I turn slowly, shoulders wracked with the age of those thousand lifetimes;
aching with stagnation, burnt with indignation, swallowed in ghosts and grime; that lovely chime,
but in that time: what do I see behind me?
My eyes slowly focus, adjusting to the dark, to the shadow trail in my wake.
Burning pitch and sulfur; I wrinkle my nose; charred flesh and breaking bones.
The skeletons from the closet, catching up with me, ambling on their puppet strings,
singing those terrible songs they sing; the screeching of a broken violin upon their tongues.
That terrible rhythm
of an undying footstep; the way the hips rotate and the arch of the foot as it wears down to bone dust.
I see the eyes of the ones that once lived; in this fantasy castle in the airwaves with me, all regal indigo royalty.
I see the heart-wrenching blue, the bedroom eyes, the reflection of you.
But I am alive to destroy your shadow, as it wrenches itself, gasping breath in, rattling moan out; across the floor, dying for more; for a taste of what you once had when we were living.
I see the docile hazel, hands outstretched in a gesture of love; but those fingers, rot and broken, they long to touch; and I burn, burn, burn the shadows away.
Across my shoulders the ink holds true, and I'll never discard the pictures of you; all they were, before this doomsday parade. Of all our hands held and the smiles we stretched beyond those hollow cheekbones.
I see the rich sapphire and its pseudo wisdom; of new ages and spirit bonds. Reaching out to grip my soul, a fierce and fine swerving; of tight and loosened bolts.
And again, the soulless ice; the pressure on the sternum.
Flash; I swing the rusted axe, I pull the silk trigger; sweet charcoal grip against my fingertips.
The fog on the windows, the notes hung on the filthy, deep air.
Flash; I pull back the taut string; whoosh the arrow flings, the stone tip sings.
And again they groan and grumble; moan and froth and fling their bodies forward,
and I turn once more, facing the speeding stonework floor as it passes,
my footsteps crash in the straining silence; face forward:
What do I see behind me?
I will never look again.

In the silence I still hear your voice,
calling my name so clear
I still feel your lips lingering on my skin.
I still know our breath fighting for its life,
I still live our lies day by day.

Why can't you stay?
I never said anything to hurt you
My heart lie open before you,
day in,
day out,
breathe in,
truth out.

I know I've done some stupid things,
I had some stupid problems,
I get stuck
stuck
stuck
in my own web of tangled feelings,
the  victim
of my own crime.

But in this silence I still know your voice,
calling my name so clear
I still feel your hands at my waist as you held me
so dear,
I still know my breath is fighting for its life,
I still live my lies day by day.

I struggle to answer,
when someone asks if I am okay.
The silence crushes down on me, the pressure building up,
a tornado in a blender.
I still listen for my phone,
and when it beeps I pretend it's you,
with another cheerful I love you to get me through the day.

I still sit alone at home,
waiting for your voice to make it through the airwaves.

How I need your voice,
so clear
so beautiful,
and it's golden timbre that leaves me shivering with joy.

How I need your voice,
In the silence, how I need your voice.

The summation of all my time spent staring, up into open sky
up into wide blue eyes
With the sun hanging down by your sides.
Reach up into that open bounty, a free country
of twirling and falling,
falling with a smile on my lips at last
of freedom and euphoria, pure exhilaration.
Cityskapes open wide before my wings,
night lights tracing the paths out in front of me as I twist and fall,
grasses reaching up to greet the open air
as I reach down to melt into their embrace.
I breathe free through my very skin, through the kiss
of the air passing my lips.
Unchained I soar, bare of wing or claw,
bearing everything here in this abyss of empty expanse
Rushing past my bones.
Nothing can pull me back to solid ground,
or make me turn around against this world of wilderness.
I dive to feel the life that rushes through me
when my wrists finally meet your fingertips,
the winds that tilt us forward to hold ourselves safe.
And all the beauty will arise when in that moment
our eyes open one more time.

I watch them, from my self-righteous tower of alabaster solitude; of calm candlelight and chaotic shadow.

One by one the ships raise their sails.
Each flag a color of its own, each flag caught by a different wind, sailing, sailing out to sea.
They trace aimless patterns across the waves, weaving and crossing; drawing smooth ripples out behind them for the light and shadow to play in.

Still I watch.
Still; I watch.
The candlelight masks me from the darkness outside and I muse quietly, wondering how far the fleets have sailed.
How close they have touched the horizon;
the dark horizon over which the bright sun flees from the tyranny of the moon.
I turn; twisting up and up and up to shine my light, to warn them.

Stay away.

I am the coastline, you are the sea.

Stay away.

My guiding light pushes lost ships away from the lonely coast that twists, slithering out north and south beyond my reach.

When the fog rolls in again, I shine my light ever brighter:
Stay away, stay away.

