In Her Flight

An owl visited me last night
A spotted eagle owl Sat on my balcony
While I was gathering scraps of my heart
In my bed

It hooted at me
Clucked
Looking lost, out of place

I opened the door to let it in
But it stayed outside
Where it was safe
Watching me

I collected my fingers:
I had sent them wandering
Looking for my heart.

I phoned you,
Told you about the owl

“what does it want?” you said
I had no words to answer

You felt her in the owl.

In its wings, found her flight
Where she had taken the first jump off the chair

In the possibility of flight, movement
Where her feet had just been left treading air

In it’s hoot, you heard her voice
Where her broken neck had swallowed her goodbyes

“Hello” you said to the owl
237 kilometres away

“I love you”
you said to the owl, to her

Me, a conduit for your love for her.

A dam, a holding cell, anything contained
I wanted the dam to burst to unleash my
Heart pieces
Unrestrained
In their grief
In their rage

“I love you.” I said

The owl flew,
Taking, in her flight, some of my grief
Some of my heart

my heart pieces clucked,
confusedly
to themselves
staying outside of me
outside of you
where it is safe

Privilege

I wish you had been harder on us
That you had expected as much from us as you did
From others

I don't know how
There had been so much blood
Most of it was not ours

I wish you had been as hard on us
As you were on your people
Asking them to forgive

I wish you had asked us more
That we
We had done more

That we had shown we were worthy of being forgiven
That is was not so easy for us now
To say thank you
To call you Tata

To say thank you for allowing us to keep our privilege

continental drift

You are moving away from me

Millimeter by millimetre

Breath by breathe

We started with your breath on my cheek

Your ancestors speaking stories

Of soil

Of home

      where we could go

Your breath became so

Hot it

Burned

Me

 Disgusted me with its history smell

Until my nose became accustomed

Entwined

Then your breath was

On my lips

It was your body that spoke to me

Of urgency

Of penetration

Scars, birth and

Somehow (because you are this way)

Stars

Your breath was on my neck

As we looked out together

Behind infront behind

Your breath on my hands as

We scrabbled to pull each other up

Off the ledge

(invisible ledges the other cannot see

So tangled by fear of loss)

Now we are sitting across from each other

In front of this chasm

I can no longer feel your breath

I have no power over this continental drift

Trusting the sky

I am practicing my run ups 

These chasms are too wide to step 

But I must get across 

I must 

The sun is calling me

And the corals,

The fishes in the 

Eventual sea 

So I am practicing my run ups

How wide I can stretch, 

How high 

One day 

(soon) 

I will close my eyes and jump 

And fly 

(trusting that the sky sees me

Safe

Across 

Knowing my movements, my hesitations 

In that moment where I may freeze 

And fall) 

peeling

I am peeling 

My arm, that I cooked with bio-oil,

(trying to remove scars)

Was tanned brown for a

Day

Now it is peeling: new pink skin

Under the flakes.

The same as the rest of me

Burnt

Trying to remove our scars

I am been walking around red

Hot and aching.

Now things have cooled

The burn has settled

And I am peeling

New pink growth coming out underneath.

flame fingers (white hot in the hurtcentre)

Right now
I am an unfocused
Blowtorch

I turned myself up and up
So that you would feel me

You went farther and farther
Away

Until my flames couldn't
Even touch your fingertips
Couldn't even kiss the back
Of your neck as
You look away from me
To planets that
I can't see

(Whose names trip
My tongue because
They are not my clan
Name)

In your absence
I burned harder,
White hot in the hurtcentre,
Orange tendrils reaching
Out to find you and,
Finding not you, to
Hold anyone they touch.

But my tendrils are
Still flames;
The harder I grasp
The more they burn

People are, maybe,
Initially attracted to the heat,
They step closer wanting
To warm their cheeks.
When they see how ready
I am to engulf them

(To burn them up
Because they
Are not you)

They step quickly
Back opting for
Less intense
More predictable less
Deadly heat.

I will take myself up to
The top of a mountain
With oxygen to feed my flames
And space to spit my hurt
And stars to dance with
Stars to stretch my flame fingers out
To
To hold

Stars that will not run away

Up to the seaweed sky

Up to the seaweed sky
(Thank you to Ruthieheart
And the Heyns family for seaweed in the sky)
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"Choose," he said, "Magic or safety?"
she smiled.
"I choose Sky" she said,
"and Strelitzias"

Sky fish (plum-coloured triggers, crimson-breasted clowns) and
sea birds (Picasso waxbills, teardrop-butterfly kites) in the starcloud
sea

 "Choose," he said, "Tomorrows or yesterdays?"
she twirled.
 "I choose Pink" she said,
"and circles"

Water trees (jacaranda necklace and fever kelp) and
 Cloud corals  (stag-horn cumulus and great-star cirrus) in the tidepulled
sky

"Choose," he said, "Hope or truth?"
She glowed.
"I choose Silence" she said,
"and openings"

Seabed flowers (pebble snowdrops and volcanic chrysanthemums) and
Precipitation molluscs (hail oysters and mist ammonites) in the moon-wrapped
sea

"Choose," he said "Forward or roots?"
She floated.
"I choose Up" She said
"And angels"

She floated Up
And

Up

Through the seaweed sky.