
the words.
We forgot all the names.
In the garden
our jaws opened,
your own widening perception
blossomed.
Mine broke and crumbled.
Then we wanted.
Just briefly,
we wanted.
Speaking,
laughing
desire had been born.
Perhaps we would put it to rest.
The angel and I
the waters and the new passage available,
For a moment, a minute, a day?
We must jump,
Now.
The path is open,
oozing and bloody,
the seals and cement, the path
the darkness.
The secrets are open
available
and we must jump while we can.
The new world of waves
of seaweed and mermaids
in this new, unfamiliar world.
We finally jump away
from the trees and earth so familiar,
into the darkness.
A world within a world.

Fractals

I pick you up with the slightest of efforts, your form rests in my sweaty palm as though it has always been there. The web of your surface transforms in the light of midday, and I gaze in tenderness at the mountains of your flesh.
I look further, deeper, and for this discovery, my eyes are reborn with new lenses equipped for this sacred task. The beauty of this form is revealed, a pink flower of petals that get smaller and smaller with each successive layer, smaller still until they shift dimensions and move back in on themselves, covering the tunnel with their soft scent. In my hand, mountains stand mighty and tall, gazing down at the rivers that course though you with unsentimental love. Red waters and clouds carry your thoughts. A basket with gifts floats with a gift from the gods, a word from the people of air, a token from the people of stone.
Inch by inch, a further examination proves that you are covered in even smaller lines, lines that create valleys, valleys that create hills, hills that stack to form more mountains. Bushels of hair smell like sagebrush in the south and I breath it softly, it will be my last. Like the roots of a tree, the source fills you with a substance even more powerful than air, more delicate than oxygen, more polluting than the carbon you spill. Beyond the window of my eyes, ants travel the length of this coast, trees branch forever in a quest to reach infinity, my mind stretches, allowing me a moment of access beyond the lazy mood of this room.
With one hand stretched out, I reach out to grab for the nearest star, and you laugh at me, truly knowing how far it is, yet I hear you in my mind, telling me to stretch just a little further, that the sun might be within reach, that we might soon have a new home, if only I stand on my tiptoes and if only I devote my heart to the task and if only I focus just a little more. I hear you and my muscles lengthen in the stretch, my heart expands to the balloon size it once had, before I knew a possibility of breakage, before I knew that everything that begins must end, before I realized that there can be no joy without the contrast of sharp pain.
The pendulum swings, and I ride it with the thirst of a lost bear, with the yearning of a mermaid searching for the sea. On the metal gauge, my hands gripping the metal string like a lifeline to the heart, I hold on, balance, wait for the descent. It will come, because truly, it cannot be any other way. It is the force of rain, the growing grass, the lifeless squirrel, the movement of time. It will come, and as I go down, maybe I’ll remember that I have been here before, maybe if I remember this time the journey might not be as hard. Soon I will be heading up, and then, after a short stay, I will go down again.
Yeee! Here I come, make the bed for me, prep the tea and here I come… The grass catches my fall, I land with a soft thump and taste a bit of soil. Bright blades poke me like little itchy fingers, an endless blanket of them, they tell me their secrets, a million whispers mingle in my ears and I blush with their intimate details. Who knew this would all be so kinky?
Sure, tell me more, think of me as a new bed of soil, a new fertile piece of earth to plant with desires and old memories. Give me what you have and we’ll see what new shapes emerge. Will they be the formless structures of seaweed which lack names, will they move like pink feathers on the wind? Will they come as droplets of my tears, blinking in the dark night as I head for my car?
Everything and nothing, you give, I take, and soon, just as the pendulum swings and just as the earth opens up to accept its lost child, I will give back to you, giving my body of material, take it all and send my stories off to the next little girl.