Roses and Honey

Tread gently the path of roses and honey—what freedom do I have to offer you?I hold on, I’m called on, but I’m too heavy

Lift with your back, no one will notice,no one can see your sad and bad thingswhen you’re speeding down the highwayLeave them all behind, leave them far behindand let me come home, wherever that is

The night we met, death was closingIllness overwhelmed rotting muscle and tissueI told you, don’t let me down slowly—if you don’t know me, you can let me go soberinto the wild overgrowth

But I scribbled your name on the back of an envelope,translated the word deliberately—can I be closeto you? Do you not make it sweeter, that which ismortified? I don’t know how to stand,but I fall beautifully

Stay with me.

Am I not here?

Stay with me, in my sleep, in all my fallibledays. Walls sound strange, they mess with mein my resistance to suffering, in my lukewarmsalute to neurodiversity. I need to see for allthe miles, but the horizon is erratic

When everything is fair, lavendergrows in the cracks of my cerebrum, not onlydeepened by something so astonishingly outof place, but nurtured

The fire burns low and roses fall out of thecactus fiber. Don’t avert your eyes—they fall soft,I lean in soft, we walk soft into thesuffering. Now I can read what is beyond—shewrapped her veil around my pillowy dissertation,my patchwork frame

(my denial bathed three generations)

Allow this dewy benediction—prepare the lambsto bare the cross upon thepath of roses and honey

Now go home.