Marie Anzalone

And still, still, there is more to describe- we paint because drawing breath is an agony and exhaling an ecstasy and somewhere in the space in-between we think we once found a truth; and the eternal part of us desires to share this truth at all costsonly it's never quite how we pictured it, and it's never quite received the way we wantand the paint drips with our own blood the handles of our brushes are our own bonesour own tears become the words to our most beautiful love songs and we know we'll never get it right before we die-getting up every morning and facing our own limited truth is a courage so divine most men quell and women stay enslaved in silence.

We stood as the ground shifted and we saw the view from belowthrough tiled floors and concrete stairs, our feet burning holes in the foundation while you whispered of dreams.

Just ask any subjugated thing- a wife, population, race, deferred dream andresource misappropriated, or continental plate; and it will tell you stories of inevitable fault linesof not-quite-stray bullets and strike slip boundaries,places where intensity builds and lets off small or great sparks,