Rain pouring down into the street outside
Metal grinding above, a song of the wind
Police sirens a symphony
Mixing like a palette
A touch of Prussian blue
Accent with titanium white
Those city lights yellow ocher
Black trees anywhere against the sky
Just anywhere you like
It doesn’t matter
Just feel it
A soundtrack embedding into me
Grooves being made in a record of memories
New neural pathways
I don’t need soft noise to lull me
I don’t need warm skies
My desire for chilled walks with warm hands
Umbrellas held aloft and accepted when I could be soaked to the bone and be happy
My transient heart swells with a life that has a slight edge
It makes any fluctuations last where I know loss could seep through
Anything to pin a moment to a beating creature that never knows what will stay

Sunshine burns different in the cold
And I feel the absence of summer rays like a physical loss
Depleted
Draining

I held as much sunlight as I could
Absorbed it in my skin
When the harvest was good

Racing outside for morning light, swing door slamming behind

Barefoot on trails, catching the afternoon slant through the birch trees

Bathing in the sunset in fields of warm grass

Pulsing with the magnitude of a season inside
I wanted to take it all through the winter

Ration out the glint off the ocean
On a black river beyond

Letting the first rays of an August morning melt on my tongue on a December night

Opening my hands and finding my nails thick with soil
That earthy scent tethering me to all the green I can grow
As I scrape the unyielding ice off everything

But I spent so much on the first strikes of cold
Battling the seeping tendrils of chill that crept up my spine

I know I will not make it through the winter as a summer creature

The transition has already begun
The smell of wild flowers is gone
In it’s stead my hair snaps with a brittle sound when I turn
Hands so cold I no longer feel it till others shiver at my touch
Holding ice on my tongue but nothing melts

I will not be able to keep us warm this season but know that inside my heart still remembers.
It sings the song of summer in the dark and holds court for all.
If you need a whisper of that summer girl lay your head upon my chest.
Suffer the cold on your cheek and the frost bite that will soon follow.
Strain your ear for the melody of dandelions, the chorus of cicadas, and the vibrant cords of a heat that knows it’s own name and gives it to you freely.

Rain filled city streets
Row houses adorned with Christmas lights
I take your hand now without worry

I love every sight on my own
Absorb it
Photograph it
Breathe in the wet earth
The smokers gathered outside cobalt and gold lit bars
Laughter popping like bubbles as we walk
Our own leaving a trail in the wind as we go
Churches glowing with a transcendent light
Delicious smells spilling from take out restaurants as people hurry out
I want it all
I want to walk the streets entranced and dancing inside

I love all the sights on my own, but my boy I’m getting a contact high just by looking at you in the corner of my eye
So let me tell you
Holding your hand is making my blood sizzle like seltzer
I don’t want to worry about how this will turn out

I’m gonna revel in the side walks and the architecture
And I’m going to revel in you for as long as I can
Cuz you make me ache like I’ve never known, in city I have a history with as long as my life.

And the city, she whispers to me sweet, “Welcome home, love while it’s good, I’ll still have you no matter the end. You’ve come back to me so many times before.”

And I smile and take his hand and trust my city will have me when I fall or if I land

The day came
This mad riot grrl
Who stays with hearts she does not love out of duty
Out of vulnerability is worse than death
Out of a sneaking suspicion that anything good in the world will corrode when left in her hands too long

The day finally came
This riot grrl found a 90’s cool boy and the censor bar over her chest popped off
Not to reveal an exposed breast but an exposed heart
Stiched together with fishnets and dragon fly hair pins
Still there where she thought she had dug it out with tiny spoons and razor blades
She had buried it deep with Green Day posters and burned Photographs
In a metal box adorned with skate sticker and manic panic stains

When the static beating started like a rolling drum beat waiting for a bass line she choked up sharp candy
Slick blue and green
Her tongue traced over it
Sticky sweet and all her own

If this is the way it ends, she decides, As she dips her nails in black polish and glitter
Let’s do this right
Let’s take it all off
Leave the sparkling and the songs
Exposed and laughing
And ride this roller coaster to the end
Eyes wide open for the first time

I walk through alleyways once adored with our paint
our blood
our spit
our sweat
We lived against those wall

I lived against those walls
Constantly trailing my fingertips
My nails
My palms,
My fists along those bricks
It braced my back as my booted foot beat out a static rhythm

Knee bent foot rattling against its solid presence
A solid force that my life lacked
I loved there
I played there
I breathed there
I hated there

A strip between two buildings
A space
An absence
A home

We filled that space so well

I felt found when slipping down that strip

Running clomping down
Dancing spinning happy
Sauntering slightly unsure but sure of where I was
Walking stealthily footsteps silently to not mark me anywhere
When I wished to be no where

Shaded from the glaring sun
Exposed to the blessings of rain
Accented by moonlight
Never fully consumed by snowfall

Booted feet
Blackened fishnet encased limbs
Bare head and in spots every color of the forest
Silver hoops glinting off darkened lips
Huge eyes hungry for it all under heavy shades of nightfall
Blending into shadow
Sticking out in the light

Those walls became my fortress
And I return
And it’s not the same
And it is the same
And if I slipped just right this way or that I think I might find myself back there

Back to the land of street days and alleyways night
Back to fear and exhilaration
Back to a girl before the dark days a girl who seems a lot like me now

It all comes back around and my fortress is still standing

Iron bands containing my heart
Forged over bone
Over a rib cage that was too weak to offer protection

Safety feels like cold metal and a straight spine

Safety feels like no smiles offered that aren’t easily taken back

Safety feels like a island that you adventure on alone

You can let visitors hike those mountains
But it closes at dusk

Why is it that I am letting you build a fire pit there one word at a time

Why when you haven’t asked for it has the iron started to grow soft

Why can I already feel that beating fluttering traitor crashing around
Waiting to be released

Bones cracked open like a cadaver

Insurmountable risk  hovering like a miasma over the wound

You’re not to blame for this quickening

But I’ll be ****** if I don’t try and tame these fluorescent butterflies that think they have a reason for strobing

Does music really have a beginning and an end
I feel it as an endless loop inside me
Pulsing through
Emotions changing the track
Some beats on repeat
I bow to the intricate nature in which it moves me
Fitting pieces into myself I grow larger
I feel more
I have words for the first time associated with that feeling
that day
that time
Oh how I love to plug in and tune out
Light on my feet
Swirling through my day
I overlap my inside with my out
I can see people down the hall but I haven’t finished this lyric yet
Turn around and walk the other way to belt out internally the chorus
I am worlds that just need a soundtrack
I am flexible
Indescribable
Unconditionally me even when I don’t remember who I am
The song shines through
The lines and the melodies flow through my blood
Making pop rocks out moments
Slow honey out seconds