September Poems (2023)

The Bandage My World Heals Beneath

While I slept,
the clouds bled.

Their bloodshed
quenched
the dehydrated soil's
thirst for growth
after a long, dark night.

"Ah," the blue star flowers murmur, stretching
as they rise with the sun,
"How much toil and
sacrifice was poured into this morning

simply existing as thus!
At last, it is here;
the world has been
watered, hydrated,
made new."

New, it seems, is
the bandage my world heals beneath—
for better, and/or for worse:
I choose which;
I lose a piece of myself in either reality.

Is it healing to keep ripping yourself apart?

Eventually, of course,
you will be remade, ameliorated,
as in a muscle tearing itself up
to be rebuilt stronger; until then

you must sacrifice today
to water tomorrow.