Morning has broken
but she has not
it had been a long night
sinister fraught
the stars were cut
in lacerations of lace
          stains of tears
                      mark trails
                   on her face
mascara in circles
mocking panda eyes
multiple moments
of almost self-demise
wrists bound to
          sadness, heart
trussed to trust
pain from crumbling
illusions, plus
that constant,
          searing lust
Now, on the floor,
lying face down
in what seemed
              like blood,
she starts to
                 move around,
as realization pours over
in a thick, viscous flood:
She can move her arms;
for they were not
                really bound
That gag in her mouth?
it has dissolved into sound
The sound of her voice
as she gets up
        from the floor
opens the window
bringing light
            to the fore
guttural noises
escape deep
                 from her throat
and before she
knows it, the
room starts to float
furniture circling
as the energy takes
        and she lets in the air
             fresh as new fate
her cuts balmed over
         winds whipping up her hair
marks from taut ropes
smoothing over to bare
and the light bursts in
          in a blast, in a whoosh
like bursts of starlight
cutting in with a push
they seep into shadows
pulsing over the dark
the howling rescinds
          in an explosion of sparks
blocks of pain that held
her chained
are knocked over
and the lightstorm
                keeps coming
her inner percussion
just doesn't stop drumming
      And as she flies through that window
and unhinges the door
            from its frame
freedom
            is now hers
            forever to claim

I want to undress the sorrow that bites the wings off doves, make it bear, make it holy, make it scream.

I want to sing to the anger that shakes your hands, beads the sweat upon your palms. I want to soothe it to sadness, soothe it to scared, soothe it to self-loathing, and then soothe it again. I want to rub its shaking shoulders and kiss its forehead until it is serene, sleeping in the backseat.

I want to whisper the stories from all my birthdays and what age means to the God that chokes the air from your blood and puts fear into the stomach of mothers. I want to calm the waves of your heart, be the lighthouse to the way you felt at age five, wrapped in the forgiving and fragile skinned arms of your grandfather.

I want to be the lung unchanged by smoker's death wish. I want to be the alcohol that slips passed your lips and makes you tell your mom that you love her, tell your sister it wasn't her fault, tell your dad that you're healing. I want to be the ****** that moves under your marked skin, the blood that can't pass the tourniquet.

I want to feel myself inside your throat, climbing to taste your teeth and thread string through the spaces between your words, make a tapestry of every missing apology.

I want to be the wind shaking the curtains of every girl who has starved herself, cold and realizing that a woman is not a body, a woman is the bearer of life and bearer of tenderness. A girl eating an apple, telling the grass that the moon is everyone's mother and will never let the tides rise or fall without a gentle tug on the sleeve of the oceans, "breathe".

I want to be the life that moves through the earth, the snapshots in motion that we call time, the peace that the bottom of our lungs must feel.