In Pink Ink

When the music is faster and violins repeat the same phrase and melancholia slips around my body pinning my arms to my side and my psyche to the ceiling of my skull. It clinging there like a frightened cat that thinks, "Oh, shit. Now look what I've done. Won't someone get me out of this thing I have gotten into...I'm slipping...nails slipping!" When the very cells of my body scream, "We know this feeling, have felt it, loathe it. Save us!" When the smell of coffee and pumpkin bread doesn't comfort, but instead taunts that I will never feel that feeling again. When the pen in my hand, pink ink, doesn't brighten the words I wrote --
I wrote
Iwroteanyway.
It's all I ever knew and
what I ever do and
I will never stop
because just like that cat
I'm clinging and the words are my claws
and the page is my ceiling
and sometimes I don't really know
how I got there,
but I know the words hold me there.
And eventually, someone will come along
with a telescoping ladder
and rescue me
or, more likely,
I will take a deep, whiskered, meowing breath
and just let go.
So far --
I always land on my feet.

Life Story

I write with water on the tip of my finger
On wall board which will make the walls of my home
The story is old
The home is new

I write with scotch on the tip of my thumb
On my mouth which burns with unsaid words
The lament is deep
The kiss is light

I write with juice of strawberries on the tip of my tongue
On the side of your cheek which stains with each stroke
The meaning is tart
The taste is sweet

I write with tears on a lock of my hair
On the back of my hand which holds no hope
The traces are faint
The impression is strong

I write with ink on the tip of my pen
On the paper that makes it so which binds my word
The lines are short
The intent is long