The ribbons of your heart
Are entwined with mine.
Blood-red trailing on ebony
Softest silk draped over stone
You seek to love me
But I cannot.
I can’t risk you and I
Becoming entangled -
I fear we may never be free.

Black scales among white feathers.
White fangs between black beaks.
A snake, among the swans.
Both creatures of grace,
But one more deadly.

The snake has venom
But the swan has none.
The snake is sleek
But the swan can fly.

White feathers in the black dirt.
Black scales in the white lilies.
A swan swims away,
And the snake lies dead.


https://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/15264801.python-found-dead-in-haddington-is-believed-to-have-been­-killed-by-a-swan/

You’ve wounded me.
Shattered my heart,
No hope of healing.

How could you?
Why did you
Twist my soul in two?

Your shards of glass
Have rent my eyes
Blood, like a tear, drips.

You sing and call so sweetly,
Summoning me closer,
Into the folds of your arms.
The shadows of your bent head,
Tucked down close to mine,
Reflecting a comfort and safety
That I’ve never felt before.

The voice of the night is soft,
Welcoming, in a way
That you could never be.
And I love her, deeply,
But she could never be the night.
She is not you.

Why are you here?
Hiding in the stolen moments,
The glances of left and right,
Just behind my eye’s corner

Your love is still felt
Brushed against my fingers
When I reach for anything
Like feathers on silk

You haunt me,
A ghost of memories,
Of our little time together.
How are you still alive?

Hiding in my own gaze,
Dreading to meet yours.
Wondering what hurts more,
Hiding, or being Found?

Do you see me?
On the outskirts of the crowd
Looking in at the talking
Always looking in
If my mouth ever opens
To contribute a word  
I am cut off
The populars owning the chatter
I simply close my mouth
Nod and smile to the others’ looks
And you forget I am here

Do you see me?
In the very centre of the crowd
Looking out at the chatter
Never looking in
Every word from my lips
Is funny, ingenious
The best thing you’ve heard today
I am expected to have words
For every occasion
Just once
I want to close my mouth
Nod and smile to the others’ words
And you forget I am here

I’m dying
Missing you,
The ghost at my fingertips.
Whispering to me
Like a shadow of a scent.
I’m dying missing you,
Someone who was never there,
Never meant to be.
My mind imagines the strangest things sometimes.
Like a person who was there and gone,
Like a shadow,
A scent,
Never to be mine.

This chair is oh so familiar,
Propping my arm up,
The same as it always does.

The nurse arrives, needle in hand,
And removes a unit of love,
Filling that same plastic bag.

I know where my love goes.
I see it arrive, every time.
That nurse, needle in hand,
Sends my love along your veins,
To your heart.

The transfusion never takes.
At least, not from you.
Your cold body never warms.

My love will never work
Because your heart is dead.
And mine cannot pump for two.

I used to be everything.
All I needed,
Right there,
Only for me

Now I am nothing.
My heart a void,
Drained empty,
Only for me.

There is a silence here.
One that beats within me,
A second heart,
With none of the love.

My throat aches,
Voiceless cries going unheard.
The quiet is consuming,
Yet there is nothing here.

How can there be nothing?
When all that I’ve wanted
Could not be closer?

I know.
Because I do not want you
Not anymore.
Your silence, your quiet,
Is consuming.
It has eaten me
And left nothing behind.

My heart beats inside me
Does it truly?
Yes, I think so
But my chest doesn’t rise
And my lungs don’t breathe.

Here, crack my ribs,
Reach your hand inside,
Trace your fingertips
Along the veins of my heart.
Does it beat?
For you, it does.

This gaping hole
Buried in my chest
It wishes to meet
And be met by
All the love I’ve seen
But I’m alone today
And I’ll be alone overmorrow
Because my hole is too deep.

Anger is a foul thing
Bitter in the teeth
And rough in the throat.
A tongue, coated in black,
Spitting the scraping tar.

You invoked this of me.
You chanted the spells
And danced the pentagram
And pulled this rage from deep,
Up to the light of your new hell.

Death has long fingers, they say,
Wrapped around her world
Like cobwebs around flies
And skin around bones.

She has wide eyes, they say,
Watching our world and waiting
Like a dumb lamb, young but too old,
Wondering why you have a knife.