The thick clouds disguise the cruel, twisting cliffs, turning them soft and diffused;
smiling, inviting sandy cliffs that beckon each ship with their mystique,
their unfocused, slippery allure.

But my light stretches out desperately across the rolling waves.

Stay away.

No ship deserves this fate,
hull sprawled out in pieces across this disparate shore, waves crashing new salt over open wounds again and again until finally;
the bite is just a dull sting, counting the grains of sand they lay against.

My light screams out, crashing titan-like with the tide that erodes these stalactite cliffs into needles, stretching into the fog to graze starboard and port, seeking to draw fresh blood from wooden depths.

Stay away.

And I thunder through a forest restored.
The crash of crisp, fast water against the rocks,
splashing this way and that,
sapphire to clear and all shades of blue.
The golden hour is upon us.
The light of the sun shines down,
glitter against my coat,
my legs stretching out to feel the soil beneath my feet.
I ran like the wind that flowed against my sides,
lifting me as I bounded step after step,
flagging the wind, panting for air to grace my heaving lungs.
Pines tall and alive, branches dropping dew onto the forest floor.
And the ocean roared high against the cliffs,
sparkling mist onto the tall-tower lighthouse.
A never ending sunrise.
A smile stretches across my lips,
churning up sand under restless claws.
I run forever just to breathe the air and laugh,
in utter celebration that you are here,
that the trees are alive and the sun shines.
My cries echo across space and time,
while I keep pulling the earth to race me
past these trees and flowers forever.
The blooms of red and gold, pink, yellow,
all so vivid against my eyes, silver in the light.
I will run forever.
I'll be free forever.

I wish I could tell you;
everything
I've been keeping inside.
How I want to blame you,
how that Halloween was a thorn in my side.
How when I think of you,
I grit my teeth.
How you need to be in a hospital.

I wish I could tell you;
everything
I've kept and all the lies.
How I never loved you,
how that companionship was just another
dip in my stride.
How when I see your name,
I wish it was on a clipboard;
at the foot of your bed again,
sitting guard-style as you made small talk.
How my sketchbook filled itself as I
stayed by your side.

How of all the people you've abandoned,
I'm the least of all the snide remarks,
the least of all the cries for attention.
How when I think best friend,
I think pull the trigger.

How when you mention all the things you've
"done for me" to get me to overlook your insecurity,
to get me to reassess the frailties I know are simply
ingrained in you...
What passes through my mind are not what I owe you,
but what I've done for you,
and all the midnight phone calls that saved your life.

How when you tried to make us "even",
I cried.
How when you brush aside my concerns,
I wallow that you've let me down.

You're unreliable and I've known it from the start,
that you were weak and lazy, like me.
How your conscience crumbles under the weight of
a simple phrase.

I always had hope but it fades every time you tell me
that I should talk to you, that I must not like you because I don't.

Steady, I am. Like a plant whose roots are drinking all the wrong things,
but going nowhere.
Locale has never been my issue. I wander not far,
I walk on my own two feet.
I am always where I am.

Afraid, and alone, and aside,
a thorn in my side.
a dip in my stride.

I know that you are the one that owes,
and I'd be happy to overlook it.
But I've given you
chances
chances
chances
to overcome what I know you're capable of,
to become what I know you're capable of.
I've given you
smiles
times
graces
to breathe life into the dream sitting straight ahead.

But your blind eyes sway you,
every time.
You're not sublime, never feeling just 'fine'.

I wish I could tell you
all those times we spent side by side
before you cast me aside
before the dip in my stride
before the tides tore us apart;

best friends means you get what you deserve
best friends means

The night the sky flamed orange,
the trees bowed to the earth with respect;
pine needles littering the forest floor,
a spongy rest for my weary feet.
The wind howled with me.
The storm rolled in soft and quiet as I slept;
the storm that you have always kept.
My eyes blacked out the world;
my bed of pine needles served as the clouds might, could I lay on them.
I, the white one sleeping, next to my heart's treasure.
The tall pines waved and danced in the canopy of the sky,
releasing their sweet resin scent to paint my heart in the light of starry forest midnight.
The winds bent my pines and scattered my bed of long-dead needles,
and just like that she was gone.
I rose from my throne to search my sanctuary for the treasure that held my heartbeat within its confines.
Nowhere could I find her, though I ran without reserve,
paws pulling the great landscape beneath my feet: I flew through the trees...
and there you stood, my antithesis.
Black against my soil-stained White.
Eyes glinting to reflect my mirror image;
and against your shadowy coat the sky came down...
and the forest set ablaze.
The smoke and flame destroying all it touched,
apocalypse from your fingertips.
Solitary, next to me, though all else was gone, and her along with it all;
untouched, one lullaby rose shimmered into bloom.
For I, the White Wolf sleeping.