If I spread my soul out before you, would you stay, seeing all my light and all my dark?
  -Rhia Clay

Then there are those moments which touch the soul,
and you wish you could freeze them in time.
Sometimes, mere moments of kindness can heal years of pain.

-Rhia Clay

I am grateful for those shining their light into this world, for those fighting for the good, despite the pain they've known.

I am most careful with them because they're the best part of this world, casting their hope into the dark, casting their nets into the stormy seas.

-Rhia Clay

Feeling the torn wings and shattered dreams.
Tear-stained pendulum swinging, as my eyes stare down the light in the hallway with a ten-yard stare.
Climbing into my soul, I cling to the shadow of my angel, trying hard to hold onto a ray of hope, like a dream catcher chasing away bad things.
Falling, I realize that in this descent, I am discovering myself on my way to the ground.
Falling endlessly and quietly, without a single sound,
I ask myself how much farther down I must go.
My soul whispers back softly, “Until you’re found.”

-Rhia Clay

I breathe deeply, remembering sweetly.
I close my eyes, and the sound of the wind as it runs along the beach is close.
The sound of seagulls fills the air, and the piercing sun that causes me to squint is hot on my face.
The hum of the car stereo rings in my ears, and I feel its rhythm in my fingertips.
My heart swells with happiness as my grandfather smiles warmly at me and asks if I’d like an ice cream.
I am as happy and drunk on life as I will ever be.
At this moment, I don’t yet realize that the grandfather I know as my father will soon leave me, as his body begins to fail him and his heart beats for the last time.
I am 10 years old and I believe he will live forever; death is the farthest thing from my mind. Life still feels gentle and breezy.
It’s on days like these that I hold on to the memories of my father. I carry his smiling, gentle eyes in my heart, and on the dark days, I fight harder because he loved me so deeply.
I let that love burn away the pain.

-Rhia Clay

I am an artist, try as I might, I will never fully live in this world.
A part of me will always live in the songbird's pocket,
and fly, to land on the windowsill of Romeo and Juliet,
to flutter to the doorstep of Anais Nin,
to hear the poetic masterpieces of her mind.
No, with this artist's heart and a poet's soul,  
a part of me exists only in a dream.

-Rhia Clay