Mary Oliver, The Pond

mary oliver, the pond

hypothetical high of a sober seventeen year old

Your brain is rotating in your skull like

the Bill Nye theme song yanking your eyes

whirring like hummingbird wings but your

body isn’t moving you know

it isn’t but you still need to...

lie down...

just in case...

your tongue is heavy

it weighs your head down

to the ground it’s on the ground 

you are on the ground might be

on the ground the ground is

melting or that could be your saliva

or maybe your saliva is doing the melting

glasses are crooked glasses are

cracking glasses are gone lost

your glasses found your glasses

don’t need your glasses 

these aren’t your glasses 

where did you get these

cloudy contacts eyes won’t

focus face feels bare...

on your side on your 

back lungs expanding

exhale slooooooooow

whirring easing palms facedown

cool. 

You are on the ground. 

𝚃. 𝚂. 𝙴𝚕𝚒𝚘𝚝, 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚂𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚏 𝙹. 𝙰𝚕𝚏𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝙿𝚛𝚞𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚌𝚔 (𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟻)

sunflowers

my first memory is of a forest of sunflowers

wandering in and being engulfed in thick stems

surrounded by yellow glowing down on me

not even reaching the petals

in the photograph of that day

there’s only a cluster of them

wedged between other plants

in a simple house garden

and I'm just outside the patch.

in my memory, i am a child of the forest

the flowers guide me as I navigate 

through their jungle of leaves

i am smiling up at the dazzling flowers

their blackholes drowning out the sky

but their luminescent color giving 

light to my path in lieu of the sun

in the photograph of that day

i am slumped in an infant’s posture

chubby inexperienced legs 

sprawled under me 

pouting forcefully at the lens

in the photograph, I am

a toddler playing in the dirt

I will become someone’s

new responsibility 

in my memory, I am 

a gleeful adventurer 

with sunflower caretakers

and ladybug companions

and my brain decided

that this was the 

first important event my life

“I’ll collect seashells/ and I’ll sleep on the carpet/ and I’ll dream about death or looking at your hands/ and it will mean nothing.”

— K. K.

mary oliver, the kitten // laura gilpin, two headed calf // tweet by vincent d’onofrio