I was thinking
about back then
before I thought I
heard notes on
flutes made of reeds
when there was
no young bird
beating its wings
inside my chest
no light in my eyes
but this was long ago
before the shadow
of darkness came
to command the land
back when the moon
was the blind eye
of a fish in cold water
in the back of a cave.

but isn't the real tragedy that I found myself within you
as you briefly gazed into the mirror that is me and walked away
isn't the real tragedy that I have become a vise of borrowed space
a gap to be filled by hands I have reached for in the dark
that I have misplaced my emptiness for loneliness
and in return
lost count of the bodies I have slipped into like old coats
trying to find the one that shapes me into the woman I was before you left
my bones may be empty but my fists are full of the laughter of native ghosts
mocking me for holding onto a love less real than they are
isn't the real tragedy that I can't place the nights I have attempted to answer my question of grief with ***
a wreckage of ash perading as anguish
but isn't that love
not seeing the explosion when you are the bomb
isn't the real tragedy that I am alive purely by luck at this point
that I am nothing more than a decorated shipwreck
*an obituary
my very own ceremony

We are a zoo
there are many animals
housed within
some are protected
by our prison
some pace frantically
clawing for freedom
some are timid
and keep themselves hidden
sometimes they battle for dominance
sometimes they're peaceful sometimes they're driven to violence
sometimes they're docile
sometimes they're irrational
sometimes they take over
our wild animals are all
emotional.

Fear waits upon its prey
where the light is a shamefaced girl

wind is a fragmented guest
where silence fools the unwary

to chirp the birds forget
where the baiter might be the bait

the hush is not all white
as in that ever ruling night
blood is spilled without sound.

Forlorn as the lovers' lost track
meanders the creek
in moans for the lost
shedding its sighs to the tides.

I'll wake up
Mundy morning
dead tired
from restless
dreams about
the forbidden sound
of fish on ice,
a harmonica
full of ants,
cat paws that fall
in the night,
the breathing
of waterfalls,
the depth
of mountain roots
and falling soot
from the fires
of Viking pyres.

Gather my colours,
my shapes,
my heat
blend them
and mend them
make them complete.
Discard what offends
whats left you can keep.
I trust in the kindness of you