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

Words caught in my throat like glass
I want to tell you all about me
I want to explode with my story
Dance on the words that glow
Coax the sentences that hurt slow but with chin raised high
I want to breathe past the fiber glass worry in my chest

What do you read in my eyes when I’m positively bursting to speak but mute with the honey stuck worry that you’ll take one real look and run away

My palms are open
A map
Pale and lined and filled with my stories
If you could see my world on them like I do I think you would find it beautiful and sparkling and terrifying and dark

I’ve lived a lot
And not in so many years
I like to pretend that the scars I’ve gotten from the wrong people are gone
But this scraping on my nerves when I try and let you in speaks to the lie of that

It scares me to want something
-someone-
I think I need to open my palms and show you the path through it

Try and believe that you won’t close them tight,
place them back in my lap,
far away from you,
and tell me you never wanted to see how to get through to me in the first place

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

Lost in translation
Who have we become
The littered masses
Throwing ourselves into every day

Mass confusion
Identify crisis’s
Forced upon a population who know themselves
But are taught not to

I know who I am

Do you know who you are?

I will trust your version of you

Give you the choice to be the fullest possibility of yourself

One person at a time now
Stand up
Open
Alive
Everything you want to be and more

It’s contagious, acceptance, let’s spread it like wildfire

Shatter the world to it’s foundation
And we’ll build it anew

Red light through stacked glass shines
Pulses with the thick 77 beat
Scarred wood soft under fingernails
I smile at you but can’t tell who’s happiness is radiating around me
Mine - yours - ours
Does it matter when in that moment I feel endless
Infinite
The answer to the question you should have been asking all along:
Rock and roll and someone to sing along with

Oil paintings mixed with sand
Colors splashed and dripped
Fine forms
Abstract adoration
I want to run my fingers over these throbbing colors
Lick the reds that look like candy
Curl up in the grey window seats
Stretch out on the deep forest greens
Run through terra-cotta roofed worlds
Throw myself into a mixture blast splatter fantasy
My breath is snatched away by beauty
My eyes fill and open and never blink
My stillness is deceiving as I am flying in my mind
The world dims around me
I forget I have words that aren’t colors
And as the colors leave my mouth they really mean love
But love is not a word that holds value after years of corruption
So colors
So my purest desire
“So blue” sighed and whispered
Grey, white, blue, maroon, touches of green and black

Fingertips like historians marking down for the ages all they touch when we are together

Eyes open, never shuttered, taking in every color, shade, and shadow. An artist gathers her arsenal

Inhaling, scenting the air, a map of the places we go. Your scent becoming a bread crumb trail back to a warm place inside

Listening, recording the sounds that make up a landscape of now. The groove deepening

Painting layers of time

Reveling in the seconds

Pouring the hours over us like linseed oil

I am a vault
A Fort Knox of a life that really only matters to me
I am impenetrable
My own
I can weather any storm
Any assault

Letting someone in however...
Hard: Nope, not enough
Terrifying: Yes, and then some
Nearly impossible: Getting warmer baby

But I’m cracking open doors for you
And the shuddering down the halls has not stopped in days

Every combination I give you
Gives me tunnel visions of panic
And the clanging inside my head sounds like an alarm from another time
Not meant for you
But none the less going off
Calling the guards

Even - as I open the boxes
Unfold the velvet covers
And lay my truths before you like treasures

Especially - then I’m afraid

Afraid it will all rust and turn to dust when the air hits it
Turn to dust in the air of the open door you leave behind you

A breach it would take me forever to shore up again

You are not your father’s keeper
You are not your mother’s mother
You are a huntress
A wolf goddess

The sum of your trials
Feral
But glowing with that holy light

Your crown shall be tarnished
And made of gold and bones

You will wear it even as the weight of it may bear you down
As drops of blood may trickledown your temple
You will wear that blood as war paint

