Brocken shadows decide to linger
just a little longer.
The 12 am tears stain my face like bleach on a linen shirt
Dates with the dark are common
and the tsunamis of the past come to crash the world I' d so gracefully built
The brocken violin playing a sad song, the only one I know.
The ivy crawling up the old walls of the cage that keep me away from the outside world,the world I so miss to see.
The youthful one sings in the halls, her voice echoing and her delicate frame dancing before a single candle light. Yet when she turns, her face is seen crumbling, like the wall paper of the room.
No key will unlock the door that so blatantly is in front of me. I have tried to knock it down but my mortal blows are no match for the chains of this moster.
The stench of lonliness is overbearing. When will I smell the taste of freedom?
When will I walk the earthly ground?
When will I kiss the cheeks of life?
For the Gods only know, how trapped I am here.

I've told you too much about me,
I've shown you my history
Breaking the walls that I've put up around me, you never used the key
All of your questions. Was it just curiosity?
But at the time, I thought it was you being mine.
I wanted to talk to you, just like lovers do.
But you aint in love, only I was.

The secrets of my mother, I gave them all to you.
I know that I shouldn't have but I wanted to.
I sold them for nothing because you were bluffing. Now I pay the price.
Oh sweet darling, I am saying goodbye.

My daughter says
every tree has a soul.
Some are good, some are bad.
But always, a soul.
My daughter is young enough
to know these things.

My daughter says also
some trees have a spirit.
(But only the good trees.)
People, too.
She is old enough
to say these things.

Guided by spirit, we can grow
from the crack in a boulder.
We can lift sidewalks.
We bend and yet are strong.
We flower, we bear fruit, we give seed.
We are where the raccoon sleeps,
the hawk nests, the monkeys play.

Without the spirit we twist,
we wither, we break.
With the spirit our roots take hold.
My daughter knows. So young, so old.

You see,
when I escaped your love
I had rocks tied to my ankles in knots,
and I walked into the lake
barely recognising myself,
just caught up in a memory and replaying
the pain in my head, so numbing that
I detached from anyone else’s love.

I thought love, real love, was about sacrifice.
You fed me lies about true love -
never ending ‘happily ever afters,’
and in my naïve mistaken heart,
I trusted to believe real love meant death -
that true sacrifice was self-sacrifice.

So, dressed in the wedding dress
(I was to wear on Monday)
my hair plated the way you liked it,
your grandma’s emeralds around my neck,
earrings dropping as a pendant, and the ring
on my left hand, I walked.

I walked.
I held tightly onto the bouquet of lilies
(were they not always meant for funerals)
and I stepped into the lake.
Cold water rising up my thighs,
cold water which actually felt more ‘known’
than the unknown land of your love.

I wasn’t even scared.

I’d washed down fear with
a bottle of pain.
I washed down fear with
pills of despair.
I just kept walking.
And the only sound I remember,
is my humming of Beethoven’s Für Elise.
In my mind, I could see you dancing
en pointe- your feet as eloquently poised
as the pianists fingers,
never in a race to finish -
just movements of grace.

And that’s who I am today -
I am the dancer
(Odette and Odile).
My humanity is now outdated -
I too, throw myself into the lake,
and, as I take my final breath
we – you and I, my lover –
are seen flying past the moon.

© Sia Jane

I fell for a girl with a glass heart
And watched as she  
Slowly fell apart
Picking up the pieces
And putting her back together
Meant knowing that she
Wouldn't do the same
No matter how much I helped her
Despite the cuts she left
On my hands
I wouldn't have wished
For he to be made of gold
Because instead of being
A caring canvas
I would have been the coal
Sacrificed in order
To make her glow