the truth about darkness (homage to Billy Ray Belcourt and his numbered poems)

1. re-occurring nightmares about monsters in cellars with no ladders indicates deep, hidden secrets
2. the deeper the secret, the more painful the removal – like a jagged, rusted storm drain pipes through the middle of one who happened to be in the wrong time at the wrong place
3. the rest of the world speaks in joyful whispers, gifting balms of prayers to wounded souls, so the frayed edges of those Hiroshima fingerprints cool enough to allow others to touch us
4. new siblings bring so many headaches….like the many, many, many moves made so dad could work those gypsum – dust jobs he chased so we could eat
5. those voices in my head were not demons, like my grandmother said. The world chose me as their mediary and I promised to honour them by doing the best job I could. Ask my “invisible friend” Arthur (who turned out to be a dead relative from the Great War).

those early days were not so bad,

between the live in aunts and uncles

and short distances to Granny’s house,

I had joy sometimes, too.

(c) r. l. elke