One Pen

Christie Wong

It was dangerous that she only brought one pen today.

Her words were spilling all over the place,

Sloshing around like a bucket on a sea side drive.

She’s died before, but never like this:

Explosions of dreamscapes,

Images and words she could not even pick up.

It wasn’t a magical harvesting of strawberry fields or sweet frolicking in lavender.

It was a haphazard peeling of rocks from a cliff,

Dripping like graffiti pellets from the sky.

It was going to crush her, and then it did --

Crumpled up like sandcastles folding in the rain, and blooming free again.

She died, then she lived.

Ever more lightly,

Ever so whimsically,

Into the next landscape.