What to think when looking off into the skies. Day or night, it seems to carry you off into that mystical place that creates the constant illusion. That place where the Earth circles the Sun and the stars combust into bright bodies of gases and fumes. Gone yet we still see them nightly. I dream of coming back from the black holes lost in space and seeing a world where we did not revel in our own filth and build towers to infinity on the under-paid wages of their captors. A world where opinion and culture didn't create a veil between the inhabitors of this planet. I dream of a world where I won't be set apart by the pentacle around my neck or judged by the look of my style. Where I won't fear the birth of a child because of my own fear of the future. One step at a time we breathe toward recreation.

I walk by in threes
With these scars on my knees
To tie my eyes to the trees
Marking maps in my dreams

I press my ear to the door of the seekers,
flames from the heart of a phoenix light my path like lanterns across the sky is now the glimmer in my eyes.
Hope.

I feel, in the soul, in the belly of the beast.
Flaming coals burning holes in canvas paintings of the East.
At least I know I've been learning captioned lullabies.
Uncovering truths as day by day the lyrics have come to unwind.

My dad is a rock,
He is tough, and I've tried.
But I hope that someday we'll find crystals inside.
Or he'll stop punching holes through the walls of people's lives.
With bleeding fists,
I wish his anger would find a cave and go hide.

My mom is like magma,
she sits and she steeps.
She takes rocks and she melts them into pools around her feet.
She erupts in spurts of vulnerable untruths,
And hot anger that scars, chars, and burns anyone standing close to her.
But when lava sits, and when it has dried.
From the infertile past battlegrounds,
Forests will rise.

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor
And the highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding,
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark innyard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by the moonlight,
Watch for me by the moonlight,
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way.

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come at the dawning; he did not come at noon,
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching,
Marching, marching
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at the casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through the casement,
The road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"now keep good watch!" And they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say
"Look for me by the moonlight
Watch for me by the moonlight
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way!"

She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness and the hours crawled by like years!
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it!
The trigger at least was hers!

Tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs were ringing clear
Tlot-tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming!
She stood up straight and still!

Tlot in the frosty silence! Tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment! She drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him with her death.

He turned; he spurred to the west; he did not know she stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it; his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were the spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

Still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding,
Riding, riding,
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

The air conditioning is on and
It makes the hair on my legs stand up.
Old women wrapped in tradition sneer at my
New age, new wave
Style of living.
Boys like girls who keep their mouths shut.
Who sew their lips together with choruses of
"Yes dear"
"Anything for you dear"
"Whatever you say dear".
Boys like girls who know when to put the pen down.
Who don’t play with words
The way babies play with rattles.

In the winter
I’m told I have the perfect body.
In the summer
I’m told to cover up.
My thighs roll with thunder
And wave like the ocean.
I spit blood onto the hot pavement
Next to the cigarette butts and newspapers.
Girls don’t do that.

Girls shave
And cook
And clean
And purse their lips when someones mean
And keep their curls under control
And don’t bite their nails
Or eat too much cake
Or say no.

And when the air conditioning is on
They don’t shiver.
They don’t feel their natural armor
Stand up to fight.
When the air conditioning is on
They smile
And say “thank you” to the sun.