God or that breeze, spoke out and I could feel the caress on my young face. An intimacy only longing could tell you.

The pilgrimage, across the rocks,
along the shore,
they walk with solace.

Twilight stretches long limbs as they waltz in a line to the edge of the world,

gazing into the depths of the waters to see whatever it is they have come for.

Then the sun slips down and stars make a path for them back to that place of beginnings.

Feet and toes dipped into throws of milky waves and morning haze

and pelicans on a tiny isle,
and houses staggered over cliffs

along the shore, and seagulls drift
and hours wane, our legs yearn

to stand, to stretch, and we are swift
beneath the day, I want to burn.

i wish i was a
better daughter
for you.
i wish i knew
what it would do
to you.
i wish i wasn’t
so afraid
and i wish i never
stayed
in that orphanage
where i barely left
my crib like a
cage.

i wish i grew up
before today
because now it is
much
too late.

My faith is mine
And mine alone.

This hope,
You cannot take away.

I’ll be drained
Of each drop of blood,
You’ll drag my name
Through the cherry-stained mud,
But my soul, my soul, my soul
Is saved.

My soul, my soul,
Is saved.

I just don’t know
How to live a life
Thinking that everyone
Is bad all the time.

Everyone’s wrong,
Inherently wrong,
Ever so wrong,
Then who’s good?

Me?

No, I am far
From the best person
I know.

To believe otherwise
Would be to put myself
On a very high horse
On a very high pedestal
On a very high hill
That I am 𝘯𝘰𝘵
Willing to die on.

It’s like I’m walking
Home from school,
Counting the houses
That look the same.

It’s like I’m skipping
The cracks again,
Humming the tune
Inside of my head.

It’s like my shoe laces
Keep coming undone
No matter how much
I tie them up.

I pick at the thread
Hanging off of my sweater,
Not bothering to bend down
And double-knot.

And then when I trip,
I sit
And wonder
Why.

I used to be hues of yellow,
Green, blue, purple, and red.
With the sky as my soul
Feeling vibrant and bold
Like the stories I spun in my head.

A girl made of stars
Is bound to burn out
If her light can no longer be fed.
Learned the rules, learned the game,
Then I scrapped my old ways,
Sinking in water that I used to tread.

Your face was a charcoal portrait,
So I touched it to just see you smile.
But I smudged you all up and I’m covered in gray,
And the light, it retreats when I’m in the sun’s rays,
And I feel like the night everyone wishes was day—

But I take a deep breath.

And I find that old spark.

Just to realize that it never even went away.

I see my life through plexiglass
Trying to bulletproof the past,
Nostalgia? No, but I recall
That rising up precedes the fall.
But the films I watch inside my mind
Are missing parts I cannot find
So I fill the blanks with what I see,
I fill it up with what I need.

Now is it truth, or is it lie?
I like to think that I am right,
But I’m not the well-oiled machine
I used to think I used to be.

I am in a room where the darkness writhes.
I am fine I am fine I am fine I am fine.
The silence—
It chokes me,
And still I swallow it down.

But in this doggone echo chamber
All I hear is myself.
I am going insane to the sound
Of my own voice.

I beg the shadows
“Please, don’t leave me
Here,
Alone,
Forever.”

I scream,
“SAY SOMETHING TO ME.”

I cry,
𝘞𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯?