Ra Avis's Blog

I trace the brawn of you like embroidery, squeeze the sculpt through your robe.

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When I massage your bare feet, I tap into you a rough draft of your eulogy.
I outlive everything,
you know.

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I outlive everything I know.

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The trophies in your cabinet still as you rest.
The spotlights that love you dim as you sleep.

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Like every masterpiece that has ever moved me, I know I will not be the only one who remembers you.

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But as I listen to breath turn to snore—
I think I might be the only one
who wants to remember you like this:

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Still and soft, creating nothing.
Your Achilles, so trustful
in my — no, in any—
small hands.

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From my “symptoms series” based on notes from or to my doctors. This one based off “I worry about what happens when my hands are no longer strong”

I stretch into a new life;

howl at the lake till it mirrors right,

let my shadows lead the way.

I flicker like sunlight,

warning &

weapon,

shatter like a cloud,

all wet &

gone.

.

I stretch into a new day;

saddle the night to my thighs,

give the trees what cannot be carried.

I love like fog,

dense &

thick,

bloom like a weed,

all wish &

gone.

If someone gave me 10,000 flowers, I would give 11,000 away, and I’m not sure how that maths, but I always seem to get more from the giving. I don’t ever to pressure you into vase— don’t want you to hollow or water just to hold space for the way I drip petal. I dropped daffodils at your door & then took them back before you noticed & I think maybe I should’ve never been trusted with the angry yellow springtime to begin with: an autography.

Sometimes a felon

autocorrects to demon.

Call this felonized.

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Check the box to live.

Check the box to live unboxed.

Call this felonized.

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The bars cut through me.

I walk stripe-cut through this world.

Autocorrect me.

.

I will check your box.

You fear the stripes you gave me.

We both stay haunted.

The teenager of me is awake &

slamming all the doors.

Science says this is what happens

around this time of life.

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Says her 18 years are not even enough to be my half-life, and I’m

splitting my childhood from her

like atoms.

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Science says of course she explodes.

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At 2am she asks if I remember seeing The Titanic in theaters.

She was 13 and just born then.

Now she moves like a sinking ship,

gasps the air like all this new life

is filling her with heavy goodbye.

.

At 2 AM, she reaches through my throat

and wipes my tears.

We’re the same girl we were

in the theater that day, she says.

There’s room on that door for both of us,

she tries to tell me.

.

I want to tell her the story of

everything since,

but science says time travel is not possible.

Science says the hormones must quiet

what they must in an ecosystem

like me.

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Instead, I hold her cold hands &

tell her I love her.

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She looks around at this new world, this new stage, and isn’t certain.

I can tell she isn’t certain at all.

.

She makes me promise

I’ll survive.

Stories got more cannibal, like

their bellies ache hungry

to chew something up, like

they won’t make it to old age

if they don’t lead with the

sharp teeth.

Stories in the margins

don’t trust us in long-tooth page.

We forgot holy shelving;

how to keeper them in the good tree

& pull them from the fires.

Now they save themselves

from hungry headlines with

fang and fight, & the light

God gives the smallest.

We didn’t get too old,

we got too big.

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I promise our tomorrow

a return to small keeper.

To break a feathered beast

back to flock of bird.

To take from flame & fill the nest

& share the feed.

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I know we did not lose the light for good.

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Alex, I’m holding a book written behind footnotes. A story so forgotten it should have been eaten up.

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Alex, I’m holding a book you rescued.

I’m calling it proof.

I read an advertisement-review wrong & thought it was a poem. So I used the review format as a prompt. I’ll add the alt text tomorrow from a real computer.

Don’t I butter myself up

the same as any other poet?

Heavy-headed

swipes with the back of a spoon

full of moonlight.

Pressing hills and valleys

into flat terrain,

making crumb.

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Don’t I fall like any other poet?

Butter side down,

shine lost to the ground,

anything

anything

to stick the landing.

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When I can’t think of what to write, I start with butter. 

Can I come over and ripen?

Can I stretch my feet out

and wiggle my toes

and ask

if I should paint them tomato-red

with a little green stem

on the big one?

Can I root my vines

between the pillows

of your couch & 

fall away?

.

Can I come over and float?

Can I lotion my feet

and ask if I should paint my toes

astronaut-silver?

The only metallic with no gravity.

Can I hover over to your bed

like a cartoon who has smelled

a fresh baked pie?

Hearts all over my face.

Can I come over &

love a dream like that?

.

Can I come over and think?

Can I rub the ache from my feet

& run big ideas past you?

If you pick a side

and hold it between your teeth,

I could finally braid it.

I would finally sleep.

Can I come over and

go to sleep?

.

It’s perfect for mess.

It’s perfect to miss.

Imperfect to wish.

Impervious to tests.

Immersive twists.

I’m nervous twists.

I’m nerves in a fist.

I’m nervous about this.

Weirdly hard! Day 14 is a lil bit word gibberish.