Harlequin

venus

i know it's my garden
i know the air is oxygen
and the birds are rosefinches
i fall asleep and wake in a bed
of summer lavenders
i read A Midsummer Night's Dream with
wisterias growing over my bare feet
i watch the clouds and stars roll over
simmered in a peony fragrance
no one can touch me in my garden

but the fear lingers.
a little place in my
dimension of disastrous dreams
—yes, it's under a realm of wisps and stars
where it's too hot and the fire melts
where nothing grows and everything is born
dead
where the air stays still when no one breathes it in
but when you do, it's mustard gas

the insidious crawl of death upon my
tender, tired brain
who is so tired of putting up fights
against betrayals and wars of lost lovers
(traitors)
and wants nothing more but for the
past to be a sextillion years ago
and for the memory to be blurry
like sunken eyes in a deep blue ocean.

i don't know if i'm heading to the next world
or the next level of lunacy
but the pain says more than the million little
screams in my head,
cremates the zen child that desperately tries to pull
its shit together
insinuates the Great Calamity that rampages in
every
single
existential state of my body.

but i know it's my garden.
and my castle is made of steel.
and maybe i overthink my defence strategies.
and i know this kingdom is mine.
and only mine.
only mine.
only mine.
only mine