call me your imaginary
lover, miss pretend,
your concentrated fantasy,
a night that never ends,
the prettiest delusion
your mind ever made believe,
a pocket full of pixie dust,
your self-prescribed reprieve,
the sandman tried to warn you
not to get lost in a dream,
you took your wishful thoughts
and said, “they look real to me,”
your mind could only conceive
what it thought could never be,
felt better to be trapped there
than lost in reality,

under a pretend sky
in a myth you made believe,
it’s just imaginary you
and imaginary me.

bright eyes,
your words sparkled
with the same light,
but even empty things
shine if you look
at them just right.

where do you go
when you shrink yourself
so small?

sometimes i imagine
when you shrink
into this fragile thing,
in some far away place
the pieces of your self you hid
are growing exponentially,
a garden in full bloom.

somehow your words
sound more sincere
when someone else
is saying them.

what a wicked thing i was.
i turned back, anyway.

the devil i dealt with 
wasn’t a devil at all,
it called itself her fate,
took my place by her side
and told her it was time to go, 
everyone was waiting 
down below,

the devil she dealt with 
wasn’t a devil at all, 
i called myself her lover, 
and she loved me in kind, 
and when she’d gone
i couldn’t understand
why she’d leave me behind,

if nothing else
i had to see her
one last time,

the devil we dealt with 
wasn’t a devil at all,
it called itself inevitable
yet decided to let us go,
said it would see us again
one day, together 
down below,

i didn’t think to ask her
what she wanted,
if the hands of fate
were warmer than my own. 
if i had kept on looking forward, 
maybe i would know.

what a wicked thing i was. 
i turned back, anyway. 

                                                       ­                                       "was she upset?"

i couldn’t say. 
she smiled the whole time,
and when she disappeared
it was all she left behind.

i cast myself into the sea
an anchor mooring an empty vessel
to a body that never asked to carry
a weight heavier than its own,
the waves roiled,
the moon called out
the sea called back and
i cried out beneath the waves,
the night was quiet.

i cast myself into the sea
the moon slept on the surface,
i called her harbour and jumped.  
her craters swelled and burst
into the night, the stars collided
and i sank beneath the waves,
opened my mouth wide
and swallowed a star whole
as the sea swallowed me,
i tasted salt,
licked it from the corners of my lips,
wiped it from the corners of my eyes,
the moon rippled back into place,
i reached out beneath the waves
and watched her shrink.

i cast myself into the sea,
i thought the moon would swim after me
i found a siren instead,
she beckoned me into the deep,
took my hand and led me
down, down into the trenches,
i felt the moon in the currents,
she reached out to me
and i shrunk.

the night was quiet.