who
are you
under the weight
of stolen skies?

when the oceans
are chains,
what will you say?

what will you do
when your feet
slip into the earth,
and the earth
asks:
where are you going?

is freedom  
      a tree?  
           does it  
         grow,  
               or break  
        when you  
           touch it?  
     or does it  
        whisper  
            in broken  
                      syllables?  
                              can you  
                            hear it?  
or do your ears  
      fill with  
           the static  
             of silence?  

do you taste
the fire,
burning in your chest?
or is it
just a name
etched in the walls
of your soul?

     how many  
              shadows
can you count in
a crowded room,
how many hearts
can be broken
before the pieces
ask for their own names?

will you  
           stand  
                in the rain  
                     of forgotten promises,  
  and still say:  
           "i was never part of the storm?"  
    or will you turn,  
                 and claim  
       the sky  
            that was always  
     yours to hold?

the glass stood tall once.  
       smooth, untouched,    
               shaped to expectation.  

then came the fall.  
the slip,  
         the drop,  
                 the ruin.  

hands hovered over the wreckage,  
  whispers of what was,  
    what could have been,  
       what will never be again.  

    no one wanted the pieces.  
           no one knew what to do with them.  
                they stared, they sighed, they left.  

      but someone stayed.  
             or maybe no one did, maybe just the dust.  
                    just the dust, and the silence, and the weight of absence.  

gold is a lie they tell to make it bearable.  

   it does not erase the cracks.  
      it does not restore what was lost.  
         it only makes the breaking visible.

   not untouched,  
           not perfect,  
                   but standing.  

   they call it beauty,  
             but it is only survival.  
                      they call it art,  
                                 but it is only memory.  

       if light filters through the seams,  
             does it mean it is still breaking?

Even with the departure of a defeated winter.
Spring's backstage feeling very conceited.
Bare branches still bend in their naked contortion.
With blatant desire for lush summer leaves fortune.
The trees whispered their longing
telepathically to the breeze.
The stream was a mysterious gold, green & brown.
Translucent was the elder boulder ground.
The drapes of hemlock need no announcing sound.
Below rock bottom, is a hardly reached equation.
A survival where peace is the eternal sum.
The secret stream will restore your inner gleam.

i have loved in silence,  
            in the spaces between glances,  
                    in the margins of conversations.  

    i have swallowed my voice,  
            pressed it down like a crumpled page,  
                    let it sit, let it burn.  

    my friends fall into love like skipping stones,  
            weightless, effortless,  
                    rippling into something soft.  

    but i am always the rock that sinks.  
            no hands reach down.  
                    no arms pull me up.  

    "they" call it unnatural.  
            "they" call it a phase.  
                    "they" call it a sin.  

    i call it loneliness.  
            i call it longing.  
                    i call it mine.  

    my heart is an empty chapel,  
            candles burnt to stubs,  
                    hymns caught in the rafters.  

    i ask god if there is love for me.  
            i ask the sky, the stars, the wind.  

    (silence.)  

    i press my forehead to the floor,  
            to the dirt, to the dust,  
                    to the quiet ache in my chest.  

    "please," i whisper.  

    (nothing.)  

    somewhere, a hand is waiting.  
            somewhere, a love exists.  
                    somewhere, i am seen.  

    but not here.  
            not yet.  
                    not now.  

    so i wait.