sketch a thought
for the girl who wanders
the echoing halls of my mind,
depression’s cold cousin,
smooth as a seal’s fur,
reaching through barriers -
wrapping your fingers around my heart,
only to pull, pull, pull;

i am belly-up
my guts exposed
like the tears that dissipate in the wind
for her.

I once knew her:
mirror, mirror,
held up to myself
and i scream -
have i been a monster?
does the gaslit lamp provide enough light?
it misleads
disfigures
we mould ourselves to marry and martyr
before we know how to speak
truthfully
love is as real and painful as the scars on my back, your wrists, my lips, yours eyes,
my mirror mind
shattered.

you gave me magic,
i gave you happiness
and you returned it
signed: “return to sender”. packaged,
parceled-up,
compartmentalized,
fragmented;
pieces of a beautiful thing
cast out across the tide
pulled along by the current
then sunk
below the water’s surface -
freezing cold
and isolated.

i washed up on shore
in a land not quite Europe
not quite America
with all of the problems
both have,
lovelorn and lost;
i survived there,
somehow -
fresh eyes
drew me forward
to explore this land
in the wake of exploring
so much pain.

now my heart is full
but so is my mind:
with the knowledge of seven years,
who i’ve been,
who i will be,
because we have to change
because i wanted change
because i’m in love and too scared
to utter those words out loud
because i don’t want to rush
or ruin
or reverberate the madness.

i will love new
i will love strong
i will love genuinely
(even when it hurts)
and
i will not give up.

by the sea
i saw her there,
lost on another voyage;
i hope she finds her way
home
floating on the notes
between the bars of the road
bopping along a scale
frozen in time
until the asphalt weakens
under the sun and rain and snow;
washout roads
lead to washed out souls
but
conditions have never been better.

i was saved by a martyr self
bundled in boxes and shipped off to
my sister — my keeper;
rescued by captain fantastic,
sleeping with myself,
saved in time tonight and every night
and winding it down
like the brown dirt cowboy you always knew i could be.

those songs came over the waves
sailing through my musical bones,
electrified;
neurotransmitters like piano keys
jazzing up a well-strummed soul,
fingers plucking heart strings without resistance,
and i am at the mercy of music you’ve made -
that mesmerizing melody
in the inflection of your voice
and
the movement of your body
against mine;
rhythm.

don’t **** this song and dance
when the curtains just opened

let this harmony take us home

and resonate.

419

We grow accustomed to the Dark—
When light is put away—
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye—

A Moment—We uncertain step
For newness of the night—
Then—fit our Vision to the Dark—
And meet the Road—*****—

And so of larger—Darkness—
Those Evenings of the Brain—
When not a Moon disclose a sign—
Or Star—come out—within—

The Bravest—***** a little—
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead—
But as they learn to see—

Either the Darkness alters—
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight—
And Life steps almost straight.

That state
Wher
         e
            y
              ou
                    jus
                         t
                           Stop

when the black pebbles
crept into the crevices
of my shoes
and pulled me deeper into
the earth
I felt connected -
like I feel with you;
i wanted to pick the flowers
and give them to you
but they’d never make it back
across the sea
of anxiety I skid across
until my arms are wrapped around you
and I know you’re mine.

There I sunk
into the sand, out of luck,
dreaming of love,
sick with it to the bone-
infected, **** it-
and thinking of you,
I stopped and listened to the sound
of glassy waves shattering cold
against shifting mossy rockfaces.
I thought of the way
you make my blood rush
like the windblown waves;
how my heart
is full of the changing colours of our souls
like the water transforms
deep to shallow,
light to dark to light again... until the cool silence arrives,
sweet music
of a babbling beachfront
historic bedrock
and
the wreck of the edmund
fitzgerald
hidden beneath
in shallow graves;
ten thousand souls
over a century,
I can hear them all
telling me
“this is the place. this is right.”
where I wanna be
she may be
and I could be wrong
but
my heart steers me
and I can’t stop smiling
so
here I root
to begin my new life
at the
edge of the world.