The Cave of Bone in the Riverbed

Dreaming of that face again.
The one I can put in my pocket.
The one I can carry in my heart.
Dreaming of that girl, no bigger than a leaf.
That tiny girl, who sleeps in a riverbed.
The one who has a waterbug as her best friend.
Her faded blonde hair, woven with dead twigs.
Her once vestal dress, water stained with pond scum,
and torn by bumblebees.
But those eyes could never be stained.
Those eyes, a roaring sky blue.
Every other day she goes searching,
and sometimes she finds the soul of another.
With the rain writing poetry in her cloudy eyes,
she pours herself into her fairytale life.
She cries aloud to the sun dripping in her sky,
"I feel like Peter Pan chasing his shadow,
but that stupid boy didn't know the difference
between the front and back of his hand."
She's tired,
weary,
sick of the same old shit.
So she hitches a ride home with a cricket.
She says "the ride was a bitch" to the waterbug
who blithely ignores her but leaves enough
hot water in the teapot.
Hugging the water instead of her as he
swims away.
She'd never admit that she didn't have a soul.
She'd never admit that she didn't have a home.
Admit that her heart won't stop bleeding from
the terrible space between her and the world.
And she'll never say that a leaf was bigger than her.
Funny, how she'd always bite me when I
tried to put her in my pocket,
when I tried to show her love.
Eventually she stopped coming to me,
stopped calling to me in her dreams,
But I still dream of that face...

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5 comments:

Eva said...

I love this one. I wish I had something more interesting to say, but I just love it.

MissCrystal said...

Thank you SO much just for taking the time to read it. Commenting is SUCH a plus! You have no idea how much it means to me.
I actually wrote this thinking about my baby sister.

Eva said...

Wow, interesting you say that. I just read it again and thought of my baby sister. There were a few years in there when she reminded me of the tiny girl in your dreams you talk about. It was a time I almost lost her. Is this sad? Are you still close? It sounds like you did loose her in the end, one way or another.

MissCrystal said...

It is so very sad! I hope you two are close again.
My baby sister and I are not. Unfortunately. We were inseparable our entire lives until I moved out. And we have not spoken this last time for over a year and a half. Hopefully more time will heal all that lies between us.

Eva said...

We are close again, but it took a lot of heartache to get there. I wish you the best, I know, nothing can replace her in your heart.