Open Veins

I sit cross-legged in the raucous silence of the moment, 
contorted into a preschool nightmare of tangled thoughts and tangled feet.  

There is no freedom in meditation. It’s just a window you can't fit through. 

When I was little, I was told to watch for broken glass as I ran barefoot along the beach. 
No one warns me to be careful now, because It would be a grace 
to cut myself on the sharp edges of the world, to open my lungs and scream.  

I’m scared, you know?

I’m scared I’m going to sit in this bed forever until I run out of words, 
until I run out of air, until my blood grows tired of the same old racetrack. 
my belly is full of things I have filled it with, not God, as I like to pretend. 

It’s full of stale springs and half-heard hymns and the vestiges of virginity. 
It’s full of artichokes and quesadillas and black rice pudding and pasta. 
I’m always decomposing. I need more compost. 

More dirt. More dawns. More diapers. More Dares. 
Less tears. Less teeth. Less tiaras. Less truth.