Her fingers danced
Along my ribcage
As she told me why
I must be having pains
In my chest.

Her fingers danced
On my *******
As she cupped them sweetly
And nuzzled between them like
She's always belonged there.

Her fingers danced
Down my spine
As she counted the freckles
On my back and made constellations
Out of them.

Her fingers danced
In my hair
As she grabbed close to my
Scalp and pulled where she knows I'll
Respond with "Ohhh".

Her fingers danced
Down between my thighs
Floating above the ocean below and
Diving in to explore her sea.

Her fingers danced
Around my neck as her
Hands cupped my face and
Kissed my lips gently but
With a fire that only I could
Recognize.

Her fingers danced
As they intertwined with mine
Because what is more intimate than
The innocence of hand holding
With a promise of forever
Imbedded in our fingertips?

Silenced
by a two-tongued tyrant
Who condemns with one flick
and licks the hand of hate
with the other
I shall never love
or find sister or brother
in the valley of silk scarves
wrapped around the root of creation
Deliver us Shiva
from the servants of dread Kali
Who don the mantle of civilization
but **** the faithful in the shadows
Oh foul deity of negativity
just once
please
show us who you are
Because your mask of kindness is broken
and the anger of your spirit
seeps out like a stealthy virus
Not bold and righteous
like the noble villain
But with a sheeps skin draped
over his foul devouring maw
If evil lurks and strikes
in the guise of the holy
Then you are greater than evil
A horror beyond the bounds
of acceptable wickedness.

Would that I could show you
all the joy that has been smothered
in the black garbage bag, of your hollow heart.
Would that I could give you
a token of my true feelings,
that would hold your hungry ego over
for longer than a day.
Would that I could take from you
the sadness that sustains your anger,
and the self loathing
that your hatred gluts itself on.
Would that You could see me for who I am,
a being beyond the worst of your emotion,
who wants nothing more
than for you to wrap yourself in a love
that will not fade,
however you may try to scour it from existence,
and will someday seep into your being
like a divine poison,
and **** the lurking hatred
that dwells deep down inside you.
So that the love, that cowers behind it
may step forth into the light.

I followed a writer up a tall tree
And every leaf was his poem.

Once at the top I could look out
Over a sprawling poetic landscape –
A resplendent chorus of
Glistening verdant wisdom,
O’ vast quivering sibilance of
Melpomene and Thalia!

And there I remained

Until a long winter wind came
And undressed each tree!
So from my perch,
through gaunt branches,
I could see…
The low-slung place
where each poem fell

I thought, “so many writers,
clothed in so much comedy
and tragedy.”

And down I climbed
and away I walked
Over resting leaves
while red and rust
ran from their veins
Into the rich palette
of my memories

O’ even now
The sweet scent of decay
Reminds me of Spring
when I will climb again.

Seeing him sit across me wasn't awkward
In this life we all moved forward
He was protected by the mist no one saw through
won't talk to him
it will only add fire to the fuel.
His eyes were the green pools of curiosity,
under the ocean, trapped in weeds.

She won't seem to make eye contact...
Won't allow brown and green meld,
if only for a second.
Green and brown...
Like summer leading into autumn;
my soul flowing into hers.
I can feel it, or atleast
imagine it.

He's looking at me,
but why?
I'd like to look back,but
these ghostly inhibitions
keep me from wandering.
Too many memories
barring my imagination

I can sense some anguish
emanating from her soul;
a lack of control.
Pains aplenty? Scars,surreal?
Just what is this discomfort I feel?
I can see battlefields in her eyes--
Maybe...talking,I could try?

