Chrysalis

Conditional love 
Destroys the soul
Fracturing trust in humanity
Forcing the victim
To build insurmountable walls
Heightening anxiety
Stressing the heart's ability
To beat peacefully
Surging pain throughout
The entire nervous system

You asked me if I still love you
A resounding no I scribed 
While midnight was closing in fast
Is the only answer I have you
For such targeting hatefulness
I shook off the suffocating abuse
Renewing myself 
With strength and perseverance
Arising within 
A new summer solstice sunrise ©

Karen L. Fleming

Mystical Ecology

The fog brewed

Densely overnight

Hindering my sight

Just beyond my face

While the coyotes

Are treading near

Calculating

The paw prints

To nip at my ankles

The big brown bat

Flies low, straight as an arrow

Cutting through the mist

Echolocation on high alert

His primal priorities configured

Sixty seconds ahead

Of my dirty windshield

Down the road

Not even a mile

An English manor sits

Nestled upon the edge

Of a redneck populace

Isolated and displaced

Upon a pompous pond

The dead crawl ever so slowly

Out of their murky graves

Remnants of a bygone era

Tis Georgia now

A fairytale’s dream

Even the mighty city

Takes heed

While the fairy doors

Mysteriously blossom forth

A golden miracle

Of glistening pixie dust

Strategically sprinkled

Throughout the metropolis

By curious fays disguised

In long woolen ebony capes ©

The Magical Caldera