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

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 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.

We speak as one stone to another
In silent millennia
The slow language of erosion
And The decay of time around us

We are static objects
The universe spinning around us
While we stare at star trails
And wish we could be meteorites

Maybe we were falling stars once
Flaring and fading too quickly
Maybe we were once young and on fire
Maybe being still really is our reward.

Let’s pretend these sheets are a shroud
And that I’ve died or run away
Or done something equally as irreversible
Let’s pretend your heartbeat
Is rabbit fast and unsteady
Don’t beat yourself up
I forgive you
Don’t worry about me
These are the things I’ll tell you
From somewhere you can’t hear
And they won’t give you comfort
You won’t have solace or peace
Because I can’t make you hear them
So you won’t understand
That none of this was ever your fault
That I slipped away on my own
And didn’t burn the bridges
That I thought I would
That I could come back
At any time
You’d never believe me anyway
And my heart crushes inside my chest
Drops to the centre of my stomach
Like I’ve swallowed it
and I can feel it beat
Like a baseball bat to my insides
Breaking apart my body like glass
I’d really like an answer
For why exactly I’m still standing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You catch dancing particles of dust
In your hand, and call them magic
Because they disappear when you open it again
And maybe there is a little magic there
Hidden in the fibers of my carpet
But dust settles and is swept away
It cannot dance forever
The sun won’t stream soft and warm
Through my bedroom window every morning
But I’m okay with slate grey skies
With the ticking of the rain on my window
This too is important, somehow.

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

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?

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.

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 want to disappear
Into the rumble and hum of this world
I want to see
Faces I’ve never seen before
And places I never knew I’d love
I want new colours
A new piece of the sky to dream about
I want to know
The wings I feel
Thrusting out
From my shoulders
Aren’t just
Wax, paper, and string
Fragile and temporary
That they will let me
Fly away from here.

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.

The dead rise to life
Under your uncertain fingertips
But this is nothing but change
And you don’t know
What you’re doing
You breathe deep
And pray you aren’t a harbinger
Of the terrible things yet to come
Your body changes
As the blood drips
From careless hands
Where you held on too tight
Let the changes happen
As they will
You cannot stop them
But you cannot accept this
These symbols drawn
With shaking fingers
The meaning lost on you
But you know they are important
You just don’t know why.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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