If I was a mountain

That soared towards the sky,

With craggy snow caps

And stormy grey eyes-



Then you'd be the clouds

That swaddled my peak,

That silenced my thunder

When I tried to speak.



If I was the earth

The desert, in fact:

With arid dry soil

And mud, baked and cracked-



You'd be the rain

The downpour that soothed;

The balm to my bruises,

Relief to my wounds.



If I was the Moon

In the indigo night,

With stars as my blanket

And silver; my light-



Well you'd be the Sun

Just always behind

That lent me your glow

And caused me to shine.

He told her she was pottery; a vase with grooves and cracks.
The patterns of the history she hid behind her back.

Within his words he layered in- like thread upon a loom-
The sweetest undercurrent to illuminate that gloom.

In certain cultures, he decreed, when pottery is cracked
They aggrandize them with gleaming gold to bring their splendor back

For they believe, with certainty, once damage has been wrought
Those tiny cracks, now filled with light, hold truths that can't be taught.

Unclasp your fingers
Your clenched fists
And know the release of
Giving in

Let him drift away
Let the ocean stand between you
As a testament
To the vast expanse
That exists there now.

Stop fighting the waves.
Stop braving the icy waters
Arm over arm
To reach him on the other side.

The water will always win.
And you never were much of a swimmer.
He's just a distant island now
Shrouded in fog
Somewhere over the horizon.

Rest now,
The fight is over.
Your mangled, frantic heart
Can slow
And begin another tempo
When it's no longer bleeding over
An unreachable coastline.

I think to be thoughtful
I speak to be heard
I write to decipher
The truth in my words.

I smiled to ensnare you
I laughed to secure
You slipped through the trap
That I built to procure

I kissed to consume you
I hugged to enfold
My arms close on nothing
You're no where to hold

I writhed to entrance you
I clutched you to keep*
Now the place where I hold you
Resides in my dreams.

I write so you'll read this
My hand pens the truth
All that I've written,
I've written for you.

Sometimes beneath close eyelids
I quest to bring you back
As if you were driftwood floating
Downstream on your back.
I dip my hands beneath the veil
And dry away the death
And from my parting, weeping lips
I give you back your breath-
Just like the rising sunset burning
In the summer sky
Paints and saints the mountaintops
And casts their colors bright.



Unrhymed Notes:

Sometimes I dream I can bring you back
Just as simply as dipping my hands into the water
To retrieve a floating piece of driftwood;
Dry the death from your skin
And breath life back into you
The way the sunrise reanimates
The Dark Mountains
Each and every day.

I see your Ocean eyes open
Embrace you like I'm trying to
Fold you into my skin
Where I can keep you always
And feel your summer peach warm flesh
Tangible against my permafrost fingers.

If the dead could talk
Nothing profound would leave your lips
They'd only quirk into a Cheshire smile
And you'd tell me to let go
Relinquish
Move along and stop standing still
Life is for the Living
Death is for the dead
And dreams are for the foolish.

"You *******."

When we were young, all things were new
The rising sun, the morning dew.
Through you I saw the ocean first,
From stormy eyes I saw the surf.
I tasted summer in your lips
The flavor of the brackish mist
That lingered on with days and years
That veil of time was thin and sheer.
When we were young the summer months
Seemed everlasting, endless once.
Heated asphalt, mosquito'ed creeks
We dipped our toes to beat the heat.

When we were young, immortal then
I never thought there'd be an end...
I never thought I'd move away
I never dreamt you wouldn't stay...
I never thought when we were young
Your final song would go unsung,
I never thought there'd come a day
Your final words- you'd never say.

When we were young
When we
Were young
When
We
Were
Young
I never thought
You'd die.

Bring to me infinity
From where it dwells in lore
Or return with empty, wounded hands
And speak of it no more.
For if we are eternity
As one, when brought together
Why then do our faulty lips
Find pause upon "forever?"

The sun is a star in someone else's sky
The earth is a dust fleck, drifting on by
The moon is nothingness, just barely there
Between non-existence and thought caught on air.

Maybe you're nothing, and then so am I
But to me you are everything seen by these eyes.

All things fade
Rain washes away the deeds done
Somewhere on the earth, in the trees
On a winding path, where the fireflies
Like failing Christmas lights flicker.

I worry
For the unmoving mountain
Unable to move an inch
In the midst of an earthquake.
The shaking ground
Does not mean to destroy it
But it cannot be helped
When some things
Are just so obstinate.
They must survive
Or crumble.

The earth is changing beneath us all.
When the dust has settled,
Nothing will ever be the same.
Fall apart or carry on.

You are the sweetest of my torments.
You're the tangible torture of citrus
The bite followed by the ****
Fresh and unbearable in the same instance

You're the lemon zest scent;
Sultry, as I quarter fruit
In my hot summer kitchen.
You're the juice in the cut
As the knife knicks my thumb;
The sweetness meeting the wild coppery tang
of blood in my mouth.

You're in the twist in my chest
That exists somewhere between my heart and my stomach
Both organs being wrenched apart...
When I see your picture
And remember that we haven't spoken in months.

Who knew that eyes could hunger?
Mine were starving,
Devouring the sight of you in
Darting, unblinking eyes.
Drawing you in like
Parched lips to a dewy glass.

Twist my gaze to the side
Through the copper-and chocolate curtain of my hair
Through the sea of faces
And one amongst hundreds
I could pluck you, like the ripest apple
From the lowest branch.

And in this ocean of bobbing heads
Of flapping lips and empty eyes
I'm just floating
Just alone, drifting
Hoping you'll throw me an emerald glance
A lingering lifeline
To reel me in from this
Crowded loneliness.

Halfway through the journey
Winter came to stay
The ones I met along my path
Chased the cold away

Memories of twisting
Beneath the starry sky
Kept the wind from swirling in
And pulled my spirits high.

Once I was a singer,
Though po-ems tinged my dreams.
The journey saw an end to that
And waking- raced from me.

Shattering and scattered
Like stars across the skies
Out of reach and far away;
I wished on while I tried.

I never really minded though
Or mourned the goals I lost
For losing each and everything
Was freedom's exact cost.

Explaining this to others
Was pointless to me though
For how can others understand
The open road's my home?

Everything brings back
Thoughts of the Sea
The Tumultuous Ocean
That whispered to me.

Reality is nothing
After all that has passed
Everything’s tainted
Stained and unchaste.

Hours are seconds
Time stopped the day
He breathed out his last
And faded away.

I’ve stopped writing stories
With sticks in the sand
And brushed them away
With slow grieving hands

The water is silent
Where it strokes the shore
Reaching for someone
Not here anymore.

Morpheus has never been kind to me
His somniferous ways leave me wanting
Grasping at the cusp of a reality
As evanescent as the morning mist
That greets this reluctant gaze.

He exists to these sheathed
Bourbon eyes
Within the veiled carapace
Of the only form I've ever wanted more
Than necessity and air.
His torment lies
In false reunions, in joining and parting lips
In forest eyes that linger behind in my thoughts
Like the echo of a cannon
Long after it's wrought its own havoc.

Yes, that twisted Lothario
That Grecian sandman
Exists to overcharge the soul with
Hope so poisonous
Bodies and minds are wracked with it
Inspired by it
Haunted on into the waking world
Where he waits on the periphery
Eyes narrowed in the light
Of the waking world that renders him useless.

When you're around
Someone slips down the thermostat
Plays it like a violin
Drifting a decent toward
The most poignant Minor cord.
I feel lost within myself
Like an island watching a beautiful ship
Sail by without stopping.

And yet-
You leave and it aches;
Hurts like the thud of pulse
Behind a ripening bruise...
Feels as though my heart is about to
Rend my ribs and squelch
Painfully though the cracks
To slither away in your general direction.

In your absence
I realize that simple things
Can grow into necessity.
Tiny seedlings who take root
Can somehow cross time to become
A redwood with roots so deep
The foundation of the earth is never the same
When it falls.
Air is everywhere
And yet when its gone
Beneath tidal waves
It's more precious than gold;
Riches mean nothing when you're drowning.

