Seafoam Green Poison

I have been called defective, unable
to separate right from good—

The incessant noise of laughter, weeping, beating
hearts, spears through my brain in crisscross patterns,
but I lock it in the cave of
my palms, bolted by chalky knuckles.
Friend, sister, daughter, mother.

I am a roamer, a wanderer,
and I have dreamt in my waking, dreams
that have taunted me with
freedom, a seafoam green poison.
But I’m branded— Denied, rejected, unwanted.
I pretend that I don’t hurt, despite
the creeping sense of exploding
joy or utter destruction. 
 

Maybe laughter truly is more than a simple gesture.

I touch the licks of a flame.
The fissures of my soul.
I worry someone will see my cracks and may
not care.
But there he is, with eyes made of wood and
fire but no ashes at all,
he looks on.
He looks on. And he comes to me,
Let me inspire you, as you have inspired me
to echo the canary, to bask in the fresh bouquet of a spring—
to live.

Free your tender heart from that
frigid cave. Empower yourself
with all the warm, the furious, the affecting limbs this
world has to offer
in its ceaseless wonder. With open, crooked palms.

Be affected. Enjoy it. Close your eyes as it spins

under your feet and

feel sick from it. Lust after it. Wonder in it.
Suffer through it even as it bleeds out
medicine.
Save your ability to be
destroyed. Don’t let their coldness sully your
divine human heart.
Cold catches.
Hold it, feel it pulsate, as it fills
the crevices in each palm. Feel that
and squeeze.

These words have coursed through me, delicious poison
saturating my veins, have
seeped and stained the wrinkles of my mind.
The sound of laughter, weeping, and the beating of
hearts, is the most remarkable among these
kaleidoscopic cosmos.
I have been called defective, and
rightfully so.

Why be anything but?
I am ordinary, I am exceptional, I am acceptional