degas’s dancers fell through neural skies,
i heard a song more dream than anything.
shocklines tore through my lungs,
my eye, it caught the sight of a beast.

let’s gift a narrative to the naive;
the sweet hollows of a saint that sings,
the dear juvenile darlings in dusk,
the broken boards of willow bark,
let these memories sway a cynic.

when the ones you love tear your home to pieces say “thank you”, bow your head;
only rest when they are gone.

your cousin creates ripples in your life that are angry and violent but well meaning.

you will lose two matriarchs and the sound of reified royalty breaks into low noted hymns.
they've turned to the death you sang about.

the kindest ghosts are the ones you are afraid of,
they only sing when you clasp hands over ears,
they only dance when you pull the covers over your head,
they only fade when you love them.

the ghosts whisper:

you have things to learn from broken hands in coffins,
that the world isn’t pretty unless you make it so,
that a home full of love means the same thing as a mansion,
that death looks like floral aprons and old mirrors.

van gogh though that he was a vile wretch,
and you think the same because

you forget that you can bleed yellow.