My darling, I did not kindle the flames of love for fear of the darkness...
For was it not in the darkness that first we embraced, freeing my soul from its barren prison...allowing it to taste the purest nectar that flows from your sweet kiss?

Nor were these flames of passion kindled to melt the frozen winter of solitude...For was it not in solitude when I did most clearly hear the whisper of my own heart, singing to me your name before I had even known the splendor of your smile or the triumph of your touch?

My dearest, the blaze in my breast is not a decision, a choice, an invention, nor a consequence...no, this incandescent luminosity we ephemeral beings identify as love is forged in a moment unbound by time, in some sacro-celestial domain unconquerable by mortal flesh...an ethereal reverberation imperceptible to the mind yet irresistible to the soul.

How rare to have loved...to have truly loved in such a way that permits unconsecrated flesh to gaze fleetingly upon the glory of heaven and bask momentarily in the glow of immortality.

Yes my love, how fortunate are we to have loved and through loving became divinity's ephemeral manifestation.

Troubled souls love dancing to the voice of lovers past;
Whose songs are sown with melodies of days not meant to last.

That rhyme in time with teardrops to a heartbeat out of tune;
Whose haunting echoes fill the silence of an empty room.

They ring with resignation...call her long forgotten name;
They drip from lips like poison...joining tears that fall like rain.

As lovely lies form lullabies that promise no more pain;
My soul will go on dancing as my heartbeat sings her name.

I cried for you last night again,
...and swore it'd be the last
Then as I slept I dreamt of you,
...and tears fell twice as fast

I should have never let you go...
I can't do this alone...
I thought losing you would set me free,
But now I'm missing home.

Things were getting easier...
I thought the worst was through...
I never saw it coming...
When I ran into you.

The icy truth wraps round my throat
and haunts me every night,
I'm never getting over you.
...and might never be alright.

The folly of a foolish heart,
Young, naive and free.
Blessed with a love so beautiful,
But was too blind to see.

I hope that there's a purpose
A lesson hidden in the pain
I hope I find the sun again
Cause I'm drowing in the rain

Why am I this way
Trusting nothing others say
I'll love you forever
But I'll still push you away
A trillion miles from heaven
But it's right there in your eyes
I promised you forever
And we both believed my lies
Sinking into darkness
As I'm whispering your name
I hope it's not too late to tell you
That I love you just the same

You're the first thing I think of on waking
My last thought before drifting away
My dreams are bound by constant aching
That greets me new each day

You're the ghost that haunts my nights
The splinter in my soul
The only song my heart recites
The piece that makes me whole

In scornful silence evermore
With hopes to mask the pain
In silence, though, I can’t ignore
My heart calling your name

What a fool I must appear
To foster such desire
That our love might reappear
And set the past on fire

I woke up in the wrong world
At the wrong time
I know the right words
But they don't rhyme

In the wrong shell
With the wrong mind
I'll never stop looking
But I know I'll never find

The wrong lips
Speak the wrong line
The wrong eyes
Miss the right sign

The wrong voice
For the right song
The perfect sound
Where it doesn't belong

Not a poem, but I am reminded how thankful I am to be literate when I come here and read the beautiful words from this wildly talented community able to make my heart soar on even the darkest of days.

It never felt quite right...
Yet never really wrong
Pretending you're alright,
When you know you don't belong

All at once the Demon
Masquerading as a God
Perfectly imperfect
Magnificently flawed

The quiet desperation
Sweet silent isolation
Now all that I can feel...my own violent soul's vibration
That sordid celebration
That terrible temptation
The shattering of tender hearts...My downfall's orchestration

The final walk through paradise
The waterfall of tears
The bastion of loneliness
The sum of all our fears

The tiger crouched behind you
The bomb that's ticking down
The iron ball inside your throat
You choke on as you drown

The dusty corpse of yesterday
Crumbling to a pile
I think I'll sit here all alone
Just breathing for a while

I hope you have a daughter
Just as beautiful as you
I hope she is an angel
And she makes your dreams comes true

