the catch is that
there is nobody there to catch you
because you are the universe
and you have to catch yourself

when we were very young—
i was a monster
and you were a monster
and together we picked flowers
and we didn’t know that monsters
weren’t allowed in the gardens

when we first became monsters
we celebrated with balloons
but now i wonder if the balloons
were begging to be let go of
and if maybe they found a better home
in the sky than in our hands

and after a while
once we’d gotten used to being monsters
we folded paper into birds and named each one
after all the reasons why we weren’t monsters
but then all the reasons why we were

i am not looking
for someone to save me
but i am looking to be saved
by the grace they talk about
in books and up on the hill
i have tried to find my own light
but it is eluding me
and i cannot tell
if i am a fool for even trying
or if it’s just that the darkness is so convincing
that it has fooled everyone else
into not even bothering

i do not know
what to do
they say follow your heart
but i cannot feel my heart
it is a dead weight in my chest
a dead stone
floating in the dead sea
there is nothing alive in the center of me
no bird calls
no song sings
there is not even a subtle spring breeze
to blow away the tumbleweeds
they say follow your heart
but i don’t know what that feels like
all i know is a mind
full of tornados
and houses
being swept away to Oz
and all i know is that
i do not wish to go there myself

i walk a path
a golden path,
lined with pink petals of light
i dance en pointe,
i dance on point
to the call of the birds in the sky
and the light is gold,
the light is gold
and you’re holding my hand like a dream
and the clouds are sighing,
the breeze is sighing
and my ears are ringing with pleas
to never leave me,
please never leave me
and always stay by my side
but the light is leaking,
and the light is leaving
and the sun is closing its eyes
and you’re just a shadow of a dream i once had,
a dream i once had in the night
of love at first sight,
and then loss at last sight
and a flash of light in between

i’m going into the forest today
i’m bored with all this light
i want to know the shadows
that make the rest of me bright

She said, I’ll look for Wonderland
I’ll find it in the snow
I’ll find it in the setting sun,
I’ll find it in a rose
She travelled every which and way
up every staircase to
the promise of a land so vast
full of hearts and tales so true,
but the farther that she wandered
the more she realized
that Wonderland is not a place
but a certain state of mind.

So she sat under her Bodhi tree
and waited for the leaves to fall.
She waited for the silence
and she waited for the dawn;
she waited for the rain to come,
so wet and wild and blue
to cleanse her of the pain she had
mistaken for the truth.

And time grew thinner than a ribbon
and the branches grew so bare
and she found that as her burdens lifted,
so did all her cares.
And when the spring-time came again
as the fates guaranteed it would
she found the birds still singing songs
of everything that’s good.

And no longer were the branches bare,
no longer was there pain—
but now just brilliant green leaves of light
waltzing in the rain.

And she found a new seed sprouting—
one of madness and of love,
and as spring paved the way for summer
she heard the golden secret buzz.
It was a child—no, it was a lamb,
or maybe the Mad Hatter she heard say, that
“Madness is the same as love,
and both just want to play.”