Gulled

Gulled


See
what I've done?

-With these small fists
I own

the red brick-locked walls
that reach to scrape the knees

of Celeste,

of cumulus
as they trundled quickly past

were punched with questions
guised in cracks of polarized light.

They have crumbled, fallen to the surface-
with this quake of mind.

We become the gaps we fall in,

and now we're respondents
trading shapes,
in piles of heavy red
folding under the rubble.
We possess borrowed blood,

yes,

we always forget
what we've been leant;

regardless of acknowledgement
it carries on within without consent,

until spilled,
then we want to give everything back

cup loss-
for another to drink as joy.

Because origin
is as far away-
as its
meaning;

and so is
rhythm to its reason.

We flash freeze
our minds cold blue,

to try and contain
a wayward clot,

pretend it is something naught.

We try to preserve the flower shape,
That’s fanning pretty petals out-

just hold it in place
this bomb about to be triggered

by some forefinger-
[not your own, of course]

because perseverance pays
the bills,

and so does redundancy,

and life less lived, a little while-
will give a lot [before we die a little more]

with every tick off the clock
means we've paid the debt of history,
once more-

in every moment it takes,
it gives, just like this.

We live under their thumbs.
we are promised a future,

by the same hand whose appendages
are holding us down;

this is such child’s play-
the way they pull and fleck the wings from our backs, turning us flight risks,
flightless.

Until our words and thoughts
like fluid between the digits

spill
faithlessly-

out of hand.
And the pages written

flutter over the ledge
confounded like gulls,

soaring fringed with white and grey,
landing on street corners,

criss-crossing through soles
gathering into strategic clusters,

hunting,
for a meal to sustain

their oscillating flight.

In our gulled
skulls-

we crave equilibrium,
we yearn for cracks in brick-locked walls, too tall-

and wish for the frosted flower petals
to thaw,

and fall.