I’ve never lived in homes with ceilings low,
breathing on me
like the open windows don’t belong
within the walls;
they’re too stumped,
buckling,
falling,
pressing.
I live now in an old apartment
and it seems like yesteryears were full of people like me
who didn’t want buckling walls ,
let tall lovers graze their homes with no apprehension,
believing in the power and beauty of them high ceilings:
untouchable bases of everyday living,
a space that lets you move.
It lets you explore.
It lets you jump.
Jump because I jump sometimes
in joy,
I shoot up when someone tickles me
an involuntary happiness that I can’t contain
it just spills and reaches out of my body.
I shoot.
Shoots, yes.
I want a lot of them, green from the top
hanging from my indoor skies,
vines filling for the veins of the walls,
pots and plants scaling my thoughts,
upright striving
and a safe space for their flowers to bloom.
I love high ceilings and I can’t lie,
not in houses alone
nor at work or that breakfast diner on my street
but at the psychiatrist’s office
or that bar that was once a bank
and in funeral homes.
The soul needs space to leave that body,
an outworn piece of clothing
the music needs to bounce,
it needs to echo, to want to dance in the presumed void;
it lets me dance with my beloved I bring home
and should he want to carry me high up
straddle my soul on his hips,
breasts at his lips
I want nothing to touch, no ceiling to hold on to
except the high cheekbones of his face.
I can’t be put in places with low ceilings,
they make me seems bigger than I am,
a giant,
an illusion of being free to accomplish goals
and I am not sure that is me.
The high ceilings are a friend
long lost
walls holding them up for me.
They meet me with open, blank slates
my art has the space to breathe,
the poems are up on my walls
living in sprouting light,
shadows incarnated.
When I’m head flat, water in my ears
in the bathtub
naked and suspended of social intrusions
I like looking at the light playing with the blinds
behind my back;
a fresh canvas
not breathing down on me or pressing me,
coercing me to be big
but a tender look that allows my insignificance to
manifest.
The crown moulding looks at me like a lover,
the walls let me touch them
slow, I write in the air.
I once read this story about a man who filled his walls
with art, poetry and words,
ceiling resplendent with the words of others
until he hung himself from the fan
and I can’t help but think
how high his ceiling was
because these words can float,
they need no tethering,
they are little free lives in themselves
and if you put them in a box
and throw a person like me in it
I can never make peace with those words
and art, arrogantly mine.
I need the volume to love and it’s important that I love
because that is when I
and the colours
and the words I string
are most beautiful
and should you come to my funeral when I am gone,
I don’t want these words haunting you:
making you cry, kissing you against your will
but makes you rise and pluck words from my space
creating your poems from mine already dead,
streak it with colours
to later tell people about me
with a smile:
That funeral was hauntingly beautiful
and then,
Remember to look up
because
I am probably still there.
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| I do not own this image. Collected from Pinterest. |
Hemu