Crouched and snarling
-or-
Standing straight backed and watchful in the wind

Fingers curled with dried blood
-or-
Hands bare and moonlight pale open to the world around you

For every way you are
Remember wolf girl
Your strength has been forged in fire
Don’t apologize for using it

Stand at the edge of your sanity
Howl in the night
Know
Despite any hardships ahead
You have found a home

Walking through my door that first time
You stopped
Just for an instant
Waiting for others to pass

The sunlit moment like flash photography burning in my mind

Blonde hair falling straight around your face
Shining like golden fields

Blue eyes, two pools of ocean water, when I didn’t know how to swim

Pale skin seeming just a little tanner for the white tank top and fitted khaki cargo pants you wore on your slim frame

Thin shoulders back
A leg up on the top step
Ready, always ready
That slight smile on your face
One of your front teeth poking out slightly

You glowed

The light to my dark

Summer to my autumn heart

Me there in all black
Arms crossed
Head tilted slightly
Waiting, Always waiting

Piercings catching the light like a constellation

My hair a net of midnight
Against pale white skin
Dark eyes open but shadowed

Hoping in that instant this sunshine girl would want to stay

What might be the price for a friendship

Books, wine, movie ticket stubs, and notes scrawled on scraps of paper

You showed me how to shine full when I would fall behind the clouds

You gave me some of your light when my own waned

I hid you in my nights when you wanted to be no where and everywhere

I had hoped for a little time at least

But the stars aligned and we’ve orbited each other for more life then we’ve ever lived without

We’ve dwelled so long in each other’s light that our face’s have shone with both at times

Turning a sun into a moon and moon into a sun

There once was a little girl
Fair skin
Dark eyes
Long locks the color of maple branches

She lived in a caravan
Travelers
Blood but never family
Day after day they went
Forgetting her places
Blaming her for their lack of success
Outcast
Not like them
Cramped and sore from the constant instability

On went the years
On she went
Growing
Excelling
Never enough
Never seen

Long limbed and lean
Hair worn high and proud
She was learning to leave them behind
Their words thickening her skin
Becoming armor
A beautiful girl with a sharp tongue and wicked right hook
Intelligence and a subtle grace that she rarely let others see
Indifference and strength far more valuable assets to exhibit
She grew into what she needed to be
Showed what she needed to show

Until the day finally came
Leaving to start her own story
Standing in the sun
Gazing at the world around her

The pains had grown unbearable
Her back and neck needing to crack

In frustration she twisted
Putting all her years into it
Putting the disappointment and the determination
The pain and her perseverance
And she twisted

With a sound that rumbled through the earth
And shook the very stones at her feet
A moment of release felt through every inch of her

Breathing out a breath that she hadn’t know she had been holding her whole life
A shadow on the ground growing
She raised her eyes to the sky with reverence
Huge beautiful scaled wings now gracing the world around her
Her shoulder blades adorned
After years of carrying around the judgement of the ones closest to her
The weight of her new wings felt like nothing

Now she was truly free
Painless
Her own
And ready for everything

You raised an army to stand with you

Never realizing kindness

...All You had to give...

Could bind so

I don’t wish on eye lashes
Or search the sky’s for shooting stars
I went out into the world and came back whole

When I met you I realized I had been missing a piece inside me but
I found it before I laid eyes on you

It had just been buried under a lifetime
Stored and hidden from trolls and monsters
Kept safe by a younger me who had no where to run so she hid our heart

I don’t make wishes
And I don’t need to wish with you

I found my fairytale ending on my own
I gave myself the gift of love and woke
And now you are here
And very welcome to join me
On my new adventure
A thing called real life

Step out
Booted feet ready to go
Cracked sidewalks
Green growing between

Life can’t be kept down by the overwhelming need to cover with concrete

The pressure pours down
I look at my feet
Breathe in the spring scented air
Growth
New green in soil so ready

My skin bare in places that feel as though they’ve been covered forever
The air outside tempting
It begs me sweet to come and play