Death knows things, they say,
Like how your mother screamed
And your father cried
How your brother fainted
And your sister stared
At your wrist laying
Among the ****** leaves.

I am so very weak.
Times and choices get hard
And my options are run away,
Or build a mask so well
That it becomes my face

I don’t see a present
Past and future are all in my eyes,
The rest unthought, never will be.
It is safety this way,
Better than being too present.

I still own hope
It is still inside my feet
But I float apart, separated,
Made only of ribbons from my mask,
Each decision calculated by fear

I cannot choose between two
Hope and fear
One is a luxury
The other a necessity
I am too poor to afford either
So I carve masks of stolen fear
And pretend myself rich

I miss the days of old,
When passion and fire and hope
Tinted the glasses I wore

But they pinched too tight,
And they cast off my face,
And they went to find another.

So now reality is my glass,
Showing truth and lies
And everything surrounding

So now I make my own hope,
Force a smile through cracked teeth,
Hiding the tongueless hollow
That you created of me.

Oh, I long for the day
When the mirror will show  
And will reflect mine own
I will see a true me
No facades of fakery

Oh, these pieces I carve,
But not a piece of me.
Not a slice of last year,
All a slice for now,
Free of your eyes and mine

you don’t know the price i’ve paid
to stand here before you
head raised high and proud

you don’t know the things i’ve done
to outlive the terrors
to survive the death in my mind
of my mind

all you see is a failure
of your dreams
your hopes

but i’m barely holding
on to my own life

why should i care
for yours?

you haven’t paid the price i have
you haven’t done the things i have
you haven’t killed your hopes
for a chance at a life

you couldn’t understand
(wouldn’t understand)
all
these
thoughts

telling me to mark my arms again
telling me i’m worthless again

why?
i still don’t know
(i wish i knew)

The lights are so bright today
Demanding, glaring, intense.
Our squinted eyes unshielded,
Unprotected from the fluorescents,
Those too bitter in our throats.

But I’ve created a place here
Comfortable, subdued, dusky.
I’ll show you how to be home,
Right here as the stars glow,
Made of light we cannot feel.

For a split second
I see beauty
Rain dripping from leaves
Tumbling and trickling
To the ground
Glistening gleaming bright
A glimpse of a rainforest
And then it’s gone
and it’s
just
cold rain.

I enter the Forest.
Trees tall and broad and fierce,
Branches whipping the storm above.
I want to nap, I say,
Just ten minutes of peace.
The trees accept,
If grudgingly.
I find a bed of sticking brush
And sleep.

When I wake,
It’s different.
The wind is soft,
The leaves are slow,
The sky is sweet,
The trees are smooth,
And I feel
Wonderful.
How long did I sleep,
I ask.
The trees respond,
A hundred years.
They whisper,
Voices soft,
All have forgotten
Your pain,
Your silence,
Your slice of life,
You are dead
To them.

But to us?
You are alive,
For once.
You are home,
At last.
And we?
We will protect you
For always.

Are you out there?
Are you waiting for me?
You are the match to my wick.
Are you reaching for me?
Are you longing too?
You are the beach to my waves.
Can you imagine that?
That you would be
The yin to my yang?
I think of home and it is you.

My soul has found home,
Let down its bone walls,
And received the life’s blood.
Philos is reborn within us!

Is this my true emotions?
Or a facsimile
Of what I’m supposed to feel?
Don’t call this a con,
Until you see the accidental,
Unintentional falseties.
I flash expressions.
Hate, love, melancholy, mirth.
Don’t call me an actor,
Until you experience
The screen that is my face,
Sometimes a mirror,
Often a warped glass,
But never clear,
Never a window
To my true self
Underneath.

Oh, how I’m glad
To be born inside
Within my own body,
Instead of outside.
Here, my eyes can’t see
The flesh under my decor,
The scars below my shirt,
The soul beneath my body.

There’s something in the way she looks down at me
The way I see myself in her,
Reflected against her craters
Like the light of the sun.

There’s a certain peace to the way we feel
On this fog-like clear night
When the harsh sun is gone,
The day’s trials fade,
And those little stars reemerge.

My eyelids are heavy
But so are hers
We are here and together
And that’s all we can wish for
In this life of less,
We have more.

