You are not the ocean
Even if you feel as though
You are rising like the tide
Being turned away from
The shoreline and always
Coming back again and again

You are not the wind
But
You can still make goosebumps
Appear on skin
Or be the breath of
Fresh air someone needs

You are not a force of nature
You are so much stronger than that
So much bigger even if you
Still wish you were a hurricane
Something bigger than
You see yourself.

Someday we’ll be young again
Not quite innocent
But naïve enough to be happy
With enough time to sit still
And think about
How small we are
Compared to the stars
And how we too could
Light up the sky
If only we weren’t
Afraid To burn

I don’t know if I believe that
We are all made of stardust or
Swirling galaxies of energy
I know that my skin isn’t
As thick as I’d like it to be
And the freckles on my body
Don’t make constellations
Unless you know how to
Connect the dots

I know that mountains and snow
Will always feel like home
No matter where I am
And I know that home
isn’t always in the same
Place twice

Sometimes you feel home
In waves, that make your heart
Feel lighter and heavier
At the same time
Sometimes it’s a moment in time
That you could spend your life
Trying to define

Home is a dream, a photograph,
a stretch of highway,
An acre of forest that you’ve
Never thought to explore
It’s somewhere you know well
And sometimes somewhere
You’ve never been before.

The earth you stand on is older than you can fathom.
It is millions of years of ash, bone, and rebirth
Layer upon layer of ages gone by
Time you will never experience first hand

You hold uncountable births and deaths
In your cupped palms as you fill them with earth
You cannot know how many lives were lived
In that palmful of dark sand

Your toes time travel as they sink into the sand
You bring back eons under your fingernails
As you dig further back
Trying to feel what the world was like
when the world was still new
And time had yet to exist.

There is a nest of birds inside my body
Trying to peck and claw their way out.
I can feel their wings beating
Bruises onto my insides

Their ever flapping wings
Stir my stomach into knots
That I can’t hope to untie.

Every time I try to speak
My mouth fills with feathers
And I have to swallow hard
Again and again
To keep from choking on them.

They’ve pecked holes in my mind
These restless creatures inside me
So that I can’t understand anything
The way I used to.

I know they are trying to escape
That they are trapped inside me
They mean me no harm, really,
still, most days I feel
More like the caged bird
than the cage itself.

The Machine parts in me have rusted
I am all creaking metal fatigue
And slowly splintering glass
I am not indestructible
I am not build to withstand
The storms I have weathered
But I have survived them
Maybe a little less intact
Than I was before
And each one wears down
Each part of me a little more
There are no spare parts here
And when one wears out
You have to learn
To live without it
Until you are nothing but
Jangling bits inside a
Worn down shell
A barely functioning
Version of what you
Once were
But then again you have
More storms to weather
Than you could know
After all,
They don’t make them
Like you anymore.

This February sky is mad and beautiful
and I want to hold its stars in my mouth.
I want to cough them up into new constellations,
spit out the blackness
That gets caught in the back of my throat.
Feel the cold of the moon under my tongue
While the galaxies swirl in my stomach
twisting my insides into new knots
While I know that inside me
There is the potential to create
New worlds, new stars
I breathe in the light studded darkness
Close my eyes and see the night sky
That has made it’s home within me.
I may not be a constellation,
But I could be.

Sometimes the weight of your own mistakes will be too much.
     You’ll bend further than you thought you could
        And sometimes,
           You will break.

2. Sometimes it’s the sting of someone else’s mistakes
          That hits you like a punch to the face
              And you’ll sit, trying to soothe your wounds
                   Wondering what you did wrong.

3. No one ever tells you there will be times
          You feel guilty for being happy
                                                 Don’t.

4. A knife to the heart will usually hurt more
           Than a knife to the back.
                 But, sometimes, if the aim is right
                                 They’re the same thing.

