your smile breaks sunsets
into golden dawns
spilling mana
and honey afire
from the rupture
of the promise
of a new day to be born
the rapture of how one heart
can inspire another
to the forced and rusty
mechanical breath
of one inhalation
after another
when to breathe
is more effort
than to not
and the automaton
that has been sleeping
wakes to grind her gears
inside the prison
of the clockwork tower
where she has been the centre
of the working parts so long
to free herself of dark machines
means to wear away her teeth
and then to fall
and how many centuries
does it take for the earth
to reclaim her
to cover her with moss
and let the ripe of flowers
grow up through the ribs
of the steel that forged her bones
how many centuries
until she can give you stems
yearning toward your light
only just to bloom
who says machines don't bleed
when amputation is the only way
that they are freed
and tears are oxidizing glue
that make each movement
too arthritic for the the dance
but when the sun shines
she remembers
this was never where she fit
inside the shadow of the clockwork
of a life of trapped
between the cogs and gears
and somewhere she wonders
if maybe she has a heart
when the music of the sun she hears
does not fall upon the ears
but melts her from the grooves
of where she's been fighting
to extract herself a century's time
or more
and soon the clock will strike the hour
then never strike no more
and the automaton
who dreamed herself a butterfly
will be something in a garden
inviting birds
and breathing without the need
to count the breath
unhinging the fusing of her bones
just to dance
in the honey of the sweet
of the dawning of the sun