Shut the Windows.

Turn off the lights.

Lock the doors.

Make no sound.



Cover your eyes.

Cup your ears.

Until the only sound that remains is the steady beating of your heart.



This is where we will begin.



If you were the only thing this town had to offer,

It'd be enough for me to stay.

Or go.

Or try.

Or talk.

Or tear the roots of a sequoia from the earth and mend it together into a spine,

That I would wear for you.

Earthen.

Beautiful.

Strong.



It is like being shown how to breathe and then asked not to.



And these cycles keep forming on my chest like a bulls-eye.

Making me a target, once again, for beauty just out of reach.

And how we seem to perpetuate patterns. Circling uselessly through our transgressions.

Like a broken record.

All grooves and needled and cracks.

Skipping like heart beats.



Seems I am always chasing some sunset or another.

They just have different names.



And we believe the promises. Inscribed on the back of dewy eyes at dawn.



Not me.

Not this time.

Babies in skins.

Mountain tops.

Running away.

Steaming trains.

Landscapes and bedrooms and windows and moonlight.



But then they are always just warning labels.

Fine print.



We have already made promises.

Pastries and the smell of fresh coffee.

Rain on green hillsides.

Mountain tops.



Mountain tops.



But my hands only seem to fold into prayer or failure anymore.



My wolf heart smells familiar scents.

Like endings.



Once again, my branded heart is folly.

And the river of doubt snakes through our canyons, making our mountain tops further away, and settling about our necks like guilt.

Guiding us parallel.



But not yet as one.

I have already lost what I had won.



And my trap has been set and released.

Golden teeth like shackles, clamped to my leg.

Victory on it's grin like plague.

Plating your outstretched wings.



I can see beyond these words of breath and know you are poised to fly.

And finally I understand what it is to stand on this side of the ocean.



It is cold here.



My shoreline is my prison.



Let. Me. Be. Something.



Or just let me be.



And I have held my heart out. Netted together by cast iron plates, rivets, bolts, violin string, and wishes.



Again and again.



And each time, I am told, yes..



yes..



I will take it as it is.



Yes



I will take it into me.



Yes.



I will walk the path. First to make the prints and then to walk in yours that walked in mine.



I believe in how you love.



I will hold your heart in mine.



Just





Not





Yet.



Or ever it seems.



It used to shine.



Running down my arms as I held it aloft on mountain tops.



A beacon.



A light house.



A fool on a tower.



Now it hardly glows at all.



But it smolders madly.



And it could burn.



For you.



Or burn out.



Forever.



Just



Not



Yet.