first commit

poetry/o/october-7-2018.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,83 @@
+october 7, 2018
+2018-10-07
+
+***
+
+I woke up early this morning
+and there was nobody alive.
+The entire campus dead,
+little more than the ghostly shell of a bee hive.
+
+I walked to the cafe (and back,
+for they weren't open yet.)
+Half an hour to kill,
+and not a single soul I met.
+
+Solitude sudden and bizarre,
+like a movie about an apocalypse.
+Sky bleak and dismal:
+my future: a possible glimpse.
+
+As the day went on, more and more people came into view.
+Just sleeping, hearts brand new.
+
+After lunch, I decided to get lost.
+Not in the police-get-involved sense, which I'd dreamed about the night
+prior,
+but a simple walk to the arboretum,
+searching for a sense of a higher power.
+
+Throughout my life, I've been in several almost-cults.
+To reality, each a grave insult.
+
+I found a nice bench to sit on, far from the beaten path.
+I wrote for a while, but then several students walked by, gossiping
+about other students being whores.
+I got pissed- not outwardly, of course- and took a wrong turn-
+and then suddenly thought, "I don't think I'm on campus anymore."
+
+Sprawling fields of what once was prairie,
+long grass stretching as far as the eye could see.
+On the other side, a few scattered buildings,
+each one calling out to me.
+
+The same spirit as the one from the old trainyard
+when I was but six years old,
+pleading with me to abandon my father
+and get lost forevermore.
+
+I turned and left and found another bench,
+this one covered with moss.
+I took my laptop back out and continued to write
+and thought about last week's loss.
+
+The definition of catastrophe,
+a great deal of people I thought were friends leaving me,
+and a sudden unwanted sense of what it meant to be a refugee.
+
+The group of people came back my way again,
+so I abandoned my bench and took back to the path.
+Ten minutes of walking later, and I re-found
+the old tree swing, upon which I sat.
+
+It was the swing from new student orientation,
+where I swung from tulip-planting to midday,
+when the student leaders found me and walked me around the campus
+and then sent me on my way.
+
+A wind picked up, and I zipped my coat shut.
+A biker zoomed by, and almost fell in a rut.
+
+I write this poem for the simplest of lives,
+for the people alienated from the land.
+That I soon remember fully what it means to be me,
+and that I soon find a helping hand.
+
+But, like so many dandelion seeds,
+I now scatter to the wind.
+You may take my name and my life,
+but my legacy, I will not rescind.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/o/old-bunk-house.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+an old bunk house built for two
+2020-01-23
+
+***
+
+your love is a rain-soaked roof
+sheltered and framed by trees as proof
+that the forest still sees you as one of its own
+the throned cabin you rest upon
+
+you've been vacant of human attention for years
+and your water pipes have dried up, and so have your tears
+vines laced with emerald, envy creeping up your spine
+choking the life and the love that I used to call mine
+
+your mouth opens, inviting inside
+the animals seeking shelter to hide
+but the mold has settled deep in your bones
+so the animals leave, disgusted; you sit there alone
+
+eventually the rot will reach your mind too
+and not even sun's gentle touch will be able to soothe,
+outstretched in good grace with gentle cleansing in tow,
+the corpse of a heart that once so violently glowed
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/o/one-less-box.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+One Less Box
+2021-07-17
+
+***
+
+For five years,
+I was a chalice
+full of malice
+and tears
+as I tried to suss out a gender.
+Am I fluid?
+Am I two or three?
+Am I even part of the binary?
+Or shall I eschew the glass,
+pack it up and address it
+to the person who knew me last,
+label: return to sender?
+
+The more time I spend alone,
+the more unnecessary it feels
+to keep others in the know,
+the more I realize I'd rather keep,
+not concealed,
+but not subjected to the public's heat.
+
+The more time I spend in solitude,
+the more I feel gratitude
+towards past me
+for only having "come out" to two or three
+with no proclamation,
+no decree
+of new name and pronouns
+to accomodate my long-sought androgyny.
+
+Maybe the reason
+why I wished others would perceive
+me as nonbinary
+was so that they'd see
+me not as female
+but as human.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/o/oracle.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+ORACLE
+2020-11-01
+
+***
+
+a hand reaches out
+through the sands of time
+and you know not how
+or even a why
+
+but some long-unsettled
+beast prowls in your chest
+and you take the hand wary
+at its fervent behest
+
+and it pulls you through Void
+metaclysma, Abyss
+a sun-sunken world
+veiled by delicate mist
+
+there on the cliffs
+Kidasuna stands
+and asks you to hold out
+your scar-laden hands
+
+a book with torn pages
+and sentences severed
+paper edges curling from
+exposure to harsh weather
+
+who was I before the pangs
+of my malformed heart?
+who was I before the world
+deigned to tear me apart?
+
+the future is hazy
+like our surroundings
+and she cannot discern
+what lies ahead.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander