Low ambient interference,
Tooth throb eclipsed by metered mental ache,
Sweating stupor,
Sluggish dream.
I revert to the elemental longing
And call out my grandma from the dead.
She is the constant hum
behind my left ear.
Not my conscience;
those were invented by frustrated mothers and fathers.
She is an at will hallucination of balance,
Originating and existing like earthworms
That spend entire generations
Underground
With their minerals and roots
Without the yellow sun
to tempt undeveloped imagination
and inflict seasonal affectation.
She speaks grounded, from the ground
Consciousness stable in her earth without quakes,
Directing me to remember her last words to me.
And I recall her sweating and frail
Twisted in hospital bed sheets
Desperate to remind me
To water the earth that holds us.
And now her voice is as forceful as her character
Like the gods we knew.
And I’m confused by
The unemoted sympathy.
“Am I still your granddaughter?
I know I put on layers of facades since you died but
It’s still me.
No one else but me and you can help me right now.
And right now, my self hypocrisy is burning through me
Like caustic acid.
And I keep getting knocked over
When I try to run.
And I keep getting up and my mouth keeps forcing cracking smiles
When my own body tells me to stay down
And listen to the ground.”
And my grandma answered,
“Your pain is beside the point;
Your pretentions are irrelevant;
Your shift change amusing but insignificant.
It’s of little consequence what you or your species stands for.
Your representations are presumptious and your whimsies, capricious.
You ignorantly mistake the rare come-by disillusionment for wives’ tales.
Your fears are dragonflies twirling toward death by bewilderment.
But don’t pretend to me that you don’t know what you are
And why you called me out.
In this inverted dimension,
You are me
And we are both composed of ancient elemental stardust.
Never let anyone convince you that you are insignificant;
You are the infinite universe and all that is in it.”