I want it all
The green
The concrete
The architecture

I may shed it all
My jacket
My worries
Find a beat in the city
Calling
And never look back

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

Needing people - a useless construct of a greeting card society
Want
Enjoy
Love even
But at the end of the day you will be alone to celebrate your victory’s
To heal from your wounds
To learn from your missteps
Don’t devalue your worth with “Need”
Don’t try and fill that gaping ache with another’s
Find your own balm
Then head held high
Kick that door open and live
Wholly you
Let others tag along if you feel like it, who knows could be fun

Smiling warmly she sets her pain before them
Would you like to listen to a story friend
It’s not a pleasant listen

You may look at me different when I’m done

Buts it’s mine to give
And that means all the world

What will it be tonight?

Will a thread of my experience stitch a wound left open in you

Could a tonic of my past tears ease a little of your loneliness

I could dole out a few milligrams of misconceptions splashed over me like pigs blood to help ease your discomfort in your own skin

Give me a meter of your damage and I will find just the right size admission to cover you with

I could tell you you’re cared for
That you’re not alone
But sometimes a passed memory in an open palm given freely will mean more to you in the end

So step right up my dears
I’m open for business when you are just about to shut down

Swimming in the syrup calm of now

When life flipped I found myself gulping down the sweetnesses around me

Now I’m left sprawled naked and sugar hyper on the floor of my mind
Staring at the dark above
Wondering how I missed that the glow I had been basking in had been mine all along

A slow fire flickering back in my heart

I’ll warm the crystal sweetness and have my amber lake again

Next time I’ll remember the trick

Life tilts

Don’t panic and drown in it

Scattered across apps
Glimpse of a girl who wants nothing and everything to do with the world
Choosing which scraps to show
What words leave an impact with out showing her hand

Fireworks
Ferris wheels
Mosh pits
Never stopping hips that cannot abide being outside that song

She can’t stop feeling everything

When she’s happy she flys
Never a question in her mind that doesn’t hold wonder

When she’s sad she is so so still
But it’s a still that vibrates

Soaked with rain
Her lashes flicking open past the droplets
Huge and ready for everything

A hurricane heart will always love the storm

The calm is what really scares her

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

City nights
The breeze lifts my hair as I turn
Much longer now than it was before
Another night is following

The pounding beat of the club ahead beckoning
But I can feel the other nights in step behind
It will be the same but different

And before goes...

Stage lights flash off of studs and piercings
Leather and cigarettes permeate the air
Thick on your tongue
Mouth like an ash tray even when you haven’t taken a drag
The floor up ahead is alive
The heart of the room onstage
Throw everything aside
Dive into the middle of a mass of limbs
Thrashing and dancing to a jack knife of a voice
Losing yourself and finding it again
When you fall they will pick you up
When you crash it doesn’t hurt
When you’re there you’re free

...Turning and smiling into those nights one more time

A wink and a step into a new space
A new beat
A new freedom awaiting

And dive in

I can’t see past that moment sometimes

Walking through the front door
Unbelief and utter knowing mixed together like shaken oil and water
Together in one space but completely separate

I wanted to fight the world
Anger a balm on a bleeding heart

Tears a weakness I could not abide
Iron in my blood
Chin held high with chipped teeth gritting past
Smiling for the world
Don’t let them see
Don’t let them touch you

Time went on
I learned to breathe again
It all goes back to a new normal

Now enter stage right:

Death again
A classic creeping figure this time
Not a jump scare
Steal my brother in the night scene

But every performance he now makes is tainted with your memory

And when I cry, finally, at this curtain call it will be you and our childhood that will flash behind my eyes

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

Something’s shifting but I’m more solid then I’ve felt before

My footsteps have a weight to them
Not a heaviness
But a presence

I’m not whirling on the tips of my toes stealing moments
I’m dancing full footed in the present
I’m landing all my movements and letting you be by my side

