if I sit up for hours at night staring at the whirling stars, I start to become someone else's fever dream. the changing seasons are relentless, this winter seems so much more barren than the last, the scorching hot summer sun melts my plastic skin until I become unrecognizable. where did the time go? etched into my body, of course, have my dark circles always been this prominent on my face? do my eyes tell stories of love or hate? I think and I think about the past lives this soul has witnessed, hoping I don't accidentally wither away before making something of myself. a lifetime is so meaningless compared to the unyielding grip of time.

understanding you on a spiritual level
I was there for years
starstruck on a muggy august evening
we both made a promise that would surely be broken
I watched you drift slowly away
like an old wooden boat bobbing across a long abandoned harbor
I bargained my soul with the Devil just to save yours
I tried to salvage all the pieces of you
all of the fragments scattered across the cold pavement
reminding me of a glass bottle thrown in anger
she put you back together but it was all wrong
lazily glued back into place
gaping holes with jagged edges protruding out
you aren’t the same as I knew you once
I yearn for a version lost to time
my memory is the only place you exist now
but it will soon fade just as you had
many months ago

I ache for a place I can never return
my soul never learns, the scars of nostalgia always reopen
sweltering summers followed by foggy fall mornings
a place that killed me from the inside
but it was still a home
despite the pain all I can remember is the millions of stars in the sky
the intense quiet only broken by the calls of wild animals
the lonely roads marked only by dilapidated churches
heavy rain falling upon the rooftop, lulling me to sleep
a piece of my heart stayed behind when I left on that December morning
suddenly 1700 miles away again
almost like it meant nothing
but I’ll always remember the pure peace I felt
standing near the raging bonfire
the freedom I yearned for
the freedom to starve and work and suffer
it was what my mind was used to
a lonely soul trapped in a lonely town
breaking me down every single day
I’d always hoped I could go back someday but now I can’t
a lonely soul, now trapped in a bustling city

you will wrench open the iron bars around your soul and fly
free from your misery and woe
floating above your own body, unchained from gravity
becoming friends with the billions of stars in the sky
you will understand what it means to be content again

standing at the edge of the world, the wind blows fierce
screaming out of the abyss like a million tortured souls
but it isn’t hell
the world has a voice, but you can’t hear it until it’s crying out in pain
you don’t know what you’ve done until it’s too late
the world revolved around you until it didn’t
the world revolved around you until you faced the void and it swallowed you whole
so vulnerable with your humanity on display
every other thought melts away, you will be forced to confront your own mind
a horrifying reality for those who live outside it
it’s time to open every single eye
It’s time to take the flying leap into the unknown

one day i will die on a silent hill surrounded by tombstones
sitting undisturbed until the earth takes me back once again
the sun will set and the seasons will change and the years will pass
flowers will sprout where I once decomposed
I will be free from this vessel of flesh
free to float among the stars as my soul scatters into a million pieces
but I will return to this world again
placed inside a new form
repeating a new life
experiencing a new death
each leaving its mark on my being
yet I can only dream of ascension

I am but a simple creature
I will lay down at your front steps like a dog and wait for you
I bite and I lunge because I'm scared and it's all I know
but I will not hurt you anymore
nature made me into a wild beast but I must be tame to enter your home
I hope you'll let me stay when it's cold and lonely outside
I hope you'll keep a spot for me to sleep when I'm weary and starving
I hope you'll welcome me home when I come back to you