I had to force my lanky legs
a few steps back
And touch only with my eyes
bathe you in the unknowing caress
Of my gaze.
On days like today
I pretend I'm the vivacious wind
Curling in soothing torrents around your face
Brushing past your neck like
Long lost kisses.
I exist in the echo of the scene
one year earlier
where I would have pressed against the skin there
Chasing away the goosebumps
With shivers of my own.

One year has passed today, one year since you took your last breath on this earth. A whole planet-full of anguish has been left in that wake. You would have been 23; a full month older than I am. No longer is such. You’re frozen; forever young at 22.

They told me time would ease the pain, and I guess they meant the physical display of hurt. I don't burst into tears every time I see a Steelers logo or find myself suddenly breathless whenever I hear a song that you loved. No, I am not that same mess of a girl that existed last December. I do not look like her, but she's still present within me.
The thing about time is that the pain never really dissipates; you just unearth ways to tolerate it. Ways to function around it. I am able now to maintain a smile on my face whenever I need be, and a small, invisible part of myself can curl into the crook of my head and weep. I numb myself and place the pain on the back-burner, to deal with it later.

One year, come and gone. One year without you.

One full year I've wandered around until my feet were bruised; until my shoes were breaking. Wandering and not perceptive to what I was looking for. I know now that you are the destination.
I'll always be searching for you, and you'll never be there.
Because you're in the wind. You're in every kind gesture, in every hill and mountain I find beauty in. You're in the smile of your sister, the love of your mother and the memory of every family member or person who mourns you today.
And I mourn you so much. I never considered that this much sorrow could be coiled into one body so firmly. So crammed in that at times I spring a leak and you fracture forth like a rainbow on an oil spill. My mind circles back to you thousands of times in a single day, like a little determined moon circling the wake of her planet's obliteration.

I don't have a place to visit. At first, that was one of the hardest parts of moving on. By nature I am a wanderer, and in my travels I yearned for a place to stop; a place where you would be always.
You don't have a final resting place, and that's fine, I've accepted that now. It wouldn't have made sense with who you were as a person. You always were more like a force of nature than human- so beautiful, destructive and awing. So when I imagine you in the present tense, I like to think of the swirling dust devils that whirl leaves into miniature tornadoes. You had a playful spirit like that. I think of you in the wind that gusts paper from my hands, because you were always a joker. And I think of you as a warm breeze on a summer day because your warmth was something people sought out.

I'll continue writing for you, even though you'll never read it. I'll never stop loving you, and your memory is enough of a home for this wanderer.

To quote What Dreams May Come:
" I’ll cross whatever distance there is. I send you my love."

Forever and Ever, C.J.H.
-Sarah

The cusp of the moment
Felt like a precipice;
Like pressure rising before
That first flash of lightning
That bleeds into the next.
The air was charged
Before those words were said;
The crackle as tangible as static
Raising hairs along my arms.

They felt like hands
Spreading across the furled wing-bones of
My shoulders
It was that gasp before the shove,
The realization dawning,
The knowledge of the fissure below
Where the sun found no purchase.

The words left her lips
And I fell
Unhindered to a place
Where you're not breathing.

The sun tipping over the horizon
Lifts my lids each revolution of this Shady green sphere...
And for a few brief seconds
The fingers of sleep
Drag me back.

Warm pressure on my eyes,
Pooling, (re)opening them to the last
Paradise;
The only oasis where your eyes are not closed
And your bones are not dust somewhere
Mingling with the soil in Pittsburgh.

Just the same, I know you're the product now
Of some hypnagogic state;
Of the last traces of theoretical DMT swirling in my brain
As is leaves Morpheus behind in the shadows.

You're just the most beautiful hallucination
The truth in the chaos of dreams
Cluing me into what I've been denying
For 13 years.

Impossible that I've preserved you better
Than any mortician could have
In the recesses of my mind
You are a perfect replica
An unholy copy of the original
All creamy skin
And ocean eyes,
Full-lipped smile tipping somewhere between
Arrogance and joy.

