Over three years time
Oh how you left me
In this state of sheer shock
Standing barefoot and empty

Feel a bruise
And let it be
Tear the skin
And watch it bleed

Read a book
And rip a page
Doused with word upon word
Of bitter rage

Oh well that was then
I was in such a state
That if you touched my skin
I’d turn to glass and break

Unearth my shattered surface
And reveal my war-torn mind
My soul has been tarnished
My core crushed in violent crime

To look through is to witness
A façade of a long, red braid
A rope of stone and hazel eyes
Housed behind a stained-glass window pane

I don’t show much, no
But I seldom showcase pain
My body’s a vessel in which
My broken soul’s contained

Shed a light that leaves my body
A translucent haze
My all, my everything
Will be left for you to gaze
And watch and learn and yearn
For my soul to be saved

But that light will never be cast
For I reside in a darkness
With a cloud so gray
And a wind so pained
And an aura of sheer silence

I had a hunch that you were leaving
But never had I thought that soon,
You left the air so thick and pained
All your tropies still sit in your room

The picture of you from when you were young
Spans prominent on the wall
And every thime I scale the stairs
The weight of you is so heavy
I could fall

October replays incessantly
Across a shifting wall
Flashes of happy
And whips of winter
And splashes of summer and fall

Chairs aligned
With people behind
Unknowingly awaiting a fate,
Unfairly tossed to them,
You get what you get,
Luck and happy have to wait

You come back to me from time to time
In a movement or a smile
But it’s transient though
And you quickly return
Goodbye love for a while

Sprinting on a runway
Gaining my momentum
I’m going to need it to fly
I can no longer do what I’ve done
For so long
I just can’t live a lie

Am I the girl with the shiny curls
All tangled and unaware?
Of the real world I reign
With no inhibitions
Only love and what feels right

Doesn’t she feel like she’s flying?
Like she’s floating,  like there’s no wind
To resist the pain of feeling
What this world has to give

She thinks she knows this world
All is light, just light that sweeps her cheeks
Flushed pink with youth
All is wind, just gusts
That brush her hair for her
All is effortless, effortlessly
Beginning and ending
And beginning again
Does she wonder about the rest?
Aspiring to slip through to find what lies ahead
Yes
But ask if she’s knows of the real hurt
And she’d confidently utter
The truth she thought she knew

We are taught by the trusted,
Swept under their wings,
Atop their earth
It is bliss and nothing else is known,
All else is shielded
With armor of might and mail

So I go one day
After the wing is lifted
And this world, this world of mine
This world of mine I thought I knew
Is not that world at all
Dancing past swinging doors
With air that forces her,
She turns but there’s no turning back
The doors have been closed on the past
She accepts the truth of fleeting youth
And letting down her hair
Shoes of pink satin are now deeply rooted
But not in ground of fertile touch
But in piles of unstable sands

Sinking, falling no!
Please let her out

“I’m okay, I’m surviving,”
She utters the words through someone else’s tongue
They roll past her teeth falsely

Walk impassively, she thinks
Kiss the breath of the ******
But why?

Why walk being led by unfamiliar feet?
Why run past a group of truth?
Why wish for what’s not truly wished?
Why not listen?
Why not listen to your own cherubic voice,
Innocent pitch and sweet intentions
Why not trust?
Use the trust that’s kindly offered often
Why tangle in senseless strings?
It’s petty and lacks virtue
Why?

Because she’s alive
We’re alive and we live and we die
And travels prove arduous

And she’s little
In a little body, little is contained
Little wants to be contained

Growth
Growth in a body brings growth to the mind,
Seeps up the spine and I know

So it takes some time
To fill the mind
And time also carries pain
All in all, you can’t just call the name
It calls you, it reckons you
And it stabs you till you’re almost
At your end
But it’s funny
It never quite hurts you enough
To knock you down completely
It rests inside

So now she stands tall
Stoic like the Chief that’s
In my blood

Wrapped in that petticoat
With polka dots and
A pair of red shoes

It took some time, granted
Tumbling a bit every moment
Standing up

Regret?
Yeah
She peers through the window
That cannot be shattered
To stop; omit all
Try, she tries and tries but

She can’t
She amazes herself though
Every time those strings are strummed
Or every time her senses are numbed
From all the petty rest

She knows a lot,
But not at all
But what beauty lies
In the potential
To bring herself up
Just to fall again and again
Every fall holds strength
To begin all over

There’s silence outside the walls
And it’s something we don’t realize
Sound-proof they are
As unbreakable as they seem,
Inescapable they stand
In the way of all their dreams

I left the walls to meet my mother
At the doors one day
Only to find that she wasn’t there
I was left to sit alone,
Left with the openness of my mind
And drifting words carried by air

A metaphor of senseless drama
Isolated in pores of stone
And I just cross my legs
And laugh,
I know what they don’t

