The night was moist
the sea-winds blew salt
to the trembling lips
which formed half words
and quiet whispers.
The air tasted of memory
and long lost souls.
"What keeps you alive?"
the mad girl asked the sea.
"Or are you dead and still moving?
My father killed a snake.
and it's body moved like waves,
though he held its head in his hand.
It twitched. It twitched," she muttered.
Her laugh broke across the water,
the gulls shuddered, clouds gathering,
and the waves resounded to the hidden stars.
She screamed to the wind as it snagged her hair,
it screamed back
over the breakers.
She laughed
and laughed
and laughed
again.

With moonlight between the earth and her feet
she wanders, shining soul,
the dark of the night
no match for her eyes.

The moon wonders down
at the bright creature,
melds her beams to stairs,
ascend, ascend,
Oh, brightest star.
Ascend to night's embrace.

Nostalgia: It sounds like a disease
And it has infected me.
Worming its way through veins and valves.
I caught it
from robbing the graves of memories.
Trying to gather
the silver linings from long dead moments
dusty laughs
that crumbled in my fingers,
moulding smiles that left spots on my hands
that burned.
out, out **** spot*
I lay down in the fresh earth,
cold, how cold it is.

My sister's friend broke his back
when he wrecked his car.
The night of, I met her, coming in from work late,
she was fumbling across the gravel to her car in the dark,
murmured a few words,
when I asked her where she was going.
Mum told me someone had called.
I remembered
Dad meeting me in the kitchen
murmuring a few words,
Making a few phone calls, late.

The next day
I went with her.
Walking along all to familiar hospital halls.
I remembered playing Amazing Grace
as a woman died,
her friend's eyes, glass.
And the man who told me my
Catgut and horsehair
sounded like angel's singing.
I thought it sounded hollow,
empty, cold,
like the corridors.

The ICU hummed quietly with beeps and whispers.  
His mother thanked us for coming
she embraced us, pressing her soft body against our ribs.
He lay there honest, disheveled.
The morphine loosened his tongue.
He told my sister he loved her,
over and over again.
"Your sister is great. Don't you just love her? I love her."
he told me.
She held his hand, blushing.
I remembered your voice
on the other end of the phone line,
scattered, your tongue loose and
saying anything that fell into your mouth
half-formed thoughts
mis-pronounced words,
and a thousand impotent
"Don't worry"s.

He healed.
Left hospital after a few weeks.
My sister had to tell him
she didn't love him like that.
and he hated her for it.
You left a few weeks after,
said you loved to easily.
I couldn't hate you.
But I also couldn't love you
like that.

She chose all the battles
she knew she couldn’t win.

I don't want to be more.
I want to be less.
So much less that I disappear
shrink, fold
rendered
to the tiniest sliver
indiscoverable.
So minuscule,
my hands are rendered too small
to do any more damage.

She would have given anything
if she could have stopped their pain
with hers.