letting loose old chains
you and your wry laughter
defeated by the day old machines
of life and their constant clogging

time's hands tear into spring
nail first, peeling off the light constricting canopy
twisting barbwire off delicate skin
strangling you on a couch from hell

wake up to the smell of bourbon
and dead roses - so pretty
your lashes creating the shadows
on your gaunt cheekbones, and your name is Soul

(I cannot determine who is the coil)
Heavy ropes wrapped around me
So tightly wound up I can feel
My chest cracking, brittle bones
Breaking in unison.

The sound echoes throughout my skull
My temples pounding
Burning up in flames
Desperate to be extinguished
Praying for the fire to move downwards
To ignite the rope, for the conflagration
To run dangerously out of control
My body a raging inferno of war.

My voice choked
There’s not enough oxygen
I’m being suffocated
And only smoke signals
Are emitted from me.

I’m trying to reach, someone
Or something, in the distance
No one can come too close
And anything is always too far
It’s the unfathomable truth
Of my existence.

(I cannot determine who is the coil)
I cannot be understood
Because every look from another
Disintegrates me
And I become nothing more than
A sheet of searing flames.

But every time I’m left alone
I’m always screaming within
My body eating itself from
The inside out
Penetrating pain never laying
Dormant, my skin
its vivacious host.

Heavy ropes wrapped around me
Forging incessant loops
Smothering me to the point
Of death.
(I cannot determine who is the coil)

© Sia Jane

but it was just a picture
or a painting

Yet I saw people walking
a funeral procession
or a celebration
I’d never walked like that in a crowd
not for a cause
or a memory
I wanted to care as much as they did
but it was just a picture
or a painting
It was in another part of the world
across the ocean
or the street
That part of the world is different
I’m not there
I don’t know them
It could be as bleak as ancient snow
from a memory
or a picture
Buried within five hundred pages
of a lost book
that was subversive
But that time passed long ago
the author is gone
as too his outrage
And so the minuet ended abruptly
they were disappointed
or just not ready to stop
The world was outside the window
sadists bent on order
no matter the cost
The room was silenced as they left
the sight of love comforted them
and they knew where it went
Away… always away
inside another heart
another life

It was just a painting though beautiful
how could someone know
how could they believe
But there was no time to touch the paint
it was only time for dreams
and to heal open wounds
It was time to think of a branch tapping a window
while a child wondered
wondered of his fate
But who would make him care beyond himself
he had a heart
but it was just a picture
Or so I thought
it was just a painting or a picture
yet I wept for its life
It was as real as life itself
it reminded me
of people I never knew
I wondered if he cared about others
he needed to hear a song
played by a genius
Would it stir his soul beyond his doubts
to write of suffering
and the tragedy of love
Like the people who silenced the room
because they were not in love
they had only danced together
Things are not as they appear sometimes
especially a painting
or a picture
You don’t know why they did it
the moment is gone
as is the feeling
But so many want their suffering known
does it help them
or all of us
We have to be able to care
and not assume
that it was their fault
That is why a painting is so much better
it’s not real
so suffering is not real
There is no suffering in the imagination
how could there be
it’s just a thought
But what imagination cannot think of others
could it ever be a painting
or a picture
Could it ever be if the painter didn’t suffer
for others
for strangers
Could a boy that was never alive change the world
a boy who could not sleep
because the world spoke plainly
Outside his window ready to enter when asked
but it was just a painting
or a picture
The artist neither closed her eyes or her ears
not to life
yours or her own
It was no longer a moment of gaiety
the boy was her own
and she wept
Though it was just a painting
or a picture
of her own imagination
And she wanted his father to say these things to her

