Literary Vegan

There were waves today. But I was undeterred – I swam into the rise while it watched me,  then under the curve: unglamorous turquoise,  stirred with silt.  Standing, I could be pushed over, but I had already leapt, woven in – no floor to leave. I wondered if my spirit could mimic my limbs like this when waves surged on dry land; those that swell with no form, the force of unexpected feeling that is oblivious to the wind. C. LJ Ireton 2025

The heartbeat of the whale-throat sea  is slow, pushing a world's blood: blue heavy with history, into prophecy that licks into waves like a dragon's tongue frothy with wind and disbelief. But I believe – my red rhythm recognises something floating furious, my own pulse dances in the bigger beast's drum. And creature, we scream the dirt and silver of the storm, eroded limbs and salt-eyed strong breaking the line of water into a circle – myself into myself back up to the surface. C. LJ 2025 (Inspired by Six Wild Crowns)

Red Kite in the after-rain: a mountain-sharp survivor  of the apocalypse city – wild exists, wild lives  in your triangle stillness. Moth-tail, rust-tilt, lit-up by clouds, your feather-tips grip the wind itself; like you harness more than air – the whole sky is subject  to your clawed curtsey. I am – iron and balcony give way to dandelion belly, bird-bone beast. You do not warn. You pre-exist. Seagulls have just scattered at one glimpse of you,  gliding in from where God waits  with a gauntlet glove. C. LJ Ireton 2025

Just past the mountains, indigo at dusk,  the ducks form a shepherds' staff of finger-tip chevrons flying over  the string of filament lightbulbs bordering the lake. Innate order, bone high they complete a prophecy of mine that birds will always come over still water if you wait  but I wasn't waiting -- the sun upside down in my wine glass, a spear of hot star on blue stone, we spoke of salt nights and serenity while the ducks moved in the sky, knowing I needed them to prove my own words startling me with what I know -- forever poetry pointing weightless and breathing. C. LJ Ireton 2025

I knew I wouldn't stop loving you, wherever you were.  200 miles only on the outside. But I had no idea I would feel beautiful, for the first time, when you weren't around. That when I invited myself to the dance, I found it was waiting for me, wildflower in the mirror. LJ Ireton, 2025

Thirsty, growing seeds sigh into the petrichor cracked, damp shells let go LJ Ireton