Matched
No heavy burden pulling me under
Just a level of laughter
A dash of the ridiculous
And all the explosions of every time you look my way

It’s not that the world dulls around you
But that you seem like the most vibrant thing in the room
And I’ve become very fond of your colors

Waiting in the crowd
Letting it all in
The life of an assembled group has a pulse
A strum that you can feel
And boy do I love the rush of a few hundred people hungry for something

Hungry and waiting for the first cords
That first song
Will it be their favorite

You can feel the nights they’ve spent in the dark
Radio up
Lacing their blood with the music

The days they’ve rolled down the windows and driven with that chorus on their lips like salvation

The evenings they pulled it from the jukebox
Conjuring it like their next trick

Feel the excitement in waves in the dim lit space
Smoke rolling lazily over the lights
People shifting
Emotions swelling
The moment the band steps on stage
Release
Screaming out in a way they never can out there
And it’s like it’s always supposed to be
Their voices raise up
Joining a voice they know as well as their own
Bringing into the night the sound of a couple hundred hearts pounding in unison to the beat of their favorite drums

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

Pop rocks and wildfires
Deep drawn out comfortable silences

It’s not comfortable for some people
My juxtaposed nature breeds uncertainty

I am not subtle
I am not the in between

Waves crash and people stare in awe
Slowing to a lapping at the sand and peace settles in their bones

Can you see the good in both sides of me that way

I feel like a wildfire burning the world around her sometimes
But when I settle in I can be a gentle flame to light the night

In the end It’s all or nothing

Ride my waves and the calm is yours

I’ll sigh and warm the room around me with dreaming looks and half smiles
But be ready my dear when I want to run
Cuz I have a level of noise in my head and somedays I want to run to meet it full blast

Do you want to run with me?

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.

Anxiety smooth slides over your lungs
Liquid coating them
All sneaky like till you take a breath
Eyes shooting open
Your subconscious playing your fears like a paper shadow lamp
Once you see it you wonder how that candle had been burning without you noticing
How those cut outs had been made while you were content
And what it’s gonna take to stop that merry go round from turning

Fire escapes, pink neon lights flashing, always slick with rain, crouched and watching the gleaming cars below

Ballrooms dripping in gold and coral, strips of lace left behind, laughter floating through the empty rooms

Rain forests so lush your body feels overdressed in clothes, moss under foot, muscle memory from another time

New York hotels strewn with cigarettes and adorned with fey boys and girls in white shirts and black skinny ties, draped over red carpeted staircases

Cafe’s strung with exposed lightbulbs, cobblestone paths leading to the river, espresso and honeysuckle fill the air, as whisperers of what it is to truly live brush past your ear

Thread worn carpets in cabins hung with dried herbs, sunlight pouring in making fantasy from dust motes

Terra-cotta cottages painted like gingerbread houses, palm trees swaying slightly, pink frosted lips tasting of cotton candy and salt water

All my lives
All here for the viewing if you know how to look

Tilt your head
Unfocusing your gaze like my eyes are lights on your Christmas tree
Lean in
“Hello there”

Confetti on my tongue when I try to speak
My laughter rings out instead
My eyes feel huge

Like they see the first glimpse of “Tomorrow” everyday now

Like “Tomorrow” finally realized it was today and liked it

The wildness inside is growing weary
She is feral and crawling underneath this icy calm

This season of perpetual waiting is driving us
Keeping us unfulfilled
The Rumbling static energy builds to breaking

And so I dance her to sleep with abandon
Feed her bits of adventure that taste like neon lights and worn sidewalks
Calm her with storms soaked to the bone and never fully dry
Ride with her the windows open till the chill bites at my lips and tiny cracks form
Dive into music till our heart learns to beat again, breaking through the ice, and carrying the echo in our bones

Anything
Everything
All the things
to quell the breathless, restless, mind numbing desire...