My dear, my dear, my dear,
Say you are not afraid;
Say it so loud
That the doves in your body
Stop fluttering their wings,
So that you feel still
For one moment.
Sigh like a pack of wolves;
Dangerous in the right situations
But mostly more afraid of them
Than they are of you.
You worry that everyone
Reads what you are thinking
By the way your
Face colours itself
Like a sunset,
By the way the light fades
Out of you, slowly.
Close your eyes,
Steady the thrumming
In your chest
You are not afraid
You are not afraid
You are not afraid
Anymore

In this electric moment of sanity
I see everything as it is
I see the reality of things
With the beautiful haze stripped away
And when I blink, it is still there

I don’t know if the air I’m breathing
Is the same air that surrounded me
A moment ago, but it feels different
I feel heavier, like every step
Makes footprints in concrete

If I close my eyes for long enough
Sometimes it will go away
This clarity, this unrelenting realism
Maybe I’ll feel lighter again
If I close my eyes tight and think of flying

Tomorrow,  like a distant sun
That you are hurtling towards
Only to find that when you get there
It’s not as hot as you imagined
Sometimes it’s burnt out
And the light you see is the echo
Of a million miles of your own false hope

Suns burn out slowly though
You could still have time to find your tomorrow
But you cannot move at the speed of light
Weighed down as you are by doubt
Dreaming is not moving forward
You cannot distinguish ground from sky
With your eyes closed
Stop dreaming, open your eyes
Find that dying light
And hold on.

Stop.
The trees are sinking
As the ground grows mouths to swallow them
Keep your head held high
No, actually, don’t
Heads held high are often cut off
Stay low, keep to the shadows
NOT THOSE SHADOWS! Those ones, over there.
Yes. Don’t move. Don’t ever move again.
Question your existence as you huddle
Trying to be still but shivering despite yourself
There are no mouths here, nothing to swallow you
And isn’t that a shame?
Find the teeth that will crush you
Throw yourself on their unyielding edges
Accept your fate. Everyone else has.
Can’t you see that?
Can’t you hear it in the empty echo of your voice
As you call for help, for company, for a face, any face?
Stop. You are dreaming this.
Oh you are still alone, we all are
But there are no gnashing teeth to grind you up
No mouths in the ground to swallow you whole
Breathe. Relax. It’s all okay. It’s all okay.
Everything will be okay if you let it.
Will you let it? Do you need to be convinced?
Stop. You are dreaming, you are dreaming.
Wake up. Why can’t you wake up?
The ground is opening up again
This is too real to be a dream
All you can do is cry soundlessly into the dark
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.

We scraped our fingers over the ashes of our youth
Trying to gather all the pieces we left behind
Running toward the future
Carefully going crazy
Over every word we've ever said
Futilely grasping at every memory stripped away
Nostalgia is just a word
For memories we have yet to tarnish,
And people we didn't know we could lose.

This is where the ash on your tongue
Is sweeter than the blood on your hands
Even if they both mean the same thing
And these wolves with their sharp teeth and red tongues
are eating you alive but still you want to love them
They can’t help their nature
Any more than you can help your own
You are made of regret and grief
But you bite the hand that comforts you
Because you don’t know any other way
Because what are you without your pain?

The wolves are circling
And though were raised by them
You don’t recognize them as family now
And they certainly don’t recognize you
But still you want to love them
You take every bite, every drop of blood drawn
And tell yourself that this is what you deserve
Tell yourself you can never really go home.

This is not the first time nor the last
That fear spins inside of you
Making carnival rides of your insides
It is not the first time, no
But it will always feel that way.
As the bottom drops out from under you
Down is the only way to go
And your heart sticks in the back of your throat
Like the last time, and the time before
But you can’t remember surviving those falls either
Not really, you only know that the ground has shifted
And You are suspended in the air, waiting to drop
Struggling to get air into your faltering lungs
And never remembering the last time you survived.

