2008
Time is a canvas of two cloths,
One white as light,
And one black as night.
Time can heal,
but it also ravages, and leaves scars.
It never rests as it seeks
an unsuspecting bride
to wear its strange fabric.
To some it is often kind and protective;
To others it can be vicious,
and cruel.
It leaves no one unclothed.
Unkept and wild
the field of time
propagates dainty flowers
and tasty berries and weeds
and children born.
There grows
golden wheat-like grasses
with seeds of sharpened needles
and barbs that lodge themselves beneath skin.
Thorny creepers grow that stretch and twist and tangle in the cloak of night
where they await the unsuspecting.
Red dirt hints at hell openings into which wanderers fall
and from which demons rise
populating the hairy folds of buds that vaguely mask
their monstrous intent.
Forewarned, an unbeknownst bride
entered the field
compelled by the lure of golden beauty,
yet she would not go there unless something in her stirred.
There she suckled the breast fruit
of milk weeds that yield pernicious nectar,
bleeding innocence she was transfused with poison and burning liquids.
Wild fields are like time itself,
always changing and transforming those who pass through it.
She emerged with a perky and sweet demeanor,
wearing a dress patterned in lavender and yellow iris,
carrying colorful flowers and even bolder weeds,
their large leaves hiding shameful secrets.
Her delicate hands proudly held the bouquet.
Yet something inside her wondered—
what was the purpose of the picking?
Her voice was resonant with the raspy chorus of
shadowy demons from below,
speaking in unison but conflicted in tone.
She was unaware,
When she spoke,
something dark and foreign revealed itself.
Looking left and right,
it snickered and sneered and babbled
then returned inside,
to wreak havoc
in her mind.
The twisted dark dwells within her.
Yet, a child, she is the bride of time,
a sapling burnt
by the hot sun and the frigid night.
She has two faces and three names.
Her faces are sweet, and scary;
her names are Addiction, Insanity, and Lost—
all of which afflict her,
none of whom she really is,
if she only knew it.
