Literary Vegan

Some kind of summer has appeared past the equinox. The sun returns like a psychotherapist ready to listen, so I tell him I'm tired of people with power not helping people. Rigid grips of control. A flock of pigeons flit South, North, South — with indecision or design  I don't know. But it's beautiful. Underwing grey turns holographic in the sun's highlight.  They tell me they are never alone.  The relief. I am so relieved that there are patterns of the natural world still untouched.  That you can look up and find a yes, stretching soft.  C. LJ Ireton 2025

I cried under the too-bright lights. Frustration had fizzed in my blood, visceral, for hours  and undone obsessions still hovered in my mind — reality fringed with make-believe — twice the sight, twice the energy. But I have done this before, so I know  that salt soldiers win  by breaking down the door to let the self-talk in — except it is not self-talk, it is what anyone who knows you, beyond your skin, would say:  Look how you carried the ghosts, navigated through  chaos,  then wiped them from your face. Steel can be soft, your soul supple. Tears; imagination-soaked drops and your realist self. I see all your eyelashes sparkle with and it's a strength; stretching under the lights. C. LJ Ireton 2025

When you are young your colour choices and plot lines are marvelled at  whiskers, pink stars  mermaid hamsters. As an adult they are not appropriate  for the office things are done  this way, in shoes and documents. I want to pull the roof off  and pour glitter in your tea. Teal hearts, stay true to your flower crowns and fins — your worlds are never-ending. C. LJ Ireton 2025

Butterfly-like, Autumn kisses my skin. It sighs and swelling recedes; my limbs longing to bend again like the stalks dropping dry petals. Summer ends stasis, my daydreams are restless, released like Lazarus into a different breath, a bluer Sun. I run into the wind, un-layering  thick irritations  And I see the falling of things differently Like who's to say when the pine tree, the oak  feels most itself? C. LJ Ireton 2025. C. LJ 2025 C. LJ 2025

1. Flicking my hips underwater, I make a tail of my legs. To move through matter head first  fingers kissing — I am the cursive language  of the under blue not looking for awkward answers, like when I am upright just the rolling writing  of this realm  No age, either; it always feels the same,  every liquid letter.  2.  The stormcloud unleashes  a ghost tongue  out of its mouth; apparition indigo, peach — the houses underneath on the hill are neon answers to starshine a lone, dried leaf,  leeched of colour sails past the arc width  and settles on the grass with a scratch — 'endings' I think. But the rainbow licks at it too pouring holy violet light continuous. C. LJ Ireton 2025