This is echoing forever
Footsteps in silent halls
Shattered glass on fresh turned earth

The first mark on freshly painted walls
Nothing stays new forever
List the ways innocence sours

Nightmares are dreams turned inside out
Shadowed hands plucking flesh from bone
What is hell but this and only this?

Forever echoing footsteps
In halls that were never silent
Nothing perfect stays that way.

I remember the way your eyes wanted to open, When you were still asleep
the rough taste of whiskey on my tongue smoke filtering in from the open window
I am  not dreaming now but maybe I was, once.
Maybe I could find that dream again
the one where we were incandescent, eyes lit up like supernovas,
and great wings sat heavy on our shoulders
but that dream is gone.
That dream was a lie.
It never existed.
You never existed.
Do maybe I am not here, maybe I am the imagining of some poor soul
Cursed to see this mundane spectre
This ghost of someone who was never really here in the first place.
But for now I sleep, I sleep and dream of things, indescribable
Things I cannot remember, things I do not want to remember
I open my eyes to the morning feel my muscles stretch
See my fingers silhouetted in the bright light streaming from behind sheer curtains
Yes, I am here, I am real, I exist
For now.

Like a ghost inside my own skin
Fading in and out
Like bad radio reception
The static cuts in
When I try to speak

and I’m yelling at you
Telling my secrets
Over broken radio waves
I could tell you anything
And you wouldn’t hear it anyway
But it’s safe this way, isn’t it?

I am cutting out
You are searching
For something better
To listen to
But you can’t find it
Can you?

There are terrible secrets
Hidden in the curve of your lips
Your sins pushing against your teeth
And still, I can’t help but see
That they aren’t all you are
My own sins crowd my throat
Choking me, making me pay a debt
Of penance that will never be settled
Do any of us really
Deserve to be saved?
I don’t know, but then in the end
That’s really not up to us, is it?

We bleed, and fight, and suffer
For what? A world that doesn’t care?
A world that can’t see
The black creeping in at the edges
We aren’t heroes, never were  
we are damage control
We are “This won’t happen again”
We are sorry it happened at all
But we are here to pick up pieces
Not to stop things from breaking
If you knew what we knew
You wouldn’t thank us for saving you
You’d run as fast as you could
In the opposite direction
And no one would blame you.

I am not bright light
I am bone and shadow
My eyes dark spots
On a too white page
I am dreams too hollow
To mean anything
Nightmares Clawing
Under the surface
Threatening escape
I am unafraid
But I am not brave
I am brave
When I am afraid
I fear everything
So I fear nothing
I am not Brave
I am necessary
Monotony
Blank and numb
I am cold ashes
On your tongue
I am what remains
Of a fire so hot
It burned away
The Sun.

You turn heel and run
While the world
Snaps at the soles of your feet
Trying to take you down

So you run
Faster and further
Than ever before
Your lungs burn
You run

Your flesh and bones
Are not a cage
But they will slow you down
But what are limits
But rules meant to be

Broken.

Am I the drowned woman
Keeping the shore
At bay
As I float towards
Expanding seas
Wider than any land
I could set foot on
The sky is wider still
But then,
I’ve never
Been one to fly
And each point
of each sun
Burns into
My Skin
So I stay here
Underwater
If I am still
Enough
I could believe
I am floating
In the black
Vacuum of
A sky I will
Never really
Know.

It’s like plucking the wings off of angels
And you can’t help but wonder
Who’s really in control here
Are those tears or are they blood
Is there really a difference now?

Dream of a home that no longer exists
You were right, you can’t go back there
Not now, not ever
But still, the gates are closing
And you are being pulled back in.

How can you help anyone
When you don’t even know
That you are the one that needs saving
How can you ask for the help
You don’t know you need.

And they’ve got your wings twisted
Clipped and torn, tagged and tracked
Giving a whole new meaning to
“Angels are watching over you”.