Carry yourself to the farthest ocean
for I cannot bear your soul so close to mine
so that we may never see the same stars,
I'd wish you close, only to walk away
Heaven, send me an angel
to quell my demons
come crashing down
I shall look back with eyes filled with tears
won't open myself to show my fears*

Her everything is exactly what I need
to pull myself away from these depths I'm drowning.
Her hands could be my wings,
and I could fly to cleaner heights,
were we are perched upon brighter horizons

Collapse into the arms of destiny
Let them carry you wherever the wind blows

Do not resist, be pliant
Like the reed that sways

Trust that you will be guided
To that which is in season to your soul

Love speaks with one voice
Sometimes through the parting of different lips

Know that the displacement and nostalgia you feel
is but a memory and a foretelling of Home

Relief comes with surrender
The leaf knows this secret
it yields in acquiescence.
Take a moment and contemplate
the life of a leaf ~

Surrender is not defeat,
it traverses land far and wide
and arrives gently to its destination

Surrender is not weakness,
know your strength.
Your essence can move mountains

Transcend into a fragrance that casts its spell into the night
unbeknownst to the beholder from whence it comes

In your surrender is beauty
that draws you closer to the ultimate Beauty
and culminates in the ultimate Love

Love him, love her, and let your love permeate
like the scent of two roses, together in bloom

♥

Ahhh…you, yes You
…You know,
it’s in the motion
Funneling
Swiftly
Unrelenting
in the follow-through
Persisting
Politely
Unyielding
until too
deeply
with gravity
hooks that hold me
together much better
leave me
such a tease
to have been baited from
those who rest among
the Placid Pond.

Ahhhh…you, yes You
…You must,
Trust me to breed seeds
wild and much bigger
Sprouting out
from the past
walk-about shoe's
aftermath
of my grooves
& the steps that I take

Five hundred and twenty eight
hertz a lot sweeter
the more trips that you make
On Love’s circular soundtracks
Another round of aftershocks
& Gods' greatest flashbacks.

Ahhh…you know, yes You…
…You now,
Avert eyes straight
A head of You
Shift faces
into
five-
dimensional
View.

Super-vision is suggested
but not yet required
of the diametrically
opposed Divina
to whom you've inspired.

Our fingers intertwined,
our souls re-joined,
our hearts spanned distance and time ~
Reminders of encounters in lives long past,
when we dwelled in the presence of the Divine.

♦

I thought of days of sadness
… of endless, sleepless nights,
of futile attempts at climbing..
but plummeting from towering heights.

♦

With his gentle strength, he held me,
as I laid my appeased soul against him..
My burdens released, finally at peace
I felt my spirit flow within him

♦

I closed my eyes,
and I wept..
.. and I wept ~
as walls of resistance came crumbling down

And in serene tranquility,
I slept..
..and I slept ~
in the middle of his ocean I gently drowned.

Will you remember me when days grow cold?
When dark clouds close in and the ground dies under foot,
When all the world falls into slumber and oneness,
Will I fade from your consciousness?
When I am gone will it hurt?
Will I cry when you no longer think of me, and I die?
To exist only as a thought in your head.....
Life dependent on your thinking.
Even a memory... at least then,
I would be recalled from time to time, resurrected.
I can't even be  a memory because I never was...
never really existed.
Just something you one day thought up.
I can only survive as long as you are thinking me,
and continue entertaining the thought of me.
You have no way to give birth to me.
No way to make me exist in the material world.
No way to make me solid.
I am no more then an electrical impulse
passed between the synapses in your brain.
When they stop firing me to and fro I will cease to exist.
What will become of me when you fizzle me out?
Will you simply reabsorb me into your cells?
Will I be cast out as waste?
I turn to face my fate, yet you keep thinking me.
Torturing me in a way, recalling me, adding to me,
making me bigger, longer, more intricate.
What price I'd pay for you to create me in reality.
Impossible, I know...
To be able to see you from the outside in, instead of inside out!
To know the you, you present to the world.
The strong, creative, mysterious, smart,
confident, emotional you. The quiet you.
Instead I know the inner you, the screaming,
raging, crying, laughing, manipulative,
intelligent, humorous you.
Would I think of you the same.....,
could you manifest me into reality?
Would you me......?
You would know me after all, you thought me,
you created me, you own me.
Breathe life into my veins.
You are me!
Can I become a memory... of a thought... you once created?

© Crystal Erickson 11/24/07

have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?