If sin existed
it does not hold a name in our green palace

bewitched by the eyes of fantasy we run
into open grass plains

the gloaming border sky blinds us
like a kaleidoscopic phantasm

that encircles us
and entrances us with the rhythm our laughter makes
as it echoes across the big green
like chimes on midsummer night

here
between the bur oak trees
and the trill of the white tipped dove
we shape shift
compress tight
to explode

I shift, move, make my way upon extreme waves of moods. After waiting for the lull of the tide, I cautiously float upon the stillness of the ocean, and I am overcome by the heaviness of uncertainty. Though I am relentless after the crushing sting of each passing wave, I am emotionally unmoving to the touch of the gentleness of the wind.
I swim to small uncharted islands where I lay with my naked soul as the stars whisper their stories to me over the blackened haze of the midnight sky, and I listen keenly as I greet melancholy with hushed ambivalence.

I wait in the quiet
not to scatter the voices
then snarled in cypress
I shift through a
hollow of gypsy moths
hidden in the moon daze
a voice unstilted slithers above

What is it like out there, beyond this place?

-everyone hunches in the crowd

like the rainbow snake
the voice makes home
around me and moves in
the mad underground
under me

What are you afraid of?

-to be quiet in another voice

*-to run like water

I am waiting
sleeping
then counting
I am cornered at the edge of the room
there are four walls
a window
one ceiling
and day
after day
I am feeling

unreal

In this tidal experience
I am forever afloat,
then moving like canyon rapids.
My mind sits just above
water's break,
and I am
relentless
and I am
fighting
the unshakable strength of the ocean,
and sleeping beneath the ocean floor
lay wakeless memories of me
that rust and erode
comfortably below
my flailing feet.
After each stinging wave
that crushes my chest,
then steals my breath,
I am eternally swept away
by the Undertow.

Outside of the destruction this illness has beholden me to,
I find myself wondering,

is there is a part of me still left?

Outside the seemingly endless strings of purchases
of books,
trinkets,
miscellany items,
that I found absolutely necessary at the time to own,

Outside the relationships where mania
seductively shrouded itself as love,

Outside the serendipitous misadventures,

Outside the compulsive longing to be ******
and disposed of because I viewed myself as an empty vessel to be
filled-in,

Outside the reckless dive into drugs,

is there a part of me still left?

Outside
I look after the storm,
and within my total being,
I ask myself
which I,
is I?

The word pain is whole and plain
it cannot be cut into pieces like my name
Ma/ri/tza