I realize now
That the twisting of time
Is not something I can stop
Resetting the clock
Changes nothing
Not really
And I can’t help
But be a little thankful
At this loss of control
If I could change time
Would I want to?
Would I change
Any decision I’ve ever made?
Would I want to know
Really, truly know
Where I’d be
If I wasn’t the sum
Of the consequences
I cannot change?

There is tragedy written in every line of your body
Like your skin is too fragile to hold all your scars
You breathe like you won’t get another chance to
Maybe you won’t, what do I know about it?

I can see you have a story for each and every wound
But you aren’t looking to tell the world
You know no one would believe you anyway
No one listens when you tell the truth
No one cares if you lie

You take one more breath, one more step
And hope it doesn’t all fade away
You were meant to go out brightly
The flames of a dying sun
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

There is still dust under your nails
From acts of creation, of redemption
There will always be blood
Staining the lines of your hands
There is not enough water in the world
To erase those stains, even if you did want them gone.

Your sins sit heavy on your shoulders
And you don’t think you can bear them anymore
You are stumbling, trying so hard, too hard
To be who you should have been all along.

You are a messenger in a bulletproof vest
Holding your palms out in surrender

You are flinch, twitch, and jump
At voices you can’t stand to hear

You are nails chewed ******
Nervous habits and red face

You are grit your teeth and bear it
When all you want is to be alone.

You are clawing fear under skin
And trying not to show it.

You never believed in happy endings
A life lived clean
Was never in the cards for you
Your hands smear stains of blood and dirt
Into clothing layered with so much of it
You wonder if that’s all it is anymore
You wonder at how your heart holds together
With all of the pieces torn out of it
But it’s mended with alcohol, sewing kit sutures
And sheer force of will.
You are so tired of blood
You are so tired of being weighed down
By the force of your past
But it’s all you’ve ever known
And sometimes you wonder what it’s like
To look to the future
And hope.

You are the amplified heartbeat
Pounding through my head
Like hoofbeats, predicting a stampede
A wild thing, just tamed
Baring teeth at the hand that feeds
and slowly forgetting
That the blood singing in your veins
Was meant for more than cages.

There is a twitch to me
Buried under my skin
There are moments
I am still
But underneath
I sit minutely shaking
And I could not
Tell you why
It happens
Only that it has
As long as I can
Remember.

Sometimes it’s a spasm
A contraction of
Too many muscles
To ignore
Too many to stay still
Like a cold breath
On the back of my neck
There is no subtlety in this
I feel I am shaking off…
Something
I've never quite been sure
What exactly it is.

The saying goes:
“Someone is walking
over your grave”
For every unexplained shiver
And sometimes I wonder
If somewhere they built a sidewalk
Over my grave.

Light a candle
For every memory
You can’t let go of

***** one out
For every faded scar
That you won’t let heal

Burn circles
Into the palms of your hands
To remind you this is real

You are still here
You are still here
Even if you don’t know
What that means anymore.

Sometimes when I can’t see it
I wonder if the world exists
If I close my curtains
Turn out the lights
And close my eyes tight
Does everything else
Simply cease to exist?

Can I ignore
The pounding of my heart
As it keeps me awake
Because, after all
None of the things
I’m worrying about
Really Exist when
I’m not looking at them.

But how do I stop looking
How do I curtain the world
Shut off the sun
And live with my eyes closed
So that I don’t have to fear
Things that pop back into existence
The moment I let them?

There are seconds
Tick, Tick, Ticking
Beneath the curve of your smile
I wonder how long it will stay this time.

The gravity of your body
Is too heavy
Like there is more
Inside of you
Than your skin
Was meant to hold
It makes me think of
Comets, black holes,
And endless starry skies
You are your own constellation
You are my personal starry night
I will count the points of light
That shine out beneath
The thin skin of your wrists
Trace the memory of galaxies
Around the curves of your hips
This body is not your own
Except it is, it is
You are anchored within
By the gravity of your being
By the things you’ve done
And I, I am anchored to you
By sheer force of will.

