I knew the first time I felt the words nearly disintegrate in my mouth and fall back down my throat between a humming engine and black pavement in my driveway.
Everything feels lighter when the sky is darker. She left me lying in the damp grass outside my house. It could've been boring. It could've been easy. I could've closed my eyes. Could've slipped inside, instead I lay with my face to the moon, all pensive & strong & confused.
I started by counting the stars.
Then I painted the orbs that glowed around them with the tip of my finger.
I stayed calm even when my chest fell toward my shoulder blades and turned clean air to dust.
I felt twilight washing over me.
My mind raced as this twisted agony that rested quietly in the depths of my stomach lifted its head and slithered itself up my spine into my skull with the help of my heart strings.
I was consumed by this strange tiredness, that induced a definite dreamland before it lay me down to slumber.
All the clear thoughts in my head began to sink into this cluttered cloud beneath them, where they broke apart into a chaotic, uneasy mess.
When I finally shut my eyes, it was as though it was raining under my skin.
I could see it and I could hear it and I could smell it like an April night.
I knew when I turned twelve, I was not like the others.
I met Anxiety in the back of a washed out white classroom when I was fourteen.
It was a February morning.
Now I'm 18, it's a cool night in May
& she's here to stay.
You rested your palm open like the desert
while
we spoke in darkness
I closed my eyes to feel you
growing in that corner of my chest
and I wished I could have touched you
right there
but your voice acted as hands
and took off my skin
and there beneath my humanity
was oil
growing my spine crooked
"Angel don't go", the moon spoke.
darkness crept in like fog
killing everything with its shadow
please understand
I am no angel
I am death's daughter
I am the thing you feared most as a child
I am
all your nightmares
because I am all of mine
The reaper is here to steal the harvest
please don't grow here darling patron,
haunting outlet
Hide,
because I'm hiding
hide from me
I sit on my grave alone
hearing the wreckage of my carnage screaming from
behind
pieces of my childhood in my branch hands
I watch you
behind my body
your eyes reflect like mirrors
and I see
I am the prison gate
The moon peaks,
catching the glimmering
snow, the rustling trees
But I long for the cabin,
the cabin up ahead
Kissing the night,
as she would me,
with warm firelight
A small crack offers entrance
and, as in before,
I sit beneath the floorboards
Notes drift through the cracks,
and soft thumps echo down:
the ghosts of dancing feet
I catch them in stride
They show me glimpses,
but only glimpses
To reach, to touch, my
still heart yearns to
join the lonely dancer
But what would she feel?
The slip of one hair?
The chill of silent breath?
The crawl of closed eyes?
No.
Better to stay, sleeping,
beneath the floorboards
crisp from the core
cut in half and a bore.
I want some more sand!
I'm tired of cement beneath
the slabs of meat I call feet,
the movement doesn't beat
the heat:
it fuels it.
burning
on my way uphill, the stretch
is between my thighs. Sweat!
this weather is no good for fancy clothes,
I've got pit stains up these hills.
I'd say I'm looking on the bright side, but
it's more of a stare, or perhaps it's the light
that's stalking me, because I can't seem to
escape it!
burning!
this soul is melting through this flesh which
can't let go of winters breath, what once was
afraid to freeze to death wants nothing more
than a cloud or four, to shade their skin from
sinking in.
the rays,
the haze,
the heat begins.
Summer is no enemy,
Winter is no friend,
all I want is Fall again!
The spring is here,
my nose is nose,
the seeping of color shall spread
ahead,
down and all places around,
it'll push and shove as
my body is covered
in the guilt of not taking
the time to properly supply myself
with sun screen.
I think
my father was born a giant
but somewhere along the line
he shrunk
to the size of a man.
Once,
like a pea,
he could hold me
in a single hand.
Rough,
and calloused.
They felt like sand.
Warm, and welcoming.
My father’s laugh
like the ocean
would roar and boom
and grow soft.
My father’s roar
like the storm
would rise and fall
with the fall of his hand.
I once was a pea.
I once was a seed.
I grew.
I grew and grew
and grew
until the tears
weren’t quite so ready
and my hands were rough
like sand
paper.
If only I could
smooth
out my life.
Every surface tread
with steady steps.
Every surface
would be even.
My thoughts
I could fit
in a neat, tidy
box.
File them away.
File him
away.
Though I imagine he would
Hate
the tight, muddy space
beneath the ground.
I imagine he would
hate
me more.
For now
the only sounds I hear,
blows I fear
are the ones that won’t fit in the file cabinet.
Beneath my bed I placed some bread
and on it spread some jam
added some cheese and mushy peas
salami eggs and ham
a blob of sauce mustard of course
and relish three days old
some chips and dips and cherry lips
and baked beans full of mold
there's water cress and what a mess
of earwax and a scab
my used band aid from second grade
and frogspawn from the lab
I topped it off with lager froth
and nose hairs from the sink
and if you thought the food was bad
don't ask what's in his drink.
Back beyond the pines lay a stream.
Cold blue water swirling and tumbling all over itself
where small fish darted about
scrounging for particles of food to sustain their life aquatic,
beavers, up a little ways on the hydro-vein, had built a dam,
he knew because he found it once,
watched furry little heads sink beneath the surface
to escape this furless beast that had invaded their territory.
There was also a small canoe,
tethered to a tree on his side of the bank.
He never knew from where it came or when it had gotten there.
It simply seemed to have showed up one day and squatted,
bobbing up and down gently on windy days,
looking very old and crusted over from the first time he had seen it.
