Shaking Leaves

Mercè Alegre Bastida

1 

Shaking leaves        grey  

Corpses from today 

Sky envelopes wrapping dry sounds 

Adjusting to time 

Present down 

2 

A little mantis rubbed her knees against each other                  

Dusty lizards ran away 

My legs prayed to god  

Sunshine and yarrow 

3 

Geography of the scars  

White birch  

Sandy bark 

4 

I am heavy with rocks  

Pregnant with dust & bones  

Sparks of ghosts 

5 

Dehydrated self-love 

Like orphan almonds without rain 

Consumed by wrinkles & bitterness 

6 

(prayer to the shower) 

What I swallowed lives in me 

Open my throat & my heart  

With your surgeon cyan hands 

Empty my chest full of garbage 

Please, deliver me        from myself  

7 

Pain is sound-muted     like a star 

8 

How do you clean up fear, shame, rage and sadness?   

How do you clean up the wounds when there is no blood? 

How do you clean up a story that is not even yours? 

9 

Vacuum the house 

Dust the baseball statuettes 

Rearrange your fears into crystal waves 

10 

The test on the internet says: moderate depression 

It doesn’t mean anything to me 

So I continue to vacuum & dust 

11 

I dream of happiness pills administered by god

12 

We found a dead snake in the garden  

Boneless body, no head     decapitation of the dream

13 

The sound of a train passing by 

Sprays the valley with the echo of an old promise 

The smoky breath of the machine 

Hollows me 

Trains are industrial cows, constantly moving

Calling their lost child 

14 

Be the road, disappear in it 

Become concrete, cement, granite 

A dense stray of madness through the holes of the earth 

Be a slow snail  

Be part of something bigger than you 

Something that accepts any kind of shape 

Texture and color of yours          something that simply 

Accepts your whole you being you  

Something that emancipates your ugliness & flaws 

From shame  

15 

Anxiety pokes me with its cold wires 

Colorful clothes are my second (artificial) home                                                                                       

I am a hard house to inhabit

16 

I will plant my pain in the garden

17 

Crescent moon, blooming daffodils 

In light blue orange glazed beads  

Gone blind

18

Clean nostalgia with a kitchen wiper 

Put your soul in the dishwasher  

Let it run through the whole sanitizing program  

Grasp the angle of the wall 

List: what makes you feel safe, protected, accepted and loved?

19

The lunch in the Tupperware steams the caged shape of the container                         

I want to learn how to digest the lightening & all its spiky clouds

20

Blood: disrupted vision of a woman 

Floating alone

21

He sings while I cry 

A flock of crispy branches in my throat 

Like something got broken or so 

22

Dis-functions occur, two electric poles collapse 

The sun takes away my words       the light cuts my body in half  

I bleed transparently all over the plants

23 

The comedian wears a glittery cream on his face  

I want to shine but I have nothing interesting to say

24 

Are my lungs a summer prairie or an ocean?  

Are my hands deep wells or frigid stones?  

Will my face open up & convert into a window? 

25 

The sky & the earth were meeting like a supernatural sandwich & I was the cheese in between 

26 

Parking lots are romantic 

If you run in the night & open your arms  

You’ll become a hawk  

27 

Grass scrubs my thoughts

Robotic movements through my pores

Finger tips anointed with dark gold 

Chamomile pollenizes me  

With silk  

& joy 

28 

Solitude arises 

Like a solo pine tree song 

Breathe in, breathe out 

29 

Eat dandelions