You are a dark spot on the shoreline
I can’t see it, but I know you’re smiling
And the ocean is trying to swallow you whole
But You laugh at me for trying to save you

You are a dark spot on the shoreline
With waves lapping at your shins
I still can’t see it
But you’re still smiling

You are a dark spot under water
There are shadows pulling you in
Undertow of regret, pain, and wanting
And if you let me I would give you my lungs

There is something big behind you
And you don’t know what it is
But you know you have to run
That you've always been running
The thing behind you
Is always bigger than you
But you've always taken it down
And down
And down
In the past, you’ll do it again
and again
and again
Because you have to
Because it’s your responsibility
Though you don’t remember accepting it
Because who else would be there
If you weren't?
And all you want
Is to unlace your boots
To lay down your guns
To let someone else take up the hunt
But the thing behind you
Is only behind you
And it’s always
Always
Bigger than you.

We pour alcohol like anesthesia
and pack salt into the wounds
Like one will help us forget
And the other will protect us
Except,
It’s never really worked that way
Not for us, never for us
We’re down as many times as up
And the shock to the body
Of sudden revival, rebirth
Isn’t really a shock any more
Don’t be surprised
When your prayers aren’t answered
It’s been a long time
Since any of us has believed
That angels were on our side.
God is watching, maybe
But that’s hard to believe
Maybe he’s the one
Making sure our faces
Are stuck in the mud
Making sure this black water
Creeps into every pore
Making new creatures of us
With too wide smiles
And aeons in liquid eyes
They’re swallowing us whole
Are we really
Going to just let this happen?
I thought not.

I’m chewing my lips blood red
and wondering about
My next course of action
Because this isn’t where
I thought I’d be
And I don’t know
What I’ll do
If five years from now
I’m in the same place
I’m dreaming
Of water and forests
And places
That don’t exist
Outside my head
I’m contemplating change
But I don’t know
where to start
And really that’s
Where the problem started
In the first place, isn’t it?
And I’m dreaming of a time
Ten years from now
When the forest creeps
Into my back yard
And I let it
Because I can’t
I can’t bear
To tame a wild thing
When in the end
That’s all I want to be.

We are chasing the dark
Hoping it doesn’t
Catch us unprepared
If you go on the offensive
You can’t be surprised
By the shadows
Seeping in at the edges
We drink deep of this
Black black water
And hope to hell
It’s not too late
To save ourselves.

Can you sleep here
With the monsters
Watching from the shadows
We’re barely keeping away?
Is there any rest for us
Who aren’t quite good
But aren’t quite wicked either?
Is there light to burn away
The darkness we’ve been chasing?

Here’s the thing
sometimes it’s not the hero
that rides off into the sunset
At the end of the story.
In this life
Sometimes the villains win
And there really are no
Happily ever afters
Just the day after
And the day after that

This storybook life
Isn’t really something
You can chase after
Because you can’t
Hold on to a story
You’ll realize this
As the words flow
Through your fingers
And your illusions
Are shattered
Over
and over
And over
Again.

Hey bluebird
Fly away from here
You are too small
To weather this storm

Hey bluebird
Will you fly away from here
The sky is blue as you are
And I’ve locked your cage in fear

Hey bluebird
How are you singing
When your wings are clipped
And you can no longer fly?

Hey bluebird
Your colours are fading
Your feathers are shades of grey
I just can’t see blue any more

Hey bluebird
You’ve weathered the storm
Damaged and faded you’re singing
Maybe I should’ve just listened to you.

My life is this thing
You can crumple like paper
And you can’t see it
You ball it up in your fist
And disregard the consequences
Ignore the tearing sounds
And the red seeping
Between your fingers
Where the ink hasn’t dried
Don’t worry though,
I’ll unfold it myself
And try to smooth the edges
and mend the tears
It’s okay
I understand
It wasn’t important
To you anyway.

