By J E Nelson

He’s dressed in the silvery glow of petrichor,

naked in his scars, scrapes, and the skin he’s built for.

He lights up at the sound of his name,

when he’s seen by the sun again, when spring chases away the rain.

He forgets how he owned his fear;

the hole in the necklace, an old souvenir,

it used to be a pearl, worn from his own hands.

He forgets the storms he had once blamed himself for.

The daffodils and neon remind him he’s easy to love; 

he is everything he has dreamed of;

the promised land is the ground he walks on;

the promised land, Eden in the forgotten streets.

He’s never anxious love is not there,

He never worries he’s too much to bear.

He walks where the rain has washed

the stones and kissed the land.

He is where he belongs;

His promised land is the ground he’s walking on.

Or else dancing on; innocence the gown he’s exchanged shame for; 

he’d outgrown it anyway.

He’s the wind-up ballerina with a new song,

never staying in his one-tone music boxes for long.

He moves his body like a prayer, in a sea of pearls,

because today is when the rain stops.

J. E. Nelson is a writer, poet, and editor living in the south of Derbyshire. When not hunched over a laptop or lost in a book, he can often be found wandering the woods with a camera, taking flight to distant kingdoms, or—sometimes—simply sitting in the living room, pantless.