Paradise walking,
tremors in a suitcase waiting,
unattended outside your locked doors.

Preachers talking,
pathways in the nighttime fading,
silence mirrored in your crimson floors.

Creatures gaping,
twilight in the trees and
burns and pleas and seeing
separate pieces
Crying on your
starlit sandy beaches as the
night collapses, dawn surpasses
pillows made of ashes
Sunlight burns your broken
body hiding in the sand
and jagged lashes
pictures fastened
memories fashioned

Soap cleanses broken lenses
Wounds heal and people deal.

Above my clouds I found
a color wheel, round
and sedentary like my body
used to be before I
claimed it as my home

Similarly, the colors spun and
swirled just like when
I walked for the first time in years:
light airy bees wings,
spiral striped feelings

And at first I fought
the unfamiliar lack of gray
and why was my head above the clouds anyway?
and what were these nameless things?
forgotten feelings?
What gave me away?


Standing straight becomes
easier with practice.

There's a glass in her
hand, trembling,
because it's the only thing
she has to hold onto as
she fights an endless reality
nightmare and can't
grip the table or turn
a sharp edge the wrong way
and pierce an inner urge
that tears her skin, stomach
writhing as her body's
reversing dying even though
she dreams of acid trying
to escape the sliding
mass within her throat;
so used to an acid coat
to save her face, her waist,
and even though her world
is shame
she cannot leave or
change her blames or
tolerate the world's flames;
she has to jump on
hot coals and turn to
steam and simultaneously freeze
and break out, sink in, learn to BE
because this pain is her recovery.

Time is where we
aim our hateful fists
and weighted tears
for rain slowed into mists
our fingers are
icicles

Slow down and see
the face beneath your head
and a pair of watching eyes
next to the heart left in your bed
and Cry! - for distance
separate chests rise
and time, slow chime
Two hearts and a beat, repeat

Fairness, none
until, undone
a child stands screaming
to be heard
Tired! - from years of screaming
and not being heard.
found.

Two children, we can laugh
and fall asleep and meet
where distance and time
are forgotten
awful things, rotten
things, forgotten.

"I miss you" is
the simple way
to "say"
it

But I know you would
understand if I told
you that sunlight in
an ancient city
is giving me shivers

Everything about this
place is tiring because all
I have is me
And I'm in this stagnant
particle of thought and
thinking and being
that I have been
avoiding

Oh, I tire, and sleep

But though I am alone
I still know none of that
old shadow named "loneliness"

And I dream through
listlessness and spidery skin
of a night and event that
sits in the center of my
heart, in
sunshine and spirit
And of you...
eyelashes, fingertips, and
things I started to feel
that woke me,
half buried,
from my grave.

They say the sun also rises
because it does
and it's a pretty thought to
cling to when shadow falls
light sparks blacken
down abysmal lanes
of dying forget-me-nots
and daisies, daisies

They say challenges make you stronger
because they do
but only if you catch a break,
because a weight will only crush
your hollowing bones to
powder and ash
and you'll be swept
away before you
even say
wait

I had to shout before I blew away
and I still could only hear static
but through my dripping heavy
shadow-clouded vision
I saw a ray of sunlight
rising, and others too,
and each with a face and
a voice and something
tangible

I'm beginning to feel your fingers,
all of you,
holding my body that's so
ready to burst
and my brain that's so
ready to
give in

Maybe in my mind people were burying me,
when in reality I was burying myself,
and all these people were trying to keep me alive

Funny how it works like that

remember fear  
       trying       time            away  
perfect  laugh  another way  
may
-be

hopeful foolish ties
       trying      time  
                                           away
pray
-be
saved


memorable words, counted counted
added up
need to be SHOUTED
shout shout
but we don't
know what we're about.