KEIRA LYNN DODD

Creation 

 

A mighty pain
prickles up and down the length
of my body, shocking me
awake.  Now animate,
I roam the world,
following my own footsteps,
somehow sure of the landscape.

​

Thunder bursts from my mouth,
echoing out over the vast beyond.
I am deliciously clumsy,
crashing through
the safe places:
villages lined with shops,
town squares full of open mouths…

​

But my voice is louder—
each laugh an earthquake
that tumbles all to their knees.

​

I thrill with the weight of it,
this life I carry inside,
a million seeds ready to spring,
a whole forest in my chest.

Everywhere, I see:
more mistakes to make,
more rules to break,
more of me to create.

​

I alone control the fire
that lights my way.
It tingles like lightning,
singes my hands,
but it’s mine to hold.

​

Blazing, I steal away
into the night,
a happy thief
in possession of
the secret of life.