I want to speak
In the language of bright tomorrows
And the pressure of my fingertips
On your back

I want to breathe
The rain in the air
and the smell of dust
Melting from your hands

I want to feel
The softness of your words
And the sound of them
Resting in my ears

I want to be
The world after a storm
And all the glittering possibilities
I can see in the sky.

Your body is not a language
But I know it by touch
I’d know you blind and deaf
The whorls of your fingerprints
Are as familiar to me as my own
Sometimes I don’t know
Which is which
I find myself getting our
Bodies confused and tangled
Forgetting where your skin ends
And my own begins
Even when we are apart.
Am I another person
Are you?
Would we really want to be
So separate that
Our skin becomes our own?

Spark the stars into being
You settle like the dust
Of meteorites, falling stars
Over the memory of dark skies
And endless expanses of black

You are a night sky
A million stars that light up
The darkest parts of the universe
You are supernova bursts of light
Stars bursting into being
And flickering out
A million miles away

And all I can do
Is write about the stars
And never even dream
I could be even one.

Our bodies are torn up
By the weight of sunlight
Our skin cannot hold it out
And it bursts, white hot
From our fingertips
We are shattered
From the inside out
Our throats close up
On the words
That could save us
And there is not enough
Water in the world
To quench this thirst
Our bodies are
Consumed by light
We are brighter
Than the stars
But it burns through us
Like hellfire
And thousand degree days
Like we’ve swallowed
The core of the earth
And all we can do
Is feel the rapid
Burning in our veins
And hope it will last.

Meanwhile your heart is in your throat
You’ve stepped into the middle of a conversation
And you don’t quite know where it’s going
But that’s kind of okay you guess
They are turning your face into wallpaper
And you fade and peel away under their apathy
But that’s still okay
You aren’t the type to burn bright and sudden
You are a slow burning candle, not a firework
And you figure, you can be okay with that too
You don’t need the flash, bang
You’re okay with flickering
But never
Quite
Going
out.

You fall
In licking flames
Of withdrawn absolution
Every stone of your foundation
Crumbling, black and broken
Into the oblivion of desperation

You fall
Into the ruins
Of your own creation
As the hand of your absent god
Sweeps clear the ground beneath you

You fall
A desperate gesture
Hope a distant memory
Burnt and fading at the edges
It crumbles under your shaking hands

You fall
This is not change
This is not epiphany or retribution
There is no stopping or fixing this
You’re too far gone.

I see the pain of desire
Dripping from your
Half-closed eyes
And I want to swallow it
Taste the salt and metal
Of tears and blood
And a thousand other things
That are just you alone
This is like
Breathing in sunlight
And letting it burn
Trails of scarlet
Down your throat
And I can see the sunbeams
Exposing themselves
Between each rib
In your chest
Are they burning
Into the core of you?
Can you even feel them there?
I can feel them
Through your skin
As I place a palm on your chest
And feel you breathe in
I’m burning now, scorched
I can feel my lungs
Grow hot and bright
Is this reflected light
Or are you giving
Your sunlight to me?

Let’s shake hands
With the possibility of mercy
And let the stars
find their own way home
Let’s drink the night sky
As it comes crashing down around us
Let the darkness lay cold
On our tongues
Like the ink I spill
Onto blank pages
When no one is listening.
Let’s burn bright and hot
Like supernovas and dying stars
And lend our light to satellites
Let’s send a message
Written in new constellations
Drawn with our fingertips
Against the night sky
We’ll let the stars know
That we see them
Even in the brightest
Light of day
And That they’ll
Never be forgotten
Even if every last one
Blinks out of existence
Right before our eyes.

Your body and mine
Like planets and satellites
Drawn close without collision
I draw in too close
And find myself burning
Into your atmosphere
Pulling the tides of you
Into swells and rolling waves
I throw off the gravity
Of all of these collisions
And we meet in the middle
I am embraced
In the richness
Of your earthen skin
I burn out quickly
And find myself
Comfortably warm
And as close to you
As I could possibly be.