A Prairie on Fire
I used to attend controlled burnings back in the early 2010s. Watching yellow suit hicks in 4-wheelers set fire to an ocean of grass during the fall.
First October through December.
Then January and February, a month that ends on twenty-eight. Except on leap years.
A radio tower seized by a cursed dogwood.
A captive witness.
Ignorant from asphalt to forest, willingly ignored it all in my youth until I entered the sprawling carcass of Denver.
A mausoleum with more parking lots than people. Where steel and cement received the dark blessing of manifest destiny.
Once a man turns sand into glass, it becomes a mirror for birds to violently die on.
We made our way into Estes Park. Where I learned what true poverty was when removed from nature.
How powerless western psychoanalysis stands against The Natural Order.
I am stuck here.
In words and stories that mean nothing to anyone. The imaginary audience, a salt pillar for each eventuality, a costly gamble between the sidereal cartels that govern our fate.
Yet every day I still feel that fire in my bedroom, I see it every time I close my eyes. One weeping solid oaken angel blocking my door.
Down towards my feet now tied to the burning grass.
In between my toes, a Missouri Primrose.
Only then, it is understood.
The Natural Order
What you truly yearn for is the same sleep of the cicada. Sixteen years in the soft earth.
No till could take away your home.
Cruelty made a phantom.
Waking up to a child piercing your thorax.
If they still did that. Some callous miasma took them away.
You twitch under the wavy plastic bed of a shoe.
The alchemists struggle to find that precious stone.
Gold inlaid between the broken remnants of Promise Absolute.
The hand of sin that swirls our gentle marrow violates The Natural Order.
The weeping sun of a thousand mothers.
A broken mausoleum of memory.
Every hand cut off after the instant of objection.
One darkened star of oblivion orbiting around your ruined temple. A herald of The Last Court of Time and Judgement.
The Last Court of Time and Judgement
O’struggler, hear the verdict of the first deathless stars.
Who watched a million souls vanish into entropic darkness.
What strength is enough to contain this tragedy?
The burden one inherits is a great contempt that ruptures mountaintop and seabed.
Your brittle nails stuck at the back of your throat.
A hostage of historical victors who bled the horses dry.
What remains in your eyes are addictions nullified at the touch from the immateria.
Between form and time,
the ichor of reality worn,
polished to a dark stone at this invitation.
— Michael Edward Díaz has been writing for 15 years. Lives in Philadelphia and learned English from playing Metal Gear Solid on PS1.