Distance
I allowed you
to sail me over lake beds,
pull me up cliffs,
across broken bridges.
But I could not kiss you
with any trace of thunder,
even when the sun was
sinking into so many oceans.
You told me once
that there would never be
enough sky, but always,
always too many stars.
You wished you could
count them with your heart.
Love was the sacks
of luminous, worthless stones
you made me carry
up and down
blue mountains.
Previously published in Digital Americana, Fall 2012
Grown into the Atmosphere
You had grown into the atmosphere.
I felt your presence
in the invisible morning,
lilies sighing in heaps
on the kitchen table.
I peeled back the air
and blew breath into you,
like the fog that coats the sky in autumn.
Your eyes remained translucent.
Previously published in Belle Reve, March 2015
Now Lucid
What we took from each other
were not counterblows,
but inspiration and blue fire.
Diamonds line our memories
like sizzling constellations.
There will be no more of our
bareback alleyway love,
raw scars ripped open
on rippled shoulders,
mutiny in our mutuality.
We forge the illusions
of our idols, chant to gods
of earth, lust, lions, wars.
There are no more calamities
to weather our shivering nights,
no more bee stings to relish.
If we suffer at all,
we suffer in phantasms, chimeras,
paling next to statues.
If sedition ever spread
its incestuous seed
into the trenches
of our feral gardens,
our tatter would never
traverse the war.
Our malice melts history,
boasts itself in buoyant headlines
forged of burning gold.
We shallow our heartbeats
with gaudy show tunes
and campfire ghosts
from the embers
of childhood convolution.
We steady our heartbeats
with the whispers
of our grandmothers,
breathing endless farewells
through stubborn vintage phones.
Previously published in Zombie Logic Review, July 2017
Your Grandfather’s Cottage
This storybook depot
tells of tawdry baroque fires,
intangible bygones,
punch-drunk operas
embittered in brocade,
settled in sateen damask.
The texture of my shadow–
rawboned with jarring seams,
slavish in the shrieking embers–
rescinds itself in rare revolt.
A rococo relic trundle
imprisons passing passions
inside intricate poppies,
grape-thorned vines,
footboard ornament angels.
Lusty windows yawning,
renegade starlight makes
straight for our thunder,
for once believing everything.
Previously published in Neologism Poetry Journal, November 2017
Megan Denese Mealor echoes and erases in her native land of Jacksonville, Florida. A survivor of bipolar disorder, Megan often incorporates her kaleidoscopic emotions into her writing. Her poetry and short stories have been featured worldwide, most recently in Spillwords, Ginosko Literary Journal, The Stray Branch, and Eunoia Review. Nominated twice for the 2018 Pushcart Prize, Megan has authored two full-length poetry collections: Bipolar Lexicon (Unsolicited Press, 2018) and Blatherskite (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, 2019). Currently, Megan is studying English at the University of North Florida while caring for her autistic son and serving as a reader for several literary journals. She, her husband Tony, son Jesse, and three cats Trigger, Lulu, and Hobbes occupy a cavernous, yet cozy townhouse ornamented with ads for Victorian inventions.
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