Lance in hand to seek the land
Where he may do some good.
Lost his mind, but fate divined
He'd meet the life he should.

Horse at foot he rides to put
His lance in giant's hearts
But no one's said that they're all dead
They leave him from the start.

It's oft' like this for those dismissed
From societal norms or wishes
We lead them on and watch them don
The spear that's not for fishes.

Perhaps we should try to do good
Like the madman we egg on
For though good books bring laughs and looks
There's a sad tale with each Don.

'Do you understand the incredible godliness of a straight line?!' my madman said to me.
'Not quite,' I said, 'But I am not beyond hope to instruction."

'We cannot see a straight line in our world,' he said, 'But we thought of one nonetheless. Something came from nothing, ex nhilo, ex nhilo.' he said.

I watched his logic at work from my place at his right hand.

'Have you ever tried to draw? Straight lines are hard, try drawing a sunset. Try to draw your hand.'

I did, though I'm not sure it was his intention.
It came out wrong.

'Look! LOOK. You see? The heart of the world is but a skewed imprint when we draw it. You cannot see the world, but the lines and shadows of the world are there, and it would take a lifetime to truly draw them.'

My madman took the pen and drew a perfect sunset, with my hand clasped around it, as one would grip something so fragile, so quick to vanish.

'There are sketch lines in all we see, the world is creating a drawing in every microsecond, every heartbeat creates universes.'

His hand shook and the pen fell, ink at his feet and his hands. He looked upon them.

He rubbed the ink on his palms.

'The world is the greatest artist... And we?'
He lay his hands on the page before him, and the truest image of a hand he could ever draw was in front of me. I saw many sunsets in his fingerprints.
'We are the imitators.'

I smiled, and my madman smiled back.
Or at least as close as he could come.

They look at me
And they see a blank face.
They see a mind like a blank slate
Ready to be written on
In permanent marker.
They don’t see someone else’s writing
Already there
In perfect cursive script.

You see, people don’t talk to me.
Whether its because my lips
Are normally sewn shut with my own heartstrings
Or because when I talk its a jumbled mess
Of nonsense about aliens and feminist politics
I don’t know.

You see, I think a lot.
I am chock full of socialist propaganda
And love songs about front teeth.
Arrow heads of conversation starters that
Never make it past my lips.
Memory disks with scratches that distort the image.
Sock drawers overflowing with symbolic syllables and similes.

I think about the fist sized holes in living room walls
And the love notes hidden inside.
The songs sung in lieu of apology.

I think about my teeth cracking on
The dentist’s wedding ring.
The opening and closing of the storm door and my mother
Saying “good god we need to get that thing fixed”.
Fainting in the shower.
The angry purple bruise that blossomed
Like jasmine on my arm the next day.

I think about my bones
Cracking like wooden wind chimes slamming together.
Wishbone hearts being snapped in two.
Eating nothing but salt and razor blades.
Stomach acid tearing through everything and anything.
The alleys between my teeth.
The hornets locked inside my mouth
Stinging my gums.

I think about Allen Ginsberg tasting his first sin,
Sylvia Plath kissing her children’s foreheads,
And Maya Angelou speaking again.
I think about Anne Sexton
Tipping the bottle back
And Frida Kahlo falling in love with herself.
I think about the poems being
Forced fed to me and
I don’t mind at all.

You see I think a lot.
Questions like wasps swarming, swarming, swarming
Around my skull like a hive.
You see this is unexpected.
A mute girl isn’t supposed to think so much.
A mute girl is supposed to listen
What will happen to me if I don’t listen?
Another question to add to the list.
You see I am not a blank slate.
I am a tattoo parlor wall
And a message board.
An online forum.
A dream journal washing up on a Jersey shore beach.
You see I am not clay.
I’m not even marble.
I am art in its purest form.
Untampered and untouched.

I hammer down the iron blue
And feel the stone in hills I threw
A giant's tome in slate is wrought
The dragon's breath is surely sought

And with the flame and grey hill soul
I toil to make my body whole
To giants time may not take lives
But our body falls in loose demise

I build myself an arm of slate
A slated cage will separate
My slate heart and my slate lungs
My life will lead from where begun.

These hills are home to more than me
Bees and deer and wolves at times
I look down at my forgèd limbs
And see the grass has grown there too.

I roam the fields, but find my feet
Are reluctant to leave the soil they meet
I sink to my knees and find that I
Am now the hill beneath the sky.

Millenia pass, my sleep is long
Until some years when something's wrong
Strange beasts have come with clever paws
To take my slate for homes and wars.

I slumber still, giants are slow to rise
But count my word true, and count it wise
'Fore long I'll rise and take it back
And your slate beast world will fade to black.

I slept in the forest and the willow watched over me.
Her roots ran deep, heavy in their drink
So that not her strength nor watchful eye should falter
And her stem hair should fall nonetheless.

I slept in the forest 'neath the willow.
Her fair arms outstretched so all would see
Poplar, Yew and Oak would see she protected me
And I slept well, yes I did.

The cold night air bit not when it saw whom I kept as company.
The damp earth kept its spittle away
For 'neath my tree I slept peacefully
Until the good morn' blessed us both.