{"id":5742,"date":"2013-07-19T14:00:48","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T18:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=5742"},"modified":"2013-07-19T14:40:21","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T18:40:21","slug":"the-life-of-a-grape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/the-life-of-a-grape\/","title":{"rendered":"The Life of a Grape"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Grape_585x585\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Life of a Grape<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A glass cloud is your new mask:<\/p>\n

Inhaling the sweet fumes<\/p>\n

you drift, sailing on sweet melting<\/p>\n

laughing intoxicated loving<\/p>\n

the surreptitious grip of bodies glued together<\/p>\n

tethered to lover\u2019s language,<\/p>\n

the kinetic threat to snap the string at any second;<\/p>\n

Fingers confusing hair and skulls meeting,<\/p>\n

your eyes two suns, blooming, alive,<\/p>\n

a hum now lies in the palms of your brain\u2019s edges<\/p>\n

where lazuli speaks;<\/p>\n

A slow trembling licks your coils \u2013 a caveat<\/p>\n

that you carry on fingertips through every door;<\/p>\n

You suck on it;<\/p>\n

Like the skin of a grape<\/p>\n

ruptured it spreads liquid secret fire<\/p>\n

filling every crevice until even your legs<\/p>\n

open to it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then biting bitters spat<\/p>\n

from the boundaries of teeth you snap back \u2013<\/p>\n

The glass introduces a pane of spider webs<\/p>\n

you put your lips against<\/p>\n

just to make them bleed \u2013<\/p>\n

You spill, and a similar hand to home slaps<\/p>\n

the cheek you just kissed \u2013<\/p>\n

A fetus floats dead in the canyons between you,<\/p>\n

a bell jar sucking each Sunday morning memory in,<\/p>\n

amber fingernails of aggression and every other relative<\/p>\n

corroding your skin until even breath is bile<\/p>\n

like empty weight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Knees melting and meeting the ground,<\/p>\n

warm remorse sighing from spaces between<\/p>\n

tender tumbling of whispers,<\/p>\n

pooling of feathered breath on your neck,<\/p>\n

cocooning in the web of past words<\/p>\n

spattered like tapestries on the wall,<\/p>\n

You transform: together,<\/p>\n

meeting at the edge of the moon,<\/p>\n

sinking into liquid musings,<\/p>\n

eyes open to each other under water, understanding,<\/p>\n

the gentle sting between you binding your bodily babble<\/p>\n

now with tighter tethers and softer blends.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The cloud enfolds you again,<\/p>\n

thicker, sweeter, silver<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Escaping Contained Plexopathy<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Outside this saying<\/p>\n

fiction unweights but<\/p>\n

I have nothing to say<\/p>\n

at all<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All these:<\/p>\n

echoes of happenstance released,<\/p>\n

offerings to the emptiness after \u2013<\/p>\n

Selah! to the True Author \u2013<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where that wailing eagle sings<\/p>\n

reminding my passion, waking.<\/p>\n

What is this capacity<\/p>\n

newfound in silence?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both eyes closed to see<\/p>\n

with the other<\/p>\n

widening rings,<\/p>\n

I drink<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This reflection, the love<\/p>\n

inside love<\/p>\n

the deep light<\/p>\n

without beauty within,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A resurrection<\/p>\n

and hazy melting<\/p>\n

Tender and fragile<\/p>\n

and nearly blank<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sky my spirit circles in \u2013<\/p>\n

Formless and infinite<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Voyeur<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I fall in love<\/p>\n

for sixty-seven<\/p>\n

Seconds at a time:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Smile choirs filling<\/p>\n

the gap like umbrellas<\/p>\n

swooshed inside out<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Azure eyes cradling<\/p>\n

the sea inside a skull<\/p>\n

hovering in the corner<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The spillage of lip\u2019s<\/p>\n

isthmus over the edge<\/p>\n

of ruby fired clay<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hands like stars<\/p>\n

proudly protruding<\/p>\n

from weathered wrists<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Laughs mimicking<\/p>\n

melodies appealing<\/p>\n

to the angelic<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sharp shoulders sheltering<\/p>\n

the spears and flames<\/p>\n

of love\u2019s artillery<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All these bodies<\/p>\n

possessed by light<\/p>\n

a part of me apart from me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What does it mean to fascinate<\/p>\n

so easily, to hypnotize<\/p>\n

even the trees?<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Chelsea studied Art History and Classics at UVA and graduated in 2012. She currently divides her time and interest between the controlled chaos of two restaurant jobs, reading Buddhist philosophy and other fiction with tinges of Neopsychedelia, freelance writing for Cville Weekly<\/em>, experimenting with oil and water color painting, participating in a work study at Bikram Yoga Charlottesville, and experiencing liberation of spirit through music, hula hooping and dancing. She considers herself a lover of the arts and an advocate for healthy, beautiful lifestyle full of laughter, happiness, and expression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A glass cloud is your new mask:<\/p>\n

Inhaling the sweet fumes<\/p>\n

you drift, sailing on sweet melting<\/p>\n

laughing intoxicated loving<\/p>\n

the surreptitious grip of bodies glued together<\/p>\n

tethered to lover\u2019s language,<\/p>\n

the kinetic threat to snap the string at any second <\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":5839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,218,219,199],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5742"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5742"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5845,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5742\/revisions\/5845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}