The Impatience of Learning Patience

 

I roam the dark side of the moon

teeth grinding flint hoping fire

will burn the last thread that

binds me to his eyes.

 

Their black mirror has stolen

my secrets, and dances their demons

across the black ice of revelation.

 

How foolish to surrender my skeletons

to stars thinking they would deliver them

to Luna’s heart where trust would keep them safe.

 

Sinful light hungry to roam the veins of hidden

carried my words as bounty to enter the valley of night,

but the dark orb swallowed their candles, and

hung my confessions on his iris of nightmares.

 

In the impatience of learning patience, I study

every wink, weigh every word, and wait for

any cracks in eternity where I can place a match

to start the fire of my unbinding. 

©Susie Clevenger 2021

The Sunday Muse #184

Mapping Silver

 

Be pretty…

Paint yourself

into the shape of his eyes.

 

Are you kidding?

Conjuring my mirror

into his vision to erase mine

is silvered hell I won’t enter.

 

Does the moon dress in fear

or kohl its face to appease

night devils who stalk light with evil?

 

I have lines on my face mapping

the journey of calendars I’ve traveled,

dark hours I’ve survived, bright days I’ve danced.

 

My face is my face.

It holds gifts of my mother and father, ancestors,

shapeshifting, joining the unique reflection I possess.

 

Bare or painted, smile or frown, it’s taken several wrong exits

to finally reach the truth, the only voice in the mirror

that matters is mine.  

©Susie Clevenger 2021

The Sunday Muse #180