dragons and the endlessness

it starts with a tiny
a lonely little seed
that explodes into colour
but, don't be greedy
the tiny and the lonely
have a rooted subservient need
or subversive and pervasive
and persuasively bleeding

there's love and there's fear
in this garden, call it a bed
but complacency and stoicism
overwhelms any dread
and any fire any passion
any drowning with doubt
any wrinkle in the face
beyond a smile or a pout

this cold bed of misery
this clockwork tableau
is a story
is a fiction
is a falsehood
is a show

and then BOOM

the tiny little lonely i didn't even know i knew
is you in my periphery
is you
and my litany of shame falls and folds away
with the very naming of your name
with each and every day

and i thought i never knew you
i was convinced i never cared
i thought i did you better
i put it in a letter
every shackle, every fetter
every fetish, fear and feather
still i never dared

all i wanted was to fly
i just wanted to be free
but then that never was
going to be
but then that never was
a possibility

call it dna or blood
or a change in the sea
words who knew me better
then ever i knew me
so i let them fall
i let them write
and write myself into this corner
all piled up with blankets
in the nest of guilt that i've horded

like a tree that just keeps growing
with all its branches cut off
season after season
bare and partly broken
reaching for the sun
that, always promised, never comes

my heart aches

my heart is a garden
a cold and frosty bed
and this tiny little lonely
so long so close to dead
EXPLODES with colour

but, wait, just not yet

there's still some more aching
that i'm still enjoying feeling
and regret that i'll regret
if i don't regret it now
i've another skillful sabotage
more self-harm to camouflage
before the pain can take its long slow bow

and the attention we're all seeking
is only awful if it's the cynic
that's looking and poking
but then i always wondered
what was in it
.for him.
.or her.

because shaming someone's hurt
is yet another way
to shrink the world into a box
and keep it all at bay

but opened up and growing
never did anyone harm
well, at least not for long
no, not for long, son

so the tiny and the lonely can explode all it likes
with every colour i can see
with every sound and bite

and i move and i dance
but still i ache and i ache
and i wrinkle and i shout
as much as i laugh and sing and break

and breaking isn't new and broken's not as bad
because the end of a thing's not the end of everything, dad