He stays, I push, a game of give and take,
This love tests his every instinct
To run from trouble,
Yet he stays

Standing tall, my insecurities and anxieties fear him
He loves me through it all
And I try explain to him how much it means,
But how can I find the right words to thank
The only one who didn't fear this side of me

she just wants to be loved so badly
she just craves warmth too much
she gave all of it away hoping to get it back
but gambling with The Fates is rough
she longs for the moon which watches her at night
the off-white toothless smile has got her back

yet when day comes the moonlight fades
and with the warmth the moon leaves
the moon doesn't offer warmth and the light deceives
in the long, cold and black sky the moon watches

she just wants fruits she can never taste
a blooming in her heart she'll forever have
day and night
The Fates do not waver
they do not fall to tampers
perhaps they pitied her and took the moon away
letting her bask in the warmth she craved
day by day
hoping she'll walk out of the darkness
and stop the fruitless search of a crescent

...
And just like that, I was drifting again. I was slipping into the folds of static, describing the abyss as I drowned. I fell from altitudes of happy to suicidal in only a manner of insidious seconds, because that's how it goes. You think you have what it takes to be ice but in reality, you're only shattered water.

It comes when I think of them. The urge to succumb into my own ghost has never been so appealing until now. But there are visitors here, the twins grief and guilt have been uninvited guests in a home held together by dried flowers for ceilings and walls of teeth. I have learned to confuse my name with wreckage under their supervision.  

The brothers tell me how to do it, ******* myself without hurting anyone else that I love. But they only speak their diseases to me when all my fight has bled out onto the kitchen floor as the latest mosaic. Then they feast, and teach me the art of being empty through their hungry wolf bites. I remember how to breathe in a shallow way so my skeleton won't fall apart. I haven't had to do that in a very long time. Guilt reminds me the idea of shrinking is hereditary, while grief tells me it's time to practice that now.

When I want to hurt myself I want to do very strange things. I want to ask cigarettes to try to strangle my lungs with smoke as weak as a newborn. It reminds me of what is missing. The sweetest punishment is often the deadliest. When I want to hurt I pick fights with my grief or guilt just so I can lose again, just so I can keep the moon in the same spot in the sky. Just so the stars will pity the same people. I am sick, I am sick, I am sick.  Welcome to the sickness, amen.

When I want to die, I rinse my soul out and leave it to dry.  Like a flower that will become brittle and turn into a bookmark to mark the page where my life left off. I allow myself to deliberately stop holding the weight of the sun and I allow the sky to crush me softly.

I let the tsunamis out of their cages.
I cup his face,
he is beautiful and he is holding what remains;

I will let love hurt me in unspeakable ways,
until death too, dies.

---"How to turn cancer into god."

When  you  go  down  there.
The  settings  so  grand.
And  you  might  see  my  friend  there.
Playing  in  his  band.

The  sun  minting  coins
on  the  surface  is  grand.
Casting  shadows
across  on  the  land.

The  setting  so  grand  there.
And  fills  you  with  hope.
In  this  mad  world.
It  helps  you  to  cope.

Keith  Wilson.  Windermere.  UK. 2017.

for me
  
    ever since my mother died
    on the day spring began
    eleven years ago

my joy over the annual reburgeoning of life
also evokes the memory of death

I know
death is unique and final
     spring is eternal

but all the lovely flowers sprouting forth
always remind me of my mother’s love
of flowers and all other natural beauties
like sea shells  pine cones  precious stones …

maybe it was appropriate
    after all
for her to leave this earth
when it brought forth new life again
    bursting into renewal
as if to compensate us
for our loss

and I was
just standing by
when you just
caught my eye
and as I watched your lips lift
feeling like the ground would shift

you just looked away
taking the sunshine from that day
and now it's dark, I can not see
where'd you go, so far from me?

Because I will
follow you
until the end of truth
you will see me
sitting alone
waiting for you to
come on home

cause you just
walked on by
with a sad smile
that would not lie
tucking your unhappiness
inside yourself
not wanting to share it
with anyone else

don't take that
path for me
I'm right here, can't you see
I'm right there
standing by
You're not alone even when you try

*Because I will follow you
until the end of truth
and you will see me
sitting alone
waiting for you to
come on home

listening to contemporary soundscapes on the radio
I realize I am the  age of my grandmother
when she was terrified that I was
happily howling the latest Beatles  songs
and trying to play them on the piano which
    for her
was a sanctuary of late 19th century music
she liked to play with virtuosity and passion

much of what my culture radio station
calls contemporary music
or pop music stations praise in their charts
does not really catch my ear either

times keep changing