It having spent its entire life just to end up in small stream
that led nowhere in little patch of forest separating two different subdivisions,
where hundreds of people who would never meet
lived in such closeness
behind the walls of their respective forts.
coronating the fluttering sadism
glistening like rainbows shifting beneath
the body of a dead soldier.
we are all fighting
droves of egotistical flag-bearers
as if they are not blossoming from our tongues.
crimes of Calypso, clinging
to the orthodoxy of devotion while
my lungs are closing inward.
who is not to say
remnants of the atomic bonds of
vy canis majoris sparkle like supernovae
triumphantly falling forward as if
the deceased rifle-runner had anything
to whisper.
bending backwards to the icicles of the cubicle
entering my neck as a bullet enters her skull
'Waves on a sea bed of linen,
Are at the heart of every prison'
Such a strident thought to plague my mind
A single yawn before the dream.
Outside, I reach my moon
As it touches me,
Such a quiet companion
To be keeping
With the busier of minds.
I sit in the porch swing
For over an hour.
Rocking.
Thinking.
Creating.
I imagine a southern jukebox
That comes through clearly
By listening for its beauty in the ether.
Its music feels too endless.
Too easy.
While moving through me too freely.
My throat heats.
My heart aches.
I begin to weep.
Afterwards, I scare my ducks,
(Because I can)
And make my way towards the pond.
The new grass beneath my feet
Warns me to run forever.
As the memory of you and me,
Stops me at water's edge.
Where the frogs soon move me,
From musing nature's scant lullaby,
To analyzing Pharaoh's teeming nightmare.
I eventually retreat back inside.
Across the lawn.
Through the house.
Up the stairs.
Beneath my canopy of night,
Harsh thoughts
Clash wholeheartedly
With heated tears
And stifled cries.
'The stars were never shining down on me,
They just looked down on their luck.'
Such a wretched truth to plague my mind,
A mere wasted wish before the dream.
"Eärendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in;
her sails he wove of silver fair,
of silver were her lanterns made,
her prow was fashioned like a swan,
and light upon her banners laid.
In panoply of ancient kings,
in chainéd rings he armoured him;
his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm from him;
his bow was made of dragon-horn,
his arrows shorn of ebony;
of silver was his habergeon,
his scabbard of chalcedony;
his sword of steel was valiant,
of adamant his helmet tall,
an eagle-plume upon his crest,
upon his breast an emerald.
Beneath the Moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
From gnashing of the Narrow Ice
where shadow lies on frozen hills,
from nether heats and burning waste
he turned in haste, and roving still
on starless waters far astray
at last he came to Night of Naught,
and passed, and never sight he saw
of shining shore nor light he sought.
The winds of wrath came driving him,
and blindly in the foam he fled
from west to east and errandless,
unheralded he homeward sped.
There flying Elwing came to him,
and flame was in the darkness lit;
more bright than light of diamond
the fire on her carcanet.
The Silmaril she bound on him
and crowned him with the living light
and dauntless then with burning brow
he turned his prow; and in the night
from Otherworld beyond the Sea
there strong and free a storm arose,
a wind of power in Tarmenel;
by paths that seldom mortal goes
his boat it bore with biting breath
as might of death across the grey
and long forsaken seas distressed;
from east to west he passed away.
Through Evernight he back was borne
on black and roaring waves that ran
o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores
that drowned before the Days began,
until he heard on strands of pearl
where ends the world the music long,
where ever-foaming billows roll
the yellow gold and jewels wan.
He saw the Mountain silent rise
where twilight lies upon the knees
of Valinor, and Eldamar
beheld afar beyond the seas.
A wanderer escaped from night
to haven white he came at last,
to Elvenhome the green and fair
where keen the air, where pale as glass
beneath the Hill of Ilmarin
a-glimmer in a valley sheer
the lamplit towers of Tirion
are mirrored on the Shadowmere.
He tarried there from errantry,
and melodies they taught to him,
and sages old him marvels told,
and harps of gold they brought to him.
They clothed him then in elven-white,
and seven lights before him sent,
as through the Calacirian
to hidden land forlorn he went.
He came unto the timeless halls
where shining fall the countless years,
and endless reigns the Elder King
in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer;
and words unheard were spoken then
of folk and Men and Elven-kin,
beyond the world were visions showed
forbid to those that dwell therein.
A ship then new they built for him
of mithril and of elven-glass
with shining prow; no shaven oar
nor sail she bore on silver mast:
the Silmaril as lantern light
and banner bright with living flame
to gleam thereon by Elbereth
herself was set, who thither came
and wings immortal made for him,
and laid on him undying doom,
to sail the shoreless skies and come
behind the Sun and light of Moon.
From Evereven's lofty hills
where softly silver fountains fall
his wings him bore, a wandering light,
beyond the mighty Mountain Wall.
From a World's End there he turned away,
and yearned again to find afar
his home through shadows journeying,
and burning as an island star
on high above the mists he came,
a distant flame before the Sun,
a wonder ere the waking dawn
where grey the Norland waters run.
And over Middle-earth he passed
and heard at last the weeping sore
of women and of elven-maids
in Elder Days, in years of yore.
But on him mighty doom was laid,
till Moon should fade, an orbéd star
to pass, and tarry never more
on Hither Shores where Mortals are;
for ever still a herald on
an errand that should never rest
to bear his shining lamp afar,
the Flammifer of Westernesse."
~ The Fellowship of the Ring, Many Meetings
