Onward, upward, thruward

The pearl at my ear is a lacquered grey seed
My lips strong red from wind's chaffing
I do not feel my middle age as any lessening
Here I am, a portrait of myself more vividly

Among old oaks I am still a hot young thing
Mind like a swallow sketching possibility on the wing
They say uncertainty ferments fear
I feel the old familiar thrill of stepping out of known into becoming

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We didn't intend to adopt The Horrors
it just showed up one day and made itself domestic
it wants to be where we are all the time
have to shove The Horrors out of the way
to get at the coffee in the morning
'I didn't sleep last night because of The Horrors', you say
and I know you mean it was yelling at your door late into the night
it likes to sit on our phones and stare at us, unblinking
it wants a share of everything we eat
Using a spray bottle to get The Horrors off the table sometimes works
Sometimes we get a break for a while
Though that often means it's been making its own fun
elsewhere in the house
Knowing we have The Horrors in the house makes me want to clean everything
but it feels like a Sisyphean task
how did our home become part of its litterbox?

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Last edited: 26May25


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.