We hold candles and a sense of place,
Drinking down words
Painted and ground into our flesh -
The last remains of fire and smoke
Burning our hands like an old friend.
We are worn from the inside out,
Shedding dreams and heat -
Sweet words-
Your story still fresh on my skin.
Silver moon and serpentine galaxies
Wrap around us like honey
And the spoiled husk of the serpent,
Catching our image in frost
And holding it -
Stars like spilled gold and lightning -
Remember.
We need something
Beautiful about us.

This is older than sea and sky,
Shape without form,
Sinking in and spreading out -
Until we feel.
We hear it across miles and miles,
Sharing breath and need
As we forge something 
Stronger than death.
We are scars and grace,
Waves swelling under 
Our drifting fingers.
We know what it means to fall,
Creeping over the earth we crafted,
Sin trembling over hollow words -
Hollow bones,
Dancing under mountain spine
And bleeding moon -
For we are the children of stardust,
Fashioned from magic
Older than blood and marrow,
And we do not bow.
There is no place -
No temple for us but everywhere,
And we have always been more,
The world beneath our mighty boots.
But what can build up
Can also tear down -
Swimming among stars, 
You're mine to save,
And we rise to our feet - remade.

We find relief in fire,
And everything rises in the darkness -
That reckless intensity
Pulling us darker and darker down.
That boneless white rush -
It's almost everything,
And we settle like dust -
Bells at midnight.
We drive until the land ends,
And walk into the water.
Burning bright
Beneath the firmament,
We are transformed -
There exists no language,
Solid in the earth,
To record our gospel.
Here are the skins of the gods,
And we are witnessing
The birth of stars.

We see in angles and shadows -
Blistered and hollow eyed,
And this feels like escape.
You sculpted me, carved a groove in me,
And hurt that never
Found it's way into your light.
Breath like an electric current -
Arch-drag, and touching like claws.
We can't watch this burn down,
And we can't look away.
Hard and dark -
There is no softness here, no safety.
It's ash on our altar of stone and wind,
And it tastes like fire and dust -
A bruised and aching dream
Testament to the broken beats -
Wonderfully bitter.
This is the only offering we have left,
And it will never be enough.
Hush - don't tell a soul -
These are the things we carry,
And these are the things we keep.

The sun settles down dark -
Dragging us back toward
The line of demarcation,
And you close your eyes
Against what you might imagine,
Searching for a way to become solid.
There is an art to mending wounds,
And I can't see
Where you're stitched together.
We seek refuge in the spaces
Between leaving and returning;
There is no forward motion,
And we are anchored here -
The distance between points narrowing
Until the edges burn and collapse,
And we don't miss it anymore;
Everything that isn't gone forever
Is right here.
We hold on as long as we can,
Pushing past barriers of flesh and bone,
Capturing the colors of longing
Before they fade -
Suspended between what is real
And what is yet to come,
And the air is too thick to breathe.
This purifying burn
Echoing in your blood
And written on your soul -
Solid warmth and sleep without dreaming;
The world in motion,
As if we never stopped at all.

There is absolution
In the curve of your shoulder-
The ecstasy of grief and longing
And the places we once belonged.
It's never as easy as the things you say.
It goes too deep right now -
A shadow in living skin,
And darker things so rare
That we do not name them.
All will build, finish and fall,
Dripping warm and static.
Press harder -
Maybe it doesn't mean anything
If we can't see it happening.
No time to dream -
Light bleeds through the cracks
Until our hands are clean -
Our refuge and renewal.
We shine and seek to mend,
And with no wind to steal our words,
We claim them and render them pure.

We fall into it without resistance -
Reflecting in brilliant blue,
And I am made of words.
Time passes in stops and starts,
And we reshape ourselves -
Tracing lines that bleed
And living alongside Death;
Liquid blindness - suspended, bleeding,
Waiting for something that never comes.
Still falling,
I'm dreaming of a long highway -
Breathing in your touch
And driving until all the lights are gone.
Let's go East.
And we never needed anything
Like we needed this pain -
Blame the nights
We couldn't handle the dark.
Is this what it felt like before?
Voices soft like serpents -
A prayer we don't know
Which way to send.
Brutal and perfect,
It's the last thing I'll ever do for you.
All around us like air,
It gives us grace -
And makes way for something greater.