She was ethereal.
She would walk her way back home under the moonlight in the freezing winter nights. She was made out of pain and nostalgia. Not even sweet death could compare to her pale face, always covered by her tangled dark hair. She used to lie in bed wishing to be somewhere as cold as she felt, dreaming of wreck and defeasence of everything she had ever known. If she wasn't reading stories, she would make them up in her damaged head. If the story wasn't enough, she would let her demons eat the last nerves that somehow had made it through.
She felt alone yet constantly watched over. She was hoping for someone to stay around. She was hoping to be someone else's muse. She wanted them to ache, burn inside, scream at the top of their lungs just like she did. She wanted to be the reason. But deep inside she knew nobody would turn back to her.
She thought she was out of place, out of this world, made of outer space. But she was not. She was just a girl. She bled, needed and loved. She thought her tragically beautiful soul was a waste.
She's been missing for years now.
Sometimes, when everything comes down all at once and the weight of the world gets too hard to hold up, I still can feel her, after all this time. Sometimes I think I can see her wandering, floating around like the daydream she was.
The thought of her leaving forever stabs my chest every night.
And I can't sleep.
Just like she did before.
She's my muse but she never knew.

The ghosts of old raindrops
mock and scold.
Their scorn writ large
on these dusty roads and in these dusty throats.
To tote the barge but not lift the bail
ain't no kind of protest.
Spit in the well and
hope the master draws up that bucket-full.
Wishes.
Still, the giver of life
serpentines through this valley
like the Euphrates did
in that one book, but
it does not matter
since the scythe swings
in such wide circles
this time of year.
We can bring in sheaves until dusk
then fish for men in the morning but
our souls are still corrupted.
Our hearts are rotten like old pears.
I'm so thirsty.

Mute gray entwines wistfully around my ankles
Night time ghostly kittens playing with the shadows past
My eyes often see the moon reflecting upon the bright visage of your memory
I still feel burned down.
Broken.
A ruin that in future breaths will be seen as the discovery of my lifetime
In reality it is the great loss
Static hums between the quiet space connecting brain to ear
In that white noise I make out your voice singing songs of moving on
Understanding has yet to dawn yet I have heeded your wishes
My heart does warm once more
Though parts remain dark, hidden
Burdened
Blessed with carrying the weight of where you still rest

you cannot unwalk the bridge you have crossed
you cannot unknow the fresh taste of enlightenment
once you have breathed it in
there is no way back
to an illusory net of safety
take courage
spread your wings
and fly

©2016janetaylor

I lost my mind in lucid dreams,
Pull-apart clouds that melt and bleed,
These tiny things my eyes can't see;
Blind to fingers that bend and reach
Like rivers dripping from paper cheeks,
Streams that meet where a heart once beat,
Now a carcass where Silence eats;
A ribcage harness to carry me
And tar-clung breaths,
To serenity,
Discarded as loneliness
Where sadness seethes and sows seeds
To grow a million little pleas for flesh;
And all I reap is this skin
Marked with scars of a reject.

Down here in this hole
Is where I'll be happiest;
My light can't be missed,
If darkness is all my eyes have kissed.

-SLuR

I didn't see her for three days

then she was back
but her color was not

where her hair parted
was starkly arid
on her forehead
wasn't the dot of red
and her saree was bleached white

yet nothing was amiss
she intently scaled the fishes
cut them neatly into pieces
though a piece of her went missing

She knows well
for no price
can she stop the sale.