"I want to tell you something
I’m in love with you
yes it is true
I see you smiling
but I want you to listen
this is the time for me to tell you
I can’t sleep
I worry about it too much
and I wonder if I can make you happy
So instead of all that I just want to say how I feel
we can talk about life later
but I want you to know that in this time in your life
I was in love with you
and it was real
and it was true
I don’t want to think about it anymore
I just want to say it
and I want to say it to you
In my dreams you never say anything
because I’m chasing you
for to love someone like you is a dream
A dream that is about finding myself
wondering if I am worth your life
because your life is everything to me now
And I know how important it is
I want to make you feel alive with passion
and I want you to think of me
when you want to be like that
I want you to think of me
when you are ready to give yourself away
when you want to fly there
To a place so high and far from your past
to a place that not even you could dream of
And when you give yourself away
it will be into my heart
there is so much room for you
But I wonder if it is enough
the weight of loving you is upon me now
but I’m ready my love
Because I love you
and now you know
because it was time"

but it was only a painting
or a picture
And she painted until her heart bled
and her hands
and her eyes
She bled until the painting became a curse
she could not look upon it
for it was her life
We would gaze upon it and gasp aloud
because of her capacity to suffer
and to tell everyone of it
But it was not to protest but to draw us near
for we were to numb to her heart
and to the wars written about long ago
It was incredibly personal
more than we would reveal
to anyone not a poet
She didn't care about this anymore
it was the only way to be free
though it was more than we could bear
But this, this was the way home
walking together
in a crowd of flowers
In common cause with her imagination
for we too wanted to live
inside a painting
or a picture

So someone would remember

When they buried me in the dark, I was frightened.
I didn’t like the taste of earth.
And I was so thirsty.
Some people are no good with plants,
Even the hardiest shrubs
Wither and wilt in their careless hands.
You aren’t one of them.
When no-one else could see,
You took such good care of me.
Water, warmth and love.
These are my needs, but I had no voice
With which to ask; without you
I would have remained inert
A lost life, in the dirt.
See now, how I blossom?
Just a shoot, but I will astound them all
With my beauty, in time.
Thank you for caring for me,
Thank you for helping me to grow.

I want my words to be beautiful.
Beautiful like yours.
I want to see ordinary things,
Find the magic in them,
And put the magic on a page, for everyone to understand.

I want to have a way with words.
I want every poem of mine
To become a masterpiece.
Just like yours.

I am not broken.

But you are.

You see the world through pain,
And pain makes the colors brighter.
It makes the value of feelings
Climb higher.

Sometimes I wonder
If I should be broken like you
If I want my words to resonate
Like yours.

Sometimes I wonder,
If it will be truly worth it
In the end.

I wonder what it will be like,
To cut myself up to pour out the beauty inside me.

Just like you.

I imagine that you
Raise the blade
Slice your feelings open
And write your masterpiece
In red.

Life is a fighter's ring
        your opponent
is life's most downs
        with all its fury
forever challenging us most prevalent surely...

What type glory
         do you choose
when failing your fighter's round?
Do you pick yourself up
            after crashing
                           to the ground?

What glory in rising
          your situation
                   newly found?
What invention
              of yourself
in your up and coming round?

Do your cheering crowds please you
               your real friends know
your need?
Will you rise yourself up
          in a thunderous quickened speed?

So, your fighter's glory in rising
       each bout that you take
Will you rise yourself up
      for your honor is at stake...

-This is why i think that most average are heroes no matter what country-
RW Dennen

I'm trying not to break,
And just fill in
The little pieces of me
That have chipped off.
But it's more like covering up
Than filling in.
Have you hear about that walnut trick?
You can rub it on scratched wood,
And it looks new again.
But I feel like it would be weird
Just to rub myself with a walnut.

I once had
my sweet little girl ask me...

Daddy?
          Yes dear?
Is the little man in the snow-globe, is he happy?

She looked up at me with bright blue eyes,
eyes so deep they were bottomless oceans.
I could stare into them forever.
I took my rough, calloused hands that were sanded with age,
into the gentle palm of her own.
"How could I ever tell her?" he thought
with a gaze so lovingly at her.  
Clutching the snow-globe ever so tightly,
she shook it twice so that light, beautiful snow-flakes
gush in all directions, inundating the glass city..
I smiled, and told my darling:
                                
                                     Don't worry sweetheart,
                           it is only trapped in a perfect world.