We all seek it
In desperate, desperate want
Or maybe need?
We find clues
And/or red-scaled fish
Where the dark meets the light
And the right meets the wrong.
There’s a treasure for everyone
If we only have the strength
Or maybe weakness?
To search for it
Through wide and narrow
And shallow and deep.
We’ll find risk there
And emotions too
Or maybe our heart,
Long-lost and homesick?
Danger darkens there
But always brightens
On the light of hope.
Whatever we find
We are thankful for.
But the guardian who watches over
Marking places and keeping time
Will mark our lives
And keep our souls
Deep within the dusky depths.

My wide eyes used to broil bright with thoughts and dreams of success.

Now my narrow eyes glare, coated in soot and ash of poor ideals.

If you had a choice,
Between hot or cold,
Which would you choose?

Wild heat and fierce rage
Burning like the sun above
And the hell below
Uncontrolled, ferocious
Nothing but danger

Or calculated cold and sly anger
Freezing the earth into glaciers
Then melting to extend the pain
Every move is planned
Nothing but revenge

Heat is infinitely more deadly
Consuming all in its path
In a wild terror of rage
After heat comes regret
Looking back to see only sorrow

But cold is infinitely more painful
Agony the language it speaks
In a tongue of steel and hatred
After cold comes nothing
Looking ahead to see only peace.

I see you.
In every glimpse of a hope.
Your face echoes everywhere, your voice reflects on all.
Everything I say is because of your words.
Everything I do is because of your actions.
Everything I feel is because of your touch.
Everything I am is the effect of you.
I see you, hear you, feel you everywhere.
I want to carve you from my skin. Bleach you from my hair.
Burn you from my clothes.
But I still miss you.
Your words, your actions, your touch.
I long for your broken glass.

Long ago, I feared
For life, love, and future.
Every day I tried
To forgive and forget.
The past was my road ahead.

But the hourglass flows on,
Flipping up, flipping down.
The bad gives way,
Finally, to good.

And now, I can see
My life, love, and future,
Spreading before me.
The past is the road behind,
At last.

One of these days
I’ll find someone for me
Just for me
To own

Like a stable owns a horse,
To protect and shelter.
Like a perfume owns a throat,
To beautify and enhance.
Like an editor owns a book,
To improve and nurture.

Someday I will find the one
The one for me
To own,
And belong to.

Someday we will get there,
The place our hearts know.
Just over the sunrise,
Where the birds fly to sleep.

And when we arrive?
Our family will greet us,
Blood and water are both as thick
As the bonds that keep us, here.

Brethren, standing together, tall
As the clouds and what’s beyond.
If Atlas drops, and the sky falls,
We will hold each other safe.

The Wordsmith beckons,
Finger crooked and bent
From pens and quills and verse
That spill, all too frequent,
That paint like blood and curse.

The Writer smirks,
Lips tainted black and dark
From speaking to the unbeliever,
The force to know their mark,
Their words are tinted sinister.

The Artist screams,
Silent, soundless, and crude,
From words they tossed,
Let escape and exude,
Their craft’s eternal cost.

They loved us until we fell,
Tumbled on a flaming wing.
They thought us smart, great,
Until we reached the fired sun.
We rose too high, too great.
Wax melted on our wings,
Formed by our friends and family.
We were great, once.

Tired is raw
Coffee-coloured desperation
Straining, searching red eyes
Walking and walking and endless walking
Through the halls of an immense house
Maybe you find a room of sand
Maybe you find a rough paper bed
Maybe you find another hallway
Leading to another beyond it
Pleading, begging, needing
To rest just for a moment or two
But the House of Tired
It doesn’t relinquish its catches
At least
Not without a share of their blood and tears.

The House of Sleepy is another kind
A home of pillows and clouds and comfort
Dreams drift its halls
Dreams of a night-type slumber
A sky dusted with stars and cosmos
A lazy cloud past a crescent moon
Weightless thoughts
Of smooth, gentle brushes
Of soft skin against soft sheet
As you slowly
Ever so slowly
Drift into the realm of sleep.

I used to see you every day
Met your eyes and smiled
Held your hand and laughed
And now you’re gone
And you left a single footprint
In the center of my bathmat.