But pity is also sensed
For the innocent of the souls
I do recall being trapped in the place
Where all that surrounded were walls
There’s silence outside the walls
I know, but I’m still learning
When they finally fall
Down around me
It will feel like I’m earning
The ultimate release of
Everything I’ve ever come to learn
Among these walls
The silence falls
And time heals the burns

The thought is real and it’s alive
But physical’s just the illusion
So why is it that something
Materialized by man
Is the root of all delusion

It holds us back
Keeps us trapped
We don’t even gain consciousness
Of what’s beyond
It was in that day
I sat out there
All by myself in silence and solace
And true alignment and sun
That peace was reached

And the silence and I became one

I pity the souls enclosed in the halls
Among these walls
The silence falls

“Hi love,” she calls, “let’s dance!”
Make patterns with tiny feet
And prance
Atop the carpet, across a room
Until I retire to bed

“Don’t think about tomorrow love,
Just listen to my words,
Just dance until you tire
And forget about the hurt.

Cause you are young today
And wise enough tomorrow,
So reserve the pain and suffering
And the crying and the sorrow

For the latter days of life
Because with more age and more days
Comes more strife

Love me now and love me then
Cause there’s just no way to know
Just when
A solitary moment evolves into a day
Where you suffer through
Tears and unimaginable pain

I look at you and see hope and future
In your hazel eyes
As the colors change with the clothes you wear
And the seasons of your life

Precious face, the darkest hair
I’m right here, so don’t be scared
I know you, I know you want to,
But do not hide
Don’t mask your pain with smiles
But rather wear the pain with pride

Stand on the edge a little further
And breathe the scent of sea
I’m there you don’t know where
But dear I tell you,
That wind you feel is me.”

So now she stands a beauty,
Average in stature
Yet extraordinary in strength

To find
Within the pores of the fragile bones
Of a sweet youth
The armour, the wisdom,
The experience, the might,
The hurt, the resilience
Of a Spartan soldier

She stands to support
The line she comprises
And will fall down with valor
With a sword towards the sky

Hazel is the eye
Through which she used to
Squint to find
An answer to the unkind
Cards shuffled and dealt
Out to her one at time

Toy with me some more
Mess with my mind
Shake the ground on which I stand
And watch my eyes go blind

Tear the petals one by one,
Ruin the beauty that once stood

Drive me, drive me back,
Watch me, watch me cry,
I knew the rose would blacken
I am taking back what’s mine

For two whole years
An empty vase
Sat impassive,
Barren of dreams
And stripped of passion

Naked was my body,
Open were the wounds,
Fresh was the ****,
Slowly healing were tattoos

Depicting a devastating tale of a mother,
A mother who couldn’t find reason,
Simply struggled for the why
Of a life she had constructed over decades
Through a brutal, shattered mind

Watch me laugh
And flash my face up to the light
Of a sweltering day,
Beads of sweat dot my nose
I worry not, just wipe them away

Yet the tears are what
I can’t seem to simply rid myself of
The air is cold,
They freeze and thaw
Mamma listen, I’m in love

I’m perched on the edge
Of something finite,
One wrong move and I can’t defy
The lines traced on the way down,
No ropes or swinging vines

I contemplated moving though,
Maybe I could find you

But I remain standing in this very spot,
I couldn’t jump
Because this spot is all knew

I take the all of what this is
For everything it’s worth
Because I know the answers
To what now means

I don’t know where you are
I’d very much be pleased to venture

But leave now and I know
I’d be mistaken

I’ve got a lot to do,
I may not know it all
But the assignment must be complete
Before I take the fall

For now I live
For now I cry
For now I breathe
And fear and die

For now I sleep
With pictures of you
And I always awake with them too

For now the cerulean dreams
Are posted upon walls,
Like graffiti faded in a day
And I still sit and wonder
Why you got away.

It’s funny when back to reality strikes
You return to mediocrity and mundane days
That’s just life

We make our own misery, create our own pain
Simply slip through
Day by day

All I want to do is tear it all down
All in one fell swoop
Plant a tree in its place and watch it roots
Spread and its branches reach
North to south, west to east

We are taught to believe
That dreams are just that
We are raised with the notion
That one must settle where they’re at

“Why?” one might ask,
It’s just a part of human flaw
You doubt yourself, as do I
But don’t we all?
But I’ve lived through certain moments,
Some of the best I’ve ever lived
And when the clock strikes midnight,
I have to go back to it

To the routine, to a tired, old place,
Back to the same old
But I’m done with hiding my face,
Through with trying to fit the mold

Break it, just break it
Break it all down
And when it falls
The tall, stone walls will
Leave way to show what surrounds

And what you’ll find is nothing short
Of brilliance at its best
But don’t be scared, just be prepared
That the brilliance is a test

The brilliance both hurts and
Makes you feel like you’re back in time again
Back when you’re running through fields
With nothing but you
And your innocence at hand
I’m telling you, just run
And spin and love and fall into chance
Stare into his eyes and kiss him
And when it rains and storms,
Then dance

Don’t think at all but think about it all
And when you fall just let yourself fall

But remember what you do now
And how it can hurt another then
Cause what’s the difference if
You didn’t mean harm but
You harmed them in the end?

