I hear your hands unshackle my
heart from its drawstring purse ;;
shake out the bees
in my leftover knees and
carry me out into the light again –

here I twist my spine into a straw
to slurp up
the golden air of what you tell
me is a new day

here this little blushing bundle of
nerves pulls itself out of the cataclysm;
brushes itself out of the mossy
overgrown trunks of trees gone by ;;
ages left dry and pages left scratchless /
here I ratchet towards something
you tell me to trust:
the breeze; or the new sun;
or the way the light is coming
from the sun – you tell me to believe
it’s coming from the sun and not from the moon
and I learn to believe
that it is anything less than starlight
filtered through the endless canopy
of green (now yellowed at the edges)
now fall falling through it
slowly
tenderly
like a wish
like a tenderness I do not deserve

# # #

Lauren Suchenski has a difficult relationship with punctuation and currently lives in Yardley, PA. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize as well as twice for The Best of the Net and her chapbook Full of Ears and Eyes Am I is available from Finishing Line Press. You can find more of her writing on Instagram @lauren_suchenski or on Twitter @laurensuchenski or laurensuchenski.com

Photo: Malte Wingen