Once I was a ray of unfiltered light,
The star-lit, wild-eyed night,
A sapling taking root in the banks of a river.

Now I am here
And joy is the gentle sprinkling of dew on the spider’s web,
Sadness is the expanse of the ocean, the outgoing tide.
Quiet comes from the petrichor scent of the woods when the storm is over.

Soon I will be faster than the speed of light,
The newest star in the age old night,
Reflected in the eyes of Sirona by the river.

I

After the fall, I would never feel the same.

Nothing comes easy anymore,
Like the fall closed every open door,
Like the fall had so much left in store,
Like the fall became me.
Like the fall consumed all that I knew.
Like the fall walked around in my shoes,
Sang my tunes,
Learned my lessons, wrote my notes, wore my glasses,
Like the fall attended all of my classes.
It used up all of my bathroom passes
To sit in the stalls and mourn.
Nothing comes easy anymore,
Like the fall clothed me,
Like the fall closed me.
I don't live here anymore,
Nobody's home.

I never knew I would never be the same,
Same veins, same body, same brain,
But heart would never be the same.
Nothing would ever feel the same.
I never knew I could be evicted from myself,
Could be placed on a shelf
In a bedroom I have never been in,
Told to live in,
To fall in.

I never knew I could change so drastically,
But welcome to reality.

II

I never knew I could fall in love.
I am the fall and not enough,
People are the mourning dove -
They fly above my reach,
Above a surface I cannot breach -
And someday I hope they will teach me
How to fly with grace, but none look down.

Of course none look down.
That's how you fall when you're flying,
That's how you become the fall
While trying to be the fly.
That's how you become me.

Their feathers are never feathers in reality,
They have this kind of duality,
They are feathers and they are blades of grass.
They are steel and twine, but alas,
Strong as a bull, but shatter like glass.

III

A while ago, I wanted to know how to draw,
So I figured it out.
Now I want to know how to thaw
My heart out of its icy case,
Let it shine through the skin on my face,
And maybe feeling things
Won't be such a game of chase.

Learning to draw took a few years,
Learning to thaw may take a few tears,
And I doubt I will ever thaw at all.
That is a part of being the fall -
The thaw is so far off.

I wish the ice were as thin as people tell me.
No matter how much I skate,
There is never a crack to see.
I suppose that's the fare they charge to skate,
The height of the fee.
It never breaks, never melts,
Not that I can tell.

All this after the fall,
And the fall was only part the first.

I have been many people.

I have been clueless,
thoughtless and shoeless,
I have been a dream spinner,
have been a trophy winner.

I have been sad and I have been lost,
I have been made to pay the cost
of all of the things I have found,
have been the coin tossed to the ground.

I have been broken and on my knees,
have sang to the birds, listened to bees.
I have been small and I have been weak,
have been the rosy hue of my own cheek.

I have been afraid of the world for so long,
I have forgotten what it is to be strong,
But I will always remember when she was me -

         I have been a flower picker and a lover,
         Been the angel under cover,
         I have been hearth-fire and friend,
         Hoped to be something to be proud of,
     And in the end,
I was.

I will always remember
And be proudest of
When she was me.

I am the color of snow
If snow could tan only slightly.
I melt like snow,
I dissolve into puddles and pitfalls,
And no one knows where to find me
On the dark days.

I wake like a candle,
Slow, flickering, wavering.
I burn like a candle,
Bright only in the darkest of times,
I wallow in my self pity,
I adore my deepest pain,
And no one needs me quite like they used to.

I sing when no one can see me,
And dance when none will hear me.
I find my greatest attributes in the loneliest parts of me -
The starving artist well fed by fear of living a full life,
Fear of feeling loved and being loved
And being alone
All at once.

I am the texture of the dark
When the sun and the moon
Elope on the sidelines
Somewhere else in the universe,
The time of day when the sky is empty,
And the time of day
When stars lose all meaning
And no one really cares who is awake
Because it is only me.

I am the creak of a house
That is empty and always has been.
I am the big empty house
Where no man or woman or child dwells,
Only spiders, only spirits.
Only me.

The whole world is wrong.
Wrong -
     defined by not being right,
     defined by people who know themselves better than I.

The whole world is at my fingertips.
My fingertips -
     wrought in rust,
     wrought in hues of iron butterfly wings,
     wrought in the language of dead, forgotten things.

The whole world is somewhere in the universe.
Somewhere in the universe -
     lost in the void of space,
     lost in the void of time taken to meet ourselves,
     lost in the void of where lost things look real,
     lost in the void of what could have been and what could be.

The whole world is wrong,
     wrong
          wrong.
The whole world is wrong,
And it is right,
     Wrong and right, full and empty,
     Timeless and running out of time.

The whole world is gone.
     It was never meant for me.

They talk about their relationship problems
Like it's nothing.

My body is a pine tree,
I am more plant than I am me.
I am driven to read, driven to love,
They are driven to ****.
My body is a book,
My binding never shook,
Pages never read,
So many words running through my head,
And all they want to do is touch.
All they do is touch too much
And I a made for talking and to look,
They are stories, and I am but a book.

My body is asexual,
Is a plant and an amoeba and
I do not exist.
They want me to look for more than
A person to trust, to hold hands with.
I look for love where they seek lust,
And they never meant for that to be real.

They talk about their relationships like it's nothing
Because it is,
To them.
It is empty.

She is made of the fires of Pompeii,
The waters of the Mediterranean,
The leaves of Tir na Nog.

She is the eye in my storming skies,
The confused time between dark and dawn,
Violet, calm, navy, bright and ordinary.
She is my Lorelei, my forest fairy.
Her voice paints my glasses in green and gold,
Hues of sunsets and city lights
Dance across the horizon.
Only I can see them.

The ocean is full of stars in direct sunlight,
And so too am I under her gaze.

She is the fires of Pompeii,
The waters of every ocean,
The whole forest of Tir na Nog.

To her,
I am a rusting penny,
A grain of rice sitting in the cupboard.
She is my Bridge of Sighs, she is La Seine,
And I am her bright red pen marking suggestions,
Never corrections.
She is my Lorelei, and I her nothing.