the new dance

My gods are changing shape. They are distorted and bent. But what did I expect? Creation is not a straightforward business, and the dance is a dance of chaos and hunger. Crazed, staggering and limping around in a circle. Some would not call it dance, maybe. Just because there are no steps.

Here are the real gods. They’ve stepped down from their jewel thrones and are walking in dirt, cast off their silver, they trample the flower offerings and rip meat off bones with their nails.

I promised the old gods my eyes, my heart, my feet. But when the upright gods started to melt into dancing demons they ate everything and ran away.
They forgot that they’d promised me something back.

It was strange at first, seeing the empty idols. Rigid stone cannot contain sparks and flames. I tried to call them back with flowers and songs. After a while, I understood that they’d just gone.
Then the dream came, showing me what my gods had become, carrying caged mice on their heads. And I saw them again, later, and I wasn’t sleeping.

Now I'm not lost anymore. I smile and bare my teeth. The gods don’t know about my dream. Now I don’t sleep anymore and time is expanding. I am not chasing anymore, I am in the dance, I am at war. There is no difference. There is no difference between them and me. I will get back what is mine, if I have to rip it off of them.

roots

It had to be a grey ox to bring me the snake. Grey ox with liquid eyes. Bending down over every coil, shadow, scale. And as the snake was winding around my arm, dancing with my skin, I could feel it vibrate in my womb. Low. Where my roots should be, that I've so missed.

They're growing now, the roots, filling the void, nourishing and strengthening. Deep roots, so I can reach the skies.

Now the snake's changing skin. Blue scales of water and turquoise, he leaves them all around the house. Pick them up before my parents see. Hide them.

The last phase. My dream is on my skin and it vibrates, alive. Old skin falling, under the old skin he's shiny black scales and flitting muscles of water and mud. And fire eyes.

So for me. Losing my skin, healing, changing. Where is my blood? When the old blood falls, like the old skin, there'll be nothing left. The snake on my arm is the snake in my womb. Water and water. Viscous blood. Onyx black and red as the red earth.

(07-09)