\ touch-me-not

i can see the spark of some future mythology in the understory, when you slow down enough to wonder what might be following you, and you stop to listen to the bursting of the scotch broom seed pods. i was told once that if you looked close enough, you could see a tiny blue flame with each explosion, some wicked offshoot of burning bush and touch-me-not, but, no, this whole side of the mountains would be pitch and tar by now.

i am drawn more and more to supernatural fixes to even my easiest of sprung leaks, the least of whom is not bending over me in this folklore i'm recreating at this very moment, mother fig, reaching over me to strangle me in an act of unbridled love that i want nothing to do with, because the magic is being corrupted. i can no longer believe in self-fulfilling prophecy, as she has been telling me about her pending doom for the last 30 years. Some people live the shortest of lives and others die damn near forever.

i try to tell her, no, it's fine, you're fine, we're fine. i try to apologize with my eyes for shuddering when she touches my arm, my fingers like seed pods, all tension and nothing but wide open space beyond, germ bearing winds. i think, it's not your fault. i am a destroyer of maternal affection, and i've discriminating taste. can't even stand myself. don't fret, you poor thing.

alex scolds me, because every girl knows you should avoid boys on both ends of the extreme with their mothers. you should avoid touching the ones that love their mothers TOO much, and shield your eyes from the ones that don't love theirs at all.

i wonder who i'll hate when all the usuals give up on me once and for all. better add that to my list.

after prometheus was freed, he was given a ring that would tie him to the mountain eternally, keeping his bond with the will of the gods, but as was in his Nature, he cast this oath aside, and caught in the West, turned into a weed that represented all the extremes of hatred and beauty of his love for his clay mankind. each year the pretty flowers prometheus bore rent the stomachs of the cattle hollow, and his seed pods would burst into flame, scorching the plain, but allowing the regeneration of the camas bulbs, upon which the natives depended to survive the cold of winter. in this manner, the people were kept from removing from the ground the very thing they hated most, their dependence on prometheus profound and miserable.