Miiyuboo's Sandbox

Memory.
The sounds of shrapnel raining down onto the field were a distant memory to him,
Yet the fragmented metal seemed close enough to touch.
He sat hunched on his mattress-
Staring at his hands.
His work worn , scarred knuckles.
These hands that had once held weapons.
These hands that had once passed judgement upon souls.

These hands had power behind them. Motive.
His brows knitted, and trouble settled in his chest.

It was so near he could hear it.
It was so palpable, the air smelt of smoke.
His chest tightened, and he found himself looking around his room.
It was dark. Quiet.
But he saw the faces. The vague memory of hot coals and fire lapsed across his vision,
And his throat felt tight with heat. Smoke.
He buried his face in his hands heavily, fingers knotting in his tousled brown hair as he struggled to contain himself.
It was so real he could feel it,
And yet it was further than he could reach.

The putrid ache in his legs. The rattle of crushed bullets falling onto the dirt. The acrid tang of blood.
His hands trembled. He was not sinless.

His stomach heaved. He was not alone,
For in his head lived ghosts. Ghosts of the past, and present. Memory he could not outrun.

The ugly memories of war were constant,
Preserved by a disfigurement of the skin.
His trembling hand raised to press against his scarred cheek, And he remembered the roaring flames, rising up like an ocean before him. Then, He remembered the choking smell of smoke and burning flesh.

He swallowed hard, And found himself running his hands hard through his hair, fighting for breath as a cold sweat broke upon his skin.

His body felt hot. Everything was getting too hot; Too loud.

Too unfamiliar.

His hands were foreign,
And the longer he thought- the worse they felt.
The familiarity of pulling a trigger was a gut wrenching recollection he couldn't shake.

He trembled , And soon he laid back against his mattress with a heaving breath.
His chest rose and fell as he fought to contain himself. Images flashed across his vision. Eyes of people long diseased. The toothy smiles of people long forgotten to history. The hands of children, grasping for help that never came.

Tears slicked his cheeks, And he found his head growing tight with pain.

However-
A familiar feeling jolted him from his trance.
Tiny hands balled upon his chest, and a voice mumbled out against the darkness.

" Are you okay? "

It had said.
Though his chest was tight with the effort of breathing,
And his hands shook, as he was rattled to his core;
He managed to take such small hands in his own.

" Now I am. "

He spoke gruffly. Slowly, As if he didn't believe it himself.
Though help never came for the figures that danced across his faltering vision,

It didn't mean that it didn't come for him. Recovery; Liberation wasn't such a foreign concept in war,
After all.

They laid upon his chest, then-
And he felt their small body settle.
He listened quietly as their breaths grew silent,
And the rattle and noise of bullets ebbed away,

Into a distant memory that was close,
Yet far enough to not reach.


FLOWER

I loved the smell

Of the meadow in spring.

The sky was alight

With laughter
And good cheer,

And my darling dear

Was beside me.

She smiled, And looked at me-
Amber eyes shining in the sun as she

Marveled at me,

Sunflower in hand.

She'd asked me;

" Do you still like yellow? "

And I had replied,

" Yes. "

And she had smiled wider,
The edges of her amber eyes crinkling
With laughter -
as she parted her pink lips

And laughed so softly,

My heart did a flutter
And I knew

That I loved her.

We stood in a meadow
Of sunflowers and daisies

The sunflowers growing tall
And the daisies growing lazy.

We had walked in that meadow
For a whole night

Before I got down on my knee
And asked if she would be mine.

And in this moment,
I would miss how she laughed.

How she looked at the world
As a brilliant shade of
Yellow
Color never being
Absent from her , Or light. 

We moved into a house
And we planted sunflowers

All around the house
and inside,

The more was better.

And one day,
I came home

But the sunflowers were

No longer yellow.

They were gray
Splattered with red

And my world seemed to shatter.

My heart stopped in my chest
And my eyes, They soon wandered

To a sinking
Of the garden

Where my beloved had wandered.

Upon her neck
Had been a gash

Her innards

Spilling out

Onto the daisies
And onto the yellow

Her life force
Dripping out.

She was pale as the sun

On that calm meadow day
Where I'd asked her if

She wouldn't mind if we'd stay

Together forever
Til God's grace we did pray
To separate and let us live
Apart, If it was great.

But now

The garden
We worked so hard for

Seemed barely
Enough to live for.