I hope she falls in love one day
I hope their love is real
I hope she drives him mad with love
The way you made me feel

I hope she loves her culture
I hope she loves her God
I hope he doesn't fit the mold
The same way I was flawed

I hope she doesn't hide from you
And that you've helped her understand
True love transcends both faith and race
And it sure as hell's not planned

I hope you get to meet him
And see how he makes her smile
I hope that if she tells him yes
He can walk her down the aisle

The hardest thing I've ever done
Was giving you my heart
And being crushed as ignorance
Tore our love apart

It's one of the most enlightening paradoxes I've become aware of:
That often the stories which seem the saddest or most heart-breaking are the most beautiful

The beauty is usually not in the circumstances themselves...but in how we respond to those circumstances with courage, strength, hope, resilience, and above all love...

It changes everything...
To acknowledge that such beauty can be born of the deepest darkness

Darkness that is able to crush despite having no tangible mass or substance
Darkness that consumes us if we forget that we are the light...

Light by its very definition is energy...maybe that explains why it can be so hard to battle darkness...it can be exhausting
Yet, as long as we can perceive the darkness...we can also manifest the light that is our salvation
That is Beautiful...

To come to the realization that we are not condemned to be prisoners in the darkness until some outside entity bestows light upon us
At any moment, we have but to shift our perception inward and we find that which we seek

This is not to say that outside entities cannot help us to find this light...
But merely to reveal that the light which we seek is not withheld from us by any force outside of our control

This also does not mean darkness is ever eliminated, for without light darkness always returns...ever assuring us of its presence.

This means we must consciously and constantly strive to find within us our own light...
This is our journey...a journey in which each of us may arrive at the destination along vastly different paths using strategies as unique as our identities themselves
Although others may aid us on this journey, providing strength and encouragement, they cannot walk our paths for us...

Thus we must develop strategies...
Darkness can be so deep that we lose sight of our sources of light
This is where mindfulness is required
We must practice gratitude...not on occaision, but we must condition ourselves to be grateful even when surrounded by darkness
Even in darkness we can be grateful, and by practicing gratitude we arouse our inner light
Love is born from gratitude...we cannot have one without the other
And love is as pure an energy as the light from the sun itself
As the sun produces light, so too can we generate love through practicing gratitude
And with this love we may begin to realize that the light we seek comes not from without...but from within

And that is Beautiful

The pain it burns
as hot as stars
Though we've healed
we hate our scars

The shame we feel
the dark regret
The ones we hurt
we can't forget

Hidden terrors
we relive
It's ourselves
we can't forgive

When monsters speak
for us instead
Most words are better
left unsaid

Although we're told
that life goes on
and night is darkest
before dawn

Still we hate
what we've become
alone and lost
cold and numb

It's waking up
without a name
It's wondering
who we became

The fall from grace
it's not so bad
it's this new place
that drives us mad

I look out from this little world
with all it's dancers dancing

Mighty trees tickle the sky
The birds in them romancing

If we but stop and listen
we'll hear the music playing

Stop a while and close your eyes
exhale the troubles weighing

Down around your shoulders
Thoughts that cloud your heart

We're only here but for a while
Before we drift apart

Like clouds across the silver moon
we're here and gone far too soon

Then pass into the inky night
Still around, yet out of sight

Some of our clouds stretch for miles
Others stacked in fragile piles

Some full and dark and hanging low
Filled with tears they can't let go

Some so wispy and so light
Their presence a mere oversight

Some whose wrath begets a name
Who form a mighty hurricane

Some who rumble in the night
Hurling lightening left and right

Some dark and brooding, filled with snow
Dumping ice on all below

Some that twist right to the ground
Violently they spin around

Some collide, some drift away
Some prefer night, some prefer day

So let us stop and gaze up high
To find ourselves within the sky

How do I know if it's still love, or a darker sort of need?
As each wish that we send above, we do so out of greed.

I could dream of you forever, and I probably will indeed.
Love chained our hearts together, and I'm not asking to be freed.

