I

the sorrow

There is something divine in loneliness.
Not to be loved is the ultimate freedom.
Lonely, a tide with fleece and lungs,
divinity crowned by a point in a taut line.
The wholeness of disconnection, unmoored from any pier, isolation pure in the moment that rope snapped.
Despair only interrupted by the novel
interest of feeling linoleum
with your teeth.

II

The Lucky

Your veins a map, a pattern, a road, a string.
Find where it connects.
Junkyard trees, absent of
options deciduous.
Perhaps underground verdant and
opalescent flora bloom by a sunken sun.
Reassurance from one bird to the other about the single stone in his hand.

III

The wedding

The veil and the shroud.
The end of some previous state of being.
Mourning the past, remorse of a handfast.
You changed her life and she wishes you had
never met that night with snowflakes on your lashes and blood on your lip.

IV

The boy

Step on a crack and break your mother’s back.
Make steps with purpose.
The hatred of a child is focused rage.
Call for extremes in ignorance of the limits.
Don’t forget, the navel is also a scar.

V

The Silver

I hold
my head | your head Holofernes
in my hands
Calling
My son’s | my daughter’s
name is the same
Our family the eye of this silver storm.

VI

The Creator

The pure soul, the impulse to try.
All things forged from the acknowledgment of their absence.
The flex of canvas when you pull the tape away,
it briefly comes to life.
The rise and fall of a breath.
Something that has never existed before.

VII

The secret

Trust one other with a secret.
Give them the power to destroy you.
Try to forget how much love feels like restriction.
Expectation obligation, this would be less tragic
if you weren’t so full of love to give.

VIII

The wish

How many different ways can one exist?
Nobody will agree who you are.
How many times will you draw a fallen angel until you feel everyone has heard you?
Every version of you as a phase as if there’s any other way to live.

IX

The kiss

A greeting and a farewell.
A bird carrying a forget-me-not.
The ends only justify the means if you can prove with certainty that there is such a thing as an end.
Watch the traffic from the sidewalk of the roof.

X

the gift

That girl who knew what was in that box.
But she did open it of her own free will.
Make what you must with what you are given.
She watched the events idly once, inaction will not be a repeated mistake.

XI

the healer

Breaking something is one method to see what is inside.
Put it back together.
When you die, some version of the world ends.
Something poetic about a geode, only by holding it in halves
can you see what it’s made of

XII

The harp

The duality of storytelling.
You, the paper.
You, the tune.
You, the voice of the old woman as she speaks through the trees and lights flames in the minds of those who can hear her. The click of her teeth and the beat of her heart, and the origin of you and me.

XIII

The devil

The purpose of the story.
The caution in the cautionary tale.
The single point of darkness in a flurry of light to give context.
The ink to the paper, the lyric to the tune.
Of course he is smiling.

(c) kingcael 2025

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