This poem is the fifth one written for January 2010′s Read Write Poem Mini-Challenge (to write six poems about starting over in six days). For this, I went symbolic — the shaman, the myth of the Phoenix, and the concept of alchemy snuck into this poem. I hope you enjoy the read.
-Nicole
P.S. To see the other mini-challenge poems that I am writing this month, click here.
Note: You can listen to this poem on Podbean.
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This is how I work. First, I tell you about the
last time I journeyed into the nightmare, how the
sky hummed like it was going to seize me by the wrists
with lightning bolt hands and
shake me loose from my body. How it
shoved its face down to mine and threatened to shrink itself into
fuzzed rainbow serpents that would slide into every orifice, into
every pore. How it
demanded the right to divide in two and
wind up my spine in demented double-helix fashion and then
curl itself into a cosmoramic expanse, smoky-skinned and diamond-dotted,
inside of my neck. It would have been
a perfect replica of night itself, with
black zephyr pushing the air out of my trachea and
stars scratching their names into the walls of my throat,
ripping away tiny letter lines made of red velvet and
leaving blood monograms in their place. Next,
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