It was madness, Beth. I’m telling you it was madness – you, who know better than anyone what Euan’s obsession did to him. What it did to all of us.  

I am a new beast now.
Claws, teeth, the rotting stink of bygone meals;
they are gone.
I am a new beast now. 

in the aftermath of some destructive force
the way the violet-blue clusters of buds bob
and weave on the end of their slender stems,
touched by an invisible breeze you can’t feel. 

You are welcome
to look inside
this home

but not to enter.

The birds disappeared
one day, skies growing 

quiet, eerie. Failing to notice
the way songs were traded 

Now that you are ash with an unlisted number, I’ll call you forever
What of the blooms of life that March has promised to the rain

My life is the first fifteen minutes of a horror movie. Those few moments while the world seems linen-fresh normal, but you’re really just waiting for shit to go bad --