Open them up, your eyes
There’s brilliance all around us
In disguise

You’ll be surprised
And I promise there will be
Much beauty, love carefree
There she is, I found her
I found me

In through the nose
Breathe out from the mouth,
Breath the same as the air that surrounds

Warmth lines my throat,
My feet lead the way
The doors at the end seem a mile away

Sleepy eyes and weak shoulders
I lean to the right,
Re-balance my weight
To the other side

June blows through my hair
Oh, how freedom feels close
I breathe it in again,
Take in the finality of the end
Just how many days?
Only ten

To think back to a time
In the recent past
I was young and
I was wrong and
I was going way too fast

I do recall the door that
I slammed upon the past
And how the future was contained
In honey comb window glass

To take the first steps in
On uneven pavement,
Just walking was
A balancing act of
Who I was and
Who I thought I should be

In through the nose
Breathe out from the mouth
Breath a lot warmer
Than the air that surrounds

Crisp leaves are starting to fall by,
Little did I know, so was I

The year it did pass
I’m baffled as to how
This small, naïve girl
Grew into who she is now
Frail and fragile she was
And a little bit pale
Wrapped in a small, blue dress
With surrounding wind so stale

With big eyes full of wonder
Yet taken down by influence
Straight hair and summer
And a loss of innocence

And it’s lost against her will
And taken by the influential acts of all
How could someone live
In such a big world and not at least feel small?

Trace the patterns of the year
That lie beyond horizon and fear
Try to plan what happens next
And think how much better
Things will get

In through the nose
Breathe out from the mouth
Breath is scalding hot
Against the air that surrounds

Her mind swims with
Confusion and doubt
But somehow she lives
Through the year and gets out

She’s changed by the boy
With the tattoos and blonde hair
And hurt by the girls who
Pretended she wasn’t there

She grins and she bears it
And is still tied together
But the freezing and the thawing
Is beginning to weather

The knots in the rope
That bind herself as a whole
It starts breaking apart
As she breaks the mold

Her mother still assures her
The whole entire truth
Yet she’s still trapped
Among the tangled bindings of youth

Nothing anyone could say
Would make her change her mind
Cause she was so enveloped
That she didn’t realize
She was wasting precious time

In through the nose
Breathe out from the mouth
Breath is just a bit warmer
Than the air that surrounds

At this point
It seems as though all of this is right
She can’t believe the strides she’s made,
How she’s managed every night

Of falling into bed
With a pillow damp from tears
Picking up an old guitar
And tearing down her fears

Yet still scared to show that boy
What she really thinks
He moves on and so does she
But her feelings still pour
Atop lined paper
In melodies and blue ink

Summer flies by in a flash of sun
And so does all of a year
Until it all hits her in March
And she starts to release
Her remaining fear

Don’t get her wrong
Fear still lies at the base
Of her very being,
But she shakes it off
Through merely song
And she’s home,
Back to the beginning

She no longer senses
A need to try
When she finds herself in that home
The others enable her to fly

They lift her spirits
With honesty
And the idea of
I don’t care,
So she takes a plunge into the water
And lets down her long hair

She tucks a pink flower
Behind her ear
And listens to their stories
Of glory and pain and triumph
And plain and utter fear

What’s so beautiful about this is
The fact that the same is done for her
With a feeling of true acceptance
Comes the healing of the burns
And the scars that were left
By the pain of days darker than
The darkest sky

She’s through with all the questions
That incessantly ask why

There’s fear for the future
And some regret from the past
But you have to live now
To make it all last
It goes fast

In through the nose
Breathe out from the mouth
Breath is perfectly aligned
With the air that surrounds

She glances to the left
And squints to see
The people who knew all along,
The people that guided her to be free

Straight up ahead,
As far as the eye can see,
Staggered blue and white
And scurrying, young feet

Anticipation for her name
To be called
And the slightest fear that
She just might fall

They hand her the scroll with
A shake and a smile
And those past years she’s lived
Race through her mind for miles

She’s dumbfounded and exuberant,
Yet sad to get out,
But amazed at her strength
In overcoming the doubt

Rows and rows of the people
Blue white, white blue
That feel all the same emotions as you
Her eyes are wide and bright at the sight
Of the white square
And dangling tassel
Floating past the sunlight

In through the nose
Breathe out from the mouth
Breath of relief
Pushes through the air that surrounds

She walks on the same pavement
That held her up back then
But it’s sturdier
And makes more sense
And won’t let her fall in

Tonight she dances
In a dress,
A dress that suits her well
And she feels this sense
Of everything is going to be okay,
She can tell.