Out of your mind
Into the atmosphere
Leave it behind
Let them all disappear
Deep in dark space
Lost amongst dying stars
Escape this place
Shine brighter than quasars

Roaming these empty hallways
With dead eyes I see nothing of interest
Roaming from room to room
I see no light to lead me through the dark

It's a blind stumble
There's no joy
And all I see are baren walls
As I continue on walking

I keep on searching with half opened eyes
Partly wishing to find some meaning in all the emptiness
Half hoping to find some light to bring back color to this dull life

Cliché isn't it
That it was you who sparked some life in me
With a simple smile
Simply acknowledging me
It gave my life a little bit of meaning

So I continue walking through these empty hallways alongside you
The barren walls seem to have gotten some color
The hallways don't seem as dark
The lights seem to be working again

Then others came
More beings who spurred something deep within
Something absolutely human
It itself was light
And it interested me
A difference from the same dark
So I continued walking alongside my new companions

Together we all walked
No longer did I search in empty rooms
Or gazed through broken windows
Because I somehow managed to leave it all behind when I walked through the door that led to the outside world
To the life full of color
Full of new sounds and smells
To a brand new world full of wonder and interest

But what's most interesting
Is what led me to this world
The friends who brought me here
Who were the light amongst the bland
And the friend who started it all
So I'll explore this new world with him and the others
To see what else I might find of interest
To see what else might give my life meaning

To emerge from the body
Is to become the soul:

Master the body
As a flame in it's newness

Watch your dreams evolve
Into a fire of desires realised

Devour the moments
As a truth of this life

Watch the children of innocence

And carve out the tree of your life
Under its shade as naked as the soul

there is plenty of time in the world,

just not enough for us

I remembered
I promised you a poem,
In fact one a day for our love-
There's a problem though,
I can't seem to get them out:

   Because your presence
   Is like a million words,
   A thesaurus sitting right
   Next to me,
   And what you are to me
   When you are with me is an
   Eternal sonnet.
   But when I tried I began to
   Understand something that brings
   My understanding of us clearer,
   That we are the same in separate
   Places, in the same solitude
   Without knowing each other's
   Pain or fatigue.
   That we are both not people,
   But the wind freed in our selves,
   A gale freed from the conventional
   And we become a sudden verse,
   Nostalgic and naive,
   Stubbornly young and hopeful,
   There in that place,
   When we are together,
   I cannot write the poem
   That has not yet finished
   Being written.

i.
I am a short, stout girl in the corner of the room
my arms were much smaller last June
I search for reasons not to relapse in shadows like corpses
they're all dead, anyway
because my roommate is obsessed with the gym
because my best friend is obsessed with fad diets
even though I have at least fifty pounds on both of them.

ii.
I am forcing myself to use recovery speech
because it gets me through therapy more effectively
"fat is not a feeling"
my mind scoffs as I speak
every word copied and pasted from someone else's recovery blog
but my recovery is not avocados and yoga mats and veganism
it is complicated
it is painful.

iii.
I am the small, queer girl in the pew at church
so nervous as the skin around my nails begin to bleed
the scar on my ******* says "*******"
to American evangelicalism
and yet my lips still sing the loudest
the product of the "moral right"
how lovely it is to pretend to belong.

iv.
I am acting like my body knows what it is doing
as I reach for the hands of my most recent lover
I drop hints to my Republican parents
church members
best friend
but still,
I am struggling.

v.
I am trying to undo the codification of bulimia
from the fibers of my bones
I relearn daily
spun like wool through the continuum
of someone else's broken body
I become a success story
for some
but for others
I am still fat.

vi.
I want my eating disorder
my abuse
my queerness
to look normal
to be typical
some say
assimilation is liberation
so why do I still feel
chained and bound?
why am I still
unfinished?

In a secret chamber mine love-
novel to other's, we shalt repose.
Thought's to not only be understood
In the physical, but in the kingdom
Wherein living water floweth
From ourn soul's. Pinnacle's
Defying scientific theory of
Time and space. For where
We shalt be there art sea's
Eternally unspoken; Only
By God shalt one seeith the
Glimmering turnstile, none
trespass allowed there, none
agápi to be defiled. Here, this
Place we shalt floshtarize in
unbarring liberty; a cordillera
Aloft the breeze we shalt ascend.
Ourn spirit's wilt twist and bend
To the notes of saintly chord's. O'
Anon mine girl, anon; we shalt sip
From the grip of turquoise pond's. As
The treasures we wilt collect, shalt be
providential, ourn residential abode-
white as snow, O'er the Show
of the most essential.


©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley ( àgapi mou) dedication