by Sigrid E. Mortensen

© September 22, 2024

I want words

Rolling vowels ’round my mouth

Crunching consonants between back teeth

Alliterations skittering like skipping stones

Tripping off my tongue.

I want words

Sprouting from my ears

Vining through my brain

Weaving dense tangles

Nonsensical in the tendrils but revelatory in the thicket

Each thread the messenger

The entire tapestry the message.

I want words

Dripping from my fingertips like water

Tap

Tap 

Tapping on the keyboard

Each quiet click rousing the

Tick

Tick 

Tick of Grandma’s knitting needles.

Words 

Flowing through my fingers like yarn

Loops and chains tugging knots from skeins

Insisting

Commanding

Patiently coaxing.

Where stern and loving intersect

Chaos must yield to order

Entropy must abate

Bashful droplets wooed closer

Closer still and

Now 

A cloud is forming

An heirloom emerges lofty strong

A memory endures to drape its warm embrace 

Around the shoulders of future generations.

I want words 

Laboring like supernovas

Bellies growing then

Collapsing in upon themselves to cook the elements

Hotter

Denser

Before calving them into space

Hurling infant spawn into the void

Not knowing where they’ll land.

These words

Spiraling like galaxies

Spewing creations into nothingness 

Photons into darkness from outstretched 

Dervish arms

Her head thrown back

Laughing

Whirling

Laughing

Whirling

Her soul’s rebirth 

A mere breath

From madness.