Beneath the Roots

Dedicated to Miss Amy Appel

Stumbling back

With rotted teeth 

And pulled out,

Dangling hair.

Demons 

Flowing over the bridge

Like a toll-free highway,

Forbidding to pay the price

For what they have done to me.

Sunrise to sundown

My vessel incessantly

Receives heavy-weighted blows

As I shiver underneath the heat.

Bruised lips

Shredded fingernails,

I inch toward the bridge.

Obliterating it,

Bone by bone

Memory by memory.

The clear water turns

Murky

As the sky thunders in 

With a familiar darkness.

My head

Teeters around

To observe the Promise Land.

My eyes 

Swimming 

In a pool of verde and lush.

The blue jay’s songs 

To the soft whispers of the trees,

This Land is alive and 

I could never leave.