                                She didn't seem to understand.

sometimes when i am trapped inside my own mind
and feel like i’m drowning in the taste of air,

suddenly i am eight years old years,
bobbing up and down in my wimpy life jacket
my legs unsupported

and there is still a chip on my shoulder
a mile wide.

sometimes i am still the five year old who balled her eyes out
when her parents accidentally forgot and were late
picking her up from preschool,

sometimes i am still sixteen years old and in love with you
sometimes i am a person i never thought i’d manage to grow into,
sometimes i am a person i’ve yet to become.
  
i am juxtaposition of a thousand different versions of myself.
i am equally the eight year old girl still afraid of the water

as i am the almost-adult you so naively believed to be fearless,
my self-assurance a really good halloween costume.

i am a newborn at the same time
as i am frail ninety year old grandmother.

i am brave and i am terrified
and i am naive and i am jaded
and i am clean and i am ruined;

i am a blank slate and i have been scribbled all over,
my skin is smooth and untouched
my skin has laughter lines and stretch marks.

i am the creator and i am the destroyer,
i am everything and

nothing at all.

i am the ocean
and i am the desert.

my lungs are failing as i’m breathing fine,
and i can see the end and the beginning in equal clarity.

sometimes i’m too old for my skin,
weary like i’ve lived a thousand lives already

and sometimes i am four years old with
my knees hugged to my chest.

sometimes we are two and sometimes we are twenty,
sometimes we were nine and sometimes we are ninety.

we are young and dumb and reckless at the same time
as we are old and wise and careful.

sometimes my father is still a gap-toothed five year old
and my mother is still a tired old woman

with shaking hands,
and my brother is still an angry teenager with a bad hair cut.

we are existing simultaneously
and growing up is just getting really good at pretending

that you’ve got your **** all figured out
when you still feel like a lonely middle-schooler
without a date to the mixer,

alone in the middle to gymnasium floor.

but that’s the thing, isn’t it?
when you are cut open, when you are bleeding,
when you have gaping holes in your nervous system

your flesh heals over
it scars, brand new.

we are bleeding and we we are healed,
we are ******* up

and we are doing just fine.

time is going kind of slow today
like it’s waiting for us to catch up to it
and i guess that’s better than how it used to be,
when time was running out and away from us
you checked the time every five seconds,
you're afraid of showing up late to your own life,
and i tipped over hourglasses just to watch them run out,
just to feel like i was in control of something
and i'm always told
that time won’t wait for me
but if time is just something we created,
if it’s just a concept, then i’ve been thinking
that maybe it doesn’t have to scare the **** out of me
maybe i don't have be counting my hours
like they're finite
because i’ve spent a lot of my life afraid of time,
afraid of it running out, afraid of there not being enough of it
i'm stuck in my head like a shut-in,
never got out because i forgot to let anybody in
and i don’t write poems for people, just figments
and it’s not lonely inside my head, it’s just crowded
you just told me to stop thinking so hard,
it’s only monday and it’s too early in the week for me
to be so far down the rabbit hole like that
and i guess i stopped counting hours for a while there,
just let them roll by and drag me under like the tide
and when i looked back i’d lost a year of my life
or something poetic like that, something pathetic like that
and i guess i stopped writing for a while there,
pretty words with no substance
didn’t do me **** when i was ten feet under
and still searching for your heartbeat
when notebooks that were full of you were empty
and you and me, we’re just the ones who didn’t make it
and you and me, we’re just the kids who couldn’t fake it
yeah, we could’ve been a song but then you left
without a note
and i don’t know what went wrong
and i don’t know what went wrong
and i don’t know what-
and i don't know-
and i don't-
but i guess i do
obsessive, i go searching for people in snippets
to make them whole
so maybe i should have expected
that when i held too tightly,
clutched my curses close like they were gifts,
it was all going to shatter
in my hands
i missed you when i didn’t know how to