And I collapsed then,

Body among the sunflowers

Which hues of yellow,
Vibrant amber

Slowly faded
And mellowed.

There was no joy here now.

I no longer wished for the meadow.

For my darling dear was gone,

And so was the color yellow.


POTATO

What if
Life were not
The way we
Imagine it
To be ?

The blood
In our veins

Ceasing to exist ?

What if
Our insides were not soft

But hard ?

Could you imagine this ?

A world where

The insides of
Potatoes
Of starchy
Tubers
Were nothing more

Than our insides ?

What if

They were red
And I was white.

You'd bite into a potato

Craving the crunch

But all you got

Was a bunch
Of nerves
Soft organs
In your teeth

As ichor slowly streams
Down your chin

Onto your feet.

You'd smile though,

Recent killer

Because this plant
Was your most
Recent filler.

You smile , Baring canines

Stained red

And I wonder

Is this reality
Good, inside of your head ?

Where innards are outers,
And outers are inners

What seperates us

From these plants

But red ichor.


THE NOUN

you know that something is wrong
whenever the word chest
is no longer a body part

but a defect.

you know something is wrong
whenever your name
sounds distant.

you know something is wrong
whenever you look in the mirror
and see someone different

staring back.

you know something is wrong
whenever you're sitting there
on a summer afternoon
beside the pool-

your arms crossed hard over your chest as you stare into the water.

you search your friends faces,

is there anything that you missed?

you had worn this bathing suit hundreds of times,
why now had it felt awry?

why now had your stomach separated into a void,
longing to swallow up your fear
your confusion

at what this feeling was

as to why this felt so

wrong.

..

you found out
one night

while browsing for subjects ,

a term
stark and unfamiliar amongst the pixels.

dysphoria, noun.
feeling unfamiliarity , fear
course through your veins.

your eyes
they searched your monitor

reading
drinking up information

in some desperate attempt to

figure out what this was

why your breasts
unsettled you so.

and then
it hit you .

something was wrong.

something
that could only be described as

dysphoria.

noun.

MORNINGitalic text

It is dark.
There is a cold wind in the forest, The trees groan with age and their intimate wisdom is whispered beneath the conifers.
The shadows scurry from one trunk, to the next,

And the forest is rife with movement.

A traveler makes their way down the beaten path,
A road paved with broken slabs of pebbles and rocks

Branches and sticks from ancient guardians obscuring their trek as well.

But with sturdy steps and heavy boots, the lad continues their journey,
Raising a rough palm to their forehead as they stumble into uncertainty.

The forest is dark, and so is the world in which they stumble,
Their eyes squint against the dusk, In attempt to find their way among the rubble

But it appears that they have strayed far from the time worn path
Where other people's footsteps have carved out the land.

Their feet rested upon a bank of sod ,
One hard and compact -
Before they kept on going,
Onward and on pace.

It was their purpose to be here, You see

They had been chosen to be here
On the circumstance that they might be free
Of shackles and burdens from their life in the city

And for this to be possible
They must simply

Become lost .
They wander
And they wander

Until they reach a tall mountain
And at its base, sits a cave
Worn, And time eroded.

Lichens cling to the stones outside this den, And creeping vines claw the rocks and dirt below.
And from inside, A dark figure does show.

It creeps out into the darkness,
Lumbering with age, gnarled like an oak
And it lowers its graying muzzle so that they might see its face.

It is canid, With time wrinkled eyes -
Squinting optics focusing on them, to bask them in warm light.

It parts its maw to breathe,
A dusty, long sigh
The smell of many moons wafting about the sky.

The old guardian, It eyes you softly

Before it speaks without moving,
" What are you seeking? "

The traveler relents, Staring at this deity
Their eyes, they scan its jowels,
Their hands they clench their jacket.

They exhale, A trembling, small breath
Before they speak,
Closing the gap
Between canid, and thee.

" I seek to be free. "

The young voice whispers,
And then it repeats loudly from behind
In the shape of murmurs .

The life of the forest
It is watching now
As their guardian, their deity

Leans down to speak to them.

Its brows furrow as it beheld them,
Warm, crinkled eyes narrowing before it grumbled , Slowly raising itself above the weary child.

" So it shall be. "

It bellows ,
And raises a massive hoof
To solve the fellows seeking

To end the qualm they had with life
As soon as it had come

A blunt shape streaking down,

And then the forest was done.

Morning had come, And dusk was no more

And the life of the forest had drained
Once more.

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