I want to know where you retreat when life gets tough
so I can show you where light lives when all you see is dark.
Dream what you wish to dream, impossible is just a state of mind,
the doubts and fears nothing more than monsters under the bed.

Look at the stars, pinholes into another universe
where you aren’t so afraid to be who you want to be,
where you chase all your dreams with unabashed glory.
“I’m made of them; if only I could shine as bright.”

Where do you hide in the forest of your mind?
Is the sky full of light or does the weight of nothing bring you down?
I can hear your crying somewhere in the pines and ash,
throwing wishes into the dark like whispers meaning **** all,
falling down in the forest and no one can hear the sound.
And as I wandered, I found you in the dark;
I never saw your face; I never saw your face.

You are an aurora, a dazzling display of colour on the black,
and I wish you could see it for yourself.
I could take a photograph but my breath in the chilly air
clouds your lightshow and mists your brilliance.
Even if I could show you it, you’d say your thanks
then ******* to show someone with brighter eyes.

I still love you, and look at you the way you look at those stars,
burning all those billions of miles away,
and my love gets lost somewhere in those light years,
swallowed up by the dark, blown away by your tempest.
One day you’ll find me wrapped up in my winding sheet, I’m sure,
hearing me whisper your name when the storms should drown it out,
and the touch of my hand as I reach out to yours,
the kiss of starlight on your forehead,
you’ll realise true love has never felt so ******* far away.

We’re dancing beneath ancient stars.
You and I, we’re just a heartbeat in their lifetimes,
how insignificant a few decades is
to something that lives thousands of them.
Do they know we’re here?
Do they know we wish upon them?

Whenever I stand alone beneath the dark sky,
without your voice to tell me stories,
to come up with your own mythologies,
I feel the weight of silence on my shoulders,
but you don’t hear the apologies.
Do you know I’m here?
Is this the cost of my mind?

{I wished upon a star; I wished upon you; my Ariadne but I cut the thread myself, watched helplessly as it was pulled back into the dark before disappearing and I was lost, not even the dim glow of uninterested stars offered as a guide, so instead of looking for a way out, I’m standing still, hoping you send a search party to find me, right where I lost you, clinging on to the horrible hope that, if you do find me and we can’t find you way back to the day, we can at least be lost together, sharing the nightmares, sharing the fear, dancing beneath ancient stars that grant no wishes.}

{Holograms and oracles; separate times, same structure}

Slippity tippity toe-scraping up the trunk,
hands finding owls’ hollows, no hoots,
just a dark eye staring at nothing at all.
They hung a God here, didn’t you hear?
They say he lived but lost most of his power;
you ever hear a sadder story than that?

                   {A cell-phone capturing a photo of an ash tree}

The insects buzz weird here, kinda metallic,
like little dust-mote-sized robots hanging
in the air like a million shards of that God;
but that’s silly, I mean, come on,
7th-century nanorobots?, and what’s a robot?
That’s not one of our words but are ours ours?

                                                               {Chewing}

Sweepy-sliding all the way to a heavy root,
and all suddenly so very very misty,
like a dragon with a tobacco addiction,
but we don’t know what tobacco is either,
it hasn’t been brought over from the New World,
wherever that is, and besides, no Boncalo yet,
another few centuries, another few plagues.

       {And the world is destroyed, and they had not a clue}
                                       {Such a shame}