My mistakes haunt me everyday, whilst smiling eyes mislead.
In disbelieving disarray, surviving love's stampede.

I write these words I cannot say, not knowing where they'll lead.
But I'll still write them anyway, these words you'll never read.

I may not be your saving grace,
But darling you'll discover...

I'll take a chance and break my heart,
Cause broken hearts recover...

An ode to darkness eschewing light,
Why not?
Her beauty,
it transcends sight!

Radiance reflected.
Incandescent revelry.
Each heartbeat supernova we can feel but never see.

As faithful as true love appears,
her touch incurs your deepest fears.

A broken-hearted serenade...
of choices better left unmade...

Memories burn as touches fade.
Thus, my heart, I barricade.

Here! Love, not armies would invade!

deeply darkly
constant sawing

Whats that sound?
That nonstop gnawing...

softly slipping
slowly drawing

ever inching
unto death

drawing dreary
day to day

as sneering seconds
slip away

Too many tears to erase...
Too many yet to tolerate...

Too few breaths to win this race...

Were men meant to pontificate,
on gods and heavens that await?

Here only to eat and mate,
conquer, ****, and dominate?

With all we've done and all we've seen...
With all we've lost that might have been...

Don't only smile when skies are blue...
For without rain,
No flowers grew...

Despite the pain that's glaring through...
the guilt, rage, shame that you subdue.

Each day you set your course anew.
Our choices ink our life's tattoo.

May your heart be ever true,
Hate never cloud your point of view

May all your love return to you
and guide your heart in all you do.

Oh, what a gift,
...Stopping time's flow.
Just to hold you forever,
...Without letting go.

...Racing and burning,
...Forever returning,
...I loved you each day sure as the Sun loves to fly.
...Rising to Day.
...Falling to Night.
...Forever returning,
...Till the day I should die.

Yes, a gift and a curse,
...Our lives but a verse,
...We dance through the stars, as around us they burst.

A bleeding heart,
A world apart,
By sunsets final glow.

Loves tender fruit,
Pure to the root,
Deep in my heart you sow.

Through misty mornings clouding sight,
Through frozen winter rain.
I know tis true...
it beats for you...
my heart and all its pain.

Like the hero of a story
...arriving two pages too soon.
The plot incomplete, like our own waxing moon.

Like the sweetest of fruits
...plucked a smidge premature.
Timing is crucial for love to endure.

If Love is a light
...to be alone is the night
...before two hearts unite
...we search absent sight
...starving for you, yet unable to bite

He's felt it before
...as he crashed to the floor
...a tormented soul seared to the core
...as the deafening silence continues to roar
...he misses her more
...and more
...and more

Shine in darkness, shine with love
shine through all your pain.

Shine despite the heartache,
yet savor still the rain.

The scariest thing is,
we're ready to evolve.

Imagine how many of our horrors we could solve.

Even darker still,
they don't want us to unite.

But after all, what's been solved with all these wars we fight

And money is of course...
the most important thing of all.

Yet funny as it sounds...it really means nothing at all

We're brothers and we're sisters,
under a common sun.

These lines we've scrawled on maps of ours...shattered instead of one.

That's the truest problem,
the final shackle yet to break.

The futures beams with brightness...but we've a final leap to take.

We must release the past,
We'll need both hands to lunge.

Balancing precipitously before the plunge,

Our consciousness transcending,
silence ringing in our ears.

The internal glow of love without the salty taste of tears.

We're worthy and we're ready,
and some of us awake.

Enlightenment expanding, like a ripple on a lake.

Sometimes it's not demons that break us,
the times when the angels forsake us

Sometimes they're all that remain.
Their whispers giving voice to the pain.

The pain that burns to the core;
allowing tears, once silent, to pour.

Saltier than a draught from the sea,
yet sweeter than we dreamed they could be.

Yes, these demons which lay bare our soul,
also allow us to regain control.

And the faster we flee from our pain,
the quicker we are driven insane.