v o r a c i t y

i am gulping rain straight from the sky and feasting on color-drenched sunsets

i am completely undone by wonder

i am pressing into ocean shores, breathing in the tickling mist of waves as the sand gobbles up my feet into its unseen world

i am splintered and thorned open by blackberry bushes, wearing their rouge juices on my lips

i am chasing the wind and wielding it to snarl my hair into a wild ratted nest of bliss

i am lazing in tall grass whispering poems of adoration to the silvered moon, wooed by clouds, and lit-up by stars—transporting the cosmos into my heart through the open gate of my curious eyes

i am plunging in rivers, curling into cool bursts of currents pulsing against my soft belly

i am tangling with life

i am throwing myself into lakes—splaying my cold limbs, a salamander on sun soaked rocks

i am a feral body dragging my hands across cracked-open tree bark, lapping up sap, telling secrets to trees, and catching sharp stones in my supple soles

my hunger for joy cannot be satiated

i am drooling over shells and pocket rocks, gathering them and sprinkling like glitter across every surface

i am hypnotized by dewdrops flashing in the morning light, fog spilling through spiked pine

i am gasping at neon rainbows until the colors dissolve into the blue horizon, straining for every last fading watercolor flicker

i am spellbound by the lines in my skin, formed where joy and pain have etched their story

i am unleashing my hair to grow wildly worshipful of the passing of time

i am sinking in baths until the water goes tepid, my fingertips shriveling like waterlogged fruit skin

i am cracked anew by the rush of goosebump rising in the chill of the shade

i am electrified with enchantment

i am burying my face in ecstatic delight, laughing ridiculously loud and free

i am rocking babies and chasing wonder and whimsy and love

i am chatting up the elderly and cradling the hands of the dying

i am witness to memory and moment

i am tousling children’s hair and locking eyes with strangers

i am smiling at everyone just to collect their shift in happiness deep in my mind‘s eye and save it for days of deficit

i am barreling through fields, whipped by weeds and stepping on prickle bushes in ecstasy

i am filling my lungs with the smell of everywhere: the cedar forest, the briny fish market, my neighbor’s smoke-thick grill, fresh-split coffee bags, the sweat of my lover, the iron of winter, the petrichor of spring, the cut-grass drenched summer air

i am digging my nose deep in rhododendrons and jasmine until i’ve sucked up enough perfume and pollen to spark a sneeze

i am striking flame to candles and bonfires, swallowing wine

i am tearing through words, scribbling pages raw with pens and pencils—ravenous for books and poems and songs

i am living the art

i am pouncing bare into linen sheets, dissolving at the edges in a symphony of crickets and owls and tree frogs

i am adorning myself with daffodils and azaleas, and wearing a crown of unhinged happiness

i am unlocking my hips and my bones, unwinding crystalline fascia and allowing my openness to flood with all that is light, delicious, and good

i am confessing to bees and beetles and crows and singing off key

i am rescuing spiders and chasing dreams

i am letting absurd optimism surge through me—delirious joy

i am blasting out compliments like a fire hose and soaking in the tangible shift in human energy

i am painting my toes bright and letting the earth’s dirt color my fingernails

i am bursting and open