"I'm gone," you say. "I'm dead."
Repeating what I already know
"I'm dead, I'm not coming back."
On repeat like the worst kind of ear worm;
A carousel of sound that dips and weaves through every filament of Unconsciousness.

Denial; like reaching out my hands
I shove against the reality, against the unreality
Against the prison sleep has woven
And crash forth
Damp and gasping
Like breaking the surface once more
Teetering over the horizon with the sun
Into the waking hell of another day.

The carousel makes another revolution.
See you on the other side tonight.

Seeing the world after having your eyes
Veiled
For the longest time is like being born again.
Colors are sharper.
Air is crisper.
Sensations, so much stronger than I had ever felt because I had been stifling them like a bad cough.
Now,
Letting them rip through me,
I saw the world for what it was,
And saw that I was worth saving.
And once I realized this...
Saw the colors in the air...
Heard each new
Noise
Scent
Taste
Touch,
I knew that before long they would be nothing again if I didn't have you.

No one chose to iterate
Or elaborate to me
The vast unending sea of grief
We tred; trying to breathe

Our paths bisect and weave to form
A beautiful tapestry
That on the surface gleams and glows
With possibility.

Beneath, time tugs each thin line
Until one snaps and breaks
One little thread removed and gone
Left havoc in its wake.

Something once so beautiful
Unravels, sags and fades
Parallel to how the Sun
Sets each dying day.

I may never walk anything more the same as him
In converse shoes slapping campus pavement,
Than taking down miles in memories
And mulling over trite bereavements.

If all we have left is muscle memory
Where summer grass stroked skin like hesitant fingers
Then I'll sink into autumn leaves
And worry my lip where the impressions linger.

"Don't stop dreaming" crooned a voice in my ear
But dreaming re-enforces fear
Slumber comes and shreds my thoughts
Subconscious wars are brought and wrought.

Inside my skull holds evidence of
Bruised purples and nightmare reds
Sleep shreds my mind between its teeth
And wretches it across; bequeath

Across the walls, across the room
Across the shadows, through the gloom

Many months had whispered by
Unbeknownst to me
The sheaths of ice retreated slow,
And buds furled from the trees.

I had not stopped to grasp and hold
The notion laying stagnant
Within my chest, there thawing too
A sunken, fading, fragment

This withered seed, this dying shoot
Lay wilting in the dark
Until my sightless, bourbon eyes
Saw what was in my heart.

I long for earthen forests, deep
And steeped in mystery
The branches curving overhead
Are all I want to see

I want to be the soil, rich,
In which you sink your roots.
The dark, safe place from which you rise
And send forth budding shoots.

I want to keep you grounded, safe,
When high winds bow your peak.
I want to be the gentle place
You fall when you grow weak.

I want to be the canvas which
In fall you toss your paint.
Cover me in golden leaves
That flutter down like rain.

Blackberries, fat with summer rays,
Burst sure and true, like ocean waves
Against my tongue they carry too
The scent, the touch, the taste of you.

Each bramble stripped with greedy hands
Felt no qualm from scarlet brands
Those such marks would wash away but
Stains of you will still remain.

The scratches heal, I’ll brush away
Those nettle prongs that stick and stay
I’ll brush the bracken, soothe the sting
But thoughts of you will always cling.

Those onyx beads, their shiny spheres
Imbued with Sunshine, wet with tears;
The taste is fading from my mouth
Their waves of sweetness drawing out.

Twisting and Dancing
Consume and Control
Body to Body
Soul to Soul.

Flame and tinder
Catch and combust
Rise from the ashes and
Brush off the dust.

Mingling flickers
Destroy and create to
Fix what is broken;
Alter its state.

Beneath all that burns;
Unattainable goal
Sputtering fires and
Diminishing coals.

Body to Body
Hollow to Whole.

I am
Nothing more
Than a bag of bones.
My rib cage
Is a prison you rend
In twain, tear the mesh,
And sift fruitlessly through.
I am
An empty shell
You discarded;
All unraveled ends
And frayed edges.
I am
Orange peels
Carrying the essence
Of something sweet
As an echo of scent
And color-
-I will
Return to the earth
And start again.