"Kyrielle for Bonnie and Clyde" by Naomi Jean Lewis

He laughs out loud with eyes of stars

His heart tattooed with jagged scars

He smiles at me, like Hell-fire bright

We drive on through the moonless night

Fighting and swerving on the road

Weary-souled, but we keep our load

Highbeams fly by with fading light

We drive on through the moonless night

Bullets with our names, carved in deep

We flee on to our bandit’s keep

Escaping home; we nuzzle, bite

We drive on through the moonless night

Happiness is your hand, my gun

Baptized in blood, we became one

Our stolen car rumbles with might

We drive on through the moonless night

No place is safe from hired men

Like Daniel in the lions’ den

We’re on the run in constant flight

We drive on through the moonless night

Two sinners’ souls, ‘neath the sky

We won’t say, “no” and won’t say, “bye”

Together our burden is light

We drive on through the moonless night

"Sink or Swim" by Naomi Jean Lewis

darling girl, o lover mine, you are a lighthouse and i will forever throw myself against your rocks. let me scale your mountainous defenses- let me ruin my hands trying to climb to your face. let me sink into the ocean around you as i attempt to swim to your side. hear me howl to the waning moon to sing out your name: hear me crying out to you to make you realize i will never leave you. hear me screaming to you, fighting to let you know that you will never be alone. let me drown in your depths and sink forever. permit me, sweetest one, to sink into your black. let me drown.

let me sail a skipper deftly around your rocks once i have regained my footing in the sea. let me learn your crags and crevices. allow me to become familiar with the sharp pointy parts of your soul. sing to me your siren’s song so that i might find you, wherever you hide. if you sit in the crow’s nest of a sunken ship, i’ll swim down to you to be your first mate. if you slumber in the tower of a lighthouse by the sea, call down to me from up above and i’ll take the stairs at a run, skipping every other in my haste to reach you.

my life means nothing to me- i would lose it again and again to be the arms wrapped around you. let the salty sea warp the wood of my sailor’s hands, and let the ropes burn across my palms as storms rip them from me.

i would go down with this ship to let you know that i’m here for you. two boats, side by side, sinking through the gentle water to greet each other at the end of all things, at the bottom of  the bottomless ocean. hold my hand as we float into the sand. your childlike excitement in the discovery of undersea mountains ranges, longer and larger than any you ever had to scale in life, is all the excitement i could ever need.

allow me to be everything you need- tell me what you desire, lover, and i will rip myself apart to give it to you. i would usurp poseidon in all his glory if you desired a kingdom. i would tear the coast from this country if you desired a seaside home.

tell me what you need, o darling girl, and i will provide.

let me protect you from the storms, from the waves, from the sea itself. let me shelter you in my arms, little bird.

let me be the ocean to cover you gently when you need to wash yourself clean.

let me hold you up when you are weary.

choose not between the devil and the deep blue sea.

take my hand and i’ll row us away, two souls under the flawless sky.

“sink or swim?” you ask me, every time the wind leaves our sails.

for you, i would fight my my own fate; i would go sword to sword against heaven or hell.

“sink or swim?”

i promise you this above all things:

i will always cradle your face in my hands and whisper,

“swim.

swim, my love.

we will always

swim.”

"Open Roads" by Naomi Jean Lewis

The road stretches before us with no end in sight.

Trucks rumble behind me, and other families with other stories drive on far ahead.

The speed limits are higher than I’m used to seeing

But I don’t drive the speed limit at home anyway.

I fall in love with golden fields and open skies as my sister falls asleep.

Her cowboy hat hangs behind her and her snowboard slides on the backseat.

She’s still asleep when I drive past the first few wind turbines.

            Hey, Kristen, I say, shoving at her shoulder

            Look at this.

            That’s cool, she says back, and closes her eyes again.

I keep driving, and the turbines keep coming.

The engine growls louder as I coax Ellie

(My sister’s name for the black Honda Element, not mine)

Up a hill and over a crest

            Kristen.

Displayed before me is a sea unlike any I’ve seen.

Giant white monsters rear their heads.

Thousands and thousands of wind turbines dot the golden fields.

They’re not packed tightly but everywhere I look they stand tall.

            Kristen. I don’t know why I need her to see this,

But there’s something about powerful entities

Resting like remnants of another world in the middle of America.

            Kristen, please.

Kristen is awake now, watching the army of turbines stand at attention.

She doesn’t say anything, but I know she feels the same way I do.

We pay tribute to the newly created gods of the earth in silence.

We soar down the road at a speed that makes me feel invincible.

We pray for something we can’t put a name to.

 I drive with one hand wrapped around the wheel and the other on the gearshift.

The turbines don’t stop coming- there are more on the other side of the road.

The sun setting behind them blinds me as the light sets the world aflame.

(They look like angry deities, standing in the midst of Armageddon)

As the sun dips behind the plains, the turbines become barely visible.

(People have forgotten the old myths they used to fear)

The monolithic, man-made creations vanish as fast as they appeared.

My sister goes back to sleep.

We have four more hours before we can stop.

(Although the turbines still exist, miles away, they are gone from our minds.

They were never an army. There was only a cemetery the an empty field.)

(We forget that we have always created our own gods.)

"I was Born" by Naomi Jean Lewis

I was born

            I was born

                        I was born with darkdarkdark circles under my eyes and an answer on my tongue

            I was damned from the first time I heard the word “Deadline”

            I was damned from the first time I heard the word “Due date”

                       

                        D is for the grade I don’t allow myself to bring home

            D is for diving, which hails the start of breathing again

D is for dumb dumb dumbdumbdumbdumbdumb

No. I’m not. Delete that thought, turn the page and try again-

                        C is for crimson pen slashes on math tests that I can’t bring home

            C is for careful, tiptoeing around my parents

C is for cheerleading, my release and adopted family

B is for ‘Be All You Can Be!’

            B is for be better, be better, be best

                        B is for Believing that there was nothing else

                       

                        A is for Achievement! A is for Achievement!

           

            A is for always tired,

                         always aching,

                         always alone.

A is for almost done.