can you tell me now if i lied about the messes i make
of lives and homes and whole worlds trapped in hearts.
i don't know what i am now
the things i do are stitched upon my soul.
i can pull them out.
but the scars remain until the blood pools up
and fills them up again.

i was dying and you gave and you gave. i don't want to remember.

there are some things we don't talk about. falling in and out of love and back again. the world spins and i'm still standing here. stuck at the start. days spent wishing my heart would stop beating. no more green eyes in the morning sun. wishing that i could return to dirt and ash. to let my spirit go.
you can't follow her there.

can you take me.
can you take me!

fall to my knees to pray but my legs split open. blood is everywhere and i am nothing now.

you're running and crying out to god. you believed and i forgot.

you can't follow her there.

sinking and gasping, clawing toward the surface
water filling my lungs
blue lips and dead eyes,
i'm losing me with you.

i thought that this was everything. forever, for my whole life.
the faster my heart pumps, the more blood i lose.
blacking out and my head slams to the floor.
you pull me up and you're screaming
but i can't hear a thing.

my bones crack open under the weight of your hands.

the line separating who you are and what you've done is blurring.

when the world fell dark, i shuttered because i knew.
i waited for days by the sea. i wished foolishly for the sun's return,
for the warmth of your eyes.

on the third day, i found you washed up, your wings stitched together with golden fleece.
your eyes were bruised, lifeless, and your hair, covered in sand.
i carried your salt soaked body onto the shore.
your hands were scorched, flesh falling from the bone.

i gathered stones from the water and sharpened one upon the others,
and cut a hole into your chest.
i pierced both my hands and pressed them against you.
my head fell and i closed my eyes.
i felt everything from years away. all that you had lived,
the days you carried the light with you,
and the burden that it was.

you awoke to the skies calling your name.
your eyes burned as hot as the sun you once held. your hands, aching, but healed. i brushed the sand from your hair with my fingers.

i asked you how it had happened but you didn't remember. you cried so long, until i didn't know what were tears or tides.
you took my hand just before your horses came to claim you
and then you whispered,

"here i'll stay, gold.
forever gold."

oh, Apollo,

here i'll stay, standing straight and tall
arms out-stretched, reaching,
watching the day break over the mountains,
the moon arise from the sea at night,
and when the rain comes, it falls cold upon my face
and collects in my hands until it spills out upon my feet.

you lay your hands upon me.
your eyes burn right through my bones.
but every new day
you harness what you cannot keep,
gold. forever gold.
hold the reins as if they were my arms,
until, rain soaked, your hands slip away
and you fall,
writhing and wishing
for prayers unheard.

still i'll stay just the way you left me
until the earth washes from beneath me,
and i fall and rot away.

how does something i love so completely
flood my heart
full of absolute and perfect happiness
and break it in two
in the same breath?

the road less traveled is the longest one.
the waters i swim are the deepest.
but if my blistered feet keep walking
and i keep my head just above the waves
i'll find what i always knew to be true
and trash the ideas of practicality

there's some blood in my words.
there's a hand in mine but it's not yours anymore.

i have a bucket filled with all the things i should've done
i dumped it in the river and watched it all float away
none of it matters now.
not you, not me, not the sun in the sky
or the moon making love to the sea.

we live so divided.
but even the sun loves the sea and the moon, the sky.