The Sound of Ink

My wings are feathers of ink and pages, spines of titles, wonders that form from every sentence and exclamation.  In late autumn’s  storm of leaves I will be your umbrella so you won’t feel their tears. A thousand clipped blossoms spilled across the sand from an open car door. I suppose someone thought it was romantic, a gesture to awe a heart. In the dust mirror of summer all I could see was a garden grieving it could no longer hear the honeybees. Winter watches from the horizon. It’s barren antlers of oak limbs writing gothic poems across brittle grass that can longer feel the color of green.  He tossed his hat into the wind trusting fate had a warm heart. Silly man never considered fire takes a spark, not a sliver of ice.  If I lit a candle for each of my mistakes, I’d have every bridge burned before I could cross it.  open me to ink there are a thousand stories buried on my tongue ©Susie Clevenger 2024 Word Crafters Prompt  

She sits on my shoulder,  a feathered sage whispering to my dreams about a tomorrow I can’t see and doors yet to be open. With the gentle touch of my hair resting against her owl feathers I feel the caress of angels who  watch from Capricorn’s moon, and loneliness feels less empty. Outside my window trees write their wind stories across the glass. Without a sound the owl stirs  the silence with its wings. Within me the knowing forms, it is time for her to leave to write her own page in the journal of midnight. ©Susie Clevenger 2024  

I’m a dandelion seed, an astronaut trying to find home in a world that views me as a weed. Among the thistles of human judgement a free spirit is labeled hostile to the maintenance of status quo. Different is called demon, a light to be extinguished, a disruption  in the religion of forced definition.  ©Susie Clevenger 2024

Sylvia Path 1932-1963 Dead Grass It is agony to feel irrelevant.  I wonder if the earth swallowed me  anyone would worry I was gone or be more concerned about why the grass won’t grow any more.  Walking Dead The sun on my arms feels lonely. As much as I hunger for light my spirit has grown too comfortable with shadows. I’m the walking dead, a candle without a match. Blind Paper I beg ink for something to say. The blind eye of white paper frightens me. So Many Crossroads I took a long walk out of my mind. Insanity had so many crossroads I could never find my way back to me. ©Susie Clevenger 2024  

My mom says my imagination is too big. I should cut it into smaller pieces so the coloring book in my head can fit on the kitchen table. But how do I shrink the moon or turn a rainbow into ribbon when tomorrow seems a year away? I never fit where I am or reach where I want to go. Chairs are uncomfortable, shoes keep my feet from feeling the grass, and every time I see a butterfly I know one day I’ll have wings. Mom can’t hear the dandelions or hold a spoon against the window to catch drops of sunlight before night covers it with stars.  I don’t think I ever want to grow up. I’d be too bored. Where would I put my teddy bears when my bed is nothing but an ocean of pillows? Susie Clevenger 2024  What's Going On? ~ Children   Susie Clevenger 2024

I wonder if my legacy will merely be a faint light in the peripheral vision of a passer’s eye or a shadow figure of a memory, the name on the tip of a tongue one can’t seem to form.   No matter how many letters I write to my ten-year-old self she doesn’t seem to trust she will ever be first in line because she’s been taught, she’s supposed to be last.   I am beginning to understand why I’ve always been in love with dandelions. They are petaled, defiant sunlight thriving where nothing else can.     ©Susie Clevenger 2023