i feel the water amass beneath my dark circles,
pushing against my eyeballs with the gentle whisper that says,
"this release is just what you need,"
but still, i can't allow it because i'm the steady hand,
the rock through this **** storm that will see everyone
through to the other side of the choppy waters before us

i wonder what life on the other side of the chasm
will really look like, if this utopia is nothing but a farce
that they've written in children's books and bibles alike
to keep us hunting and holding onto the only shreds of
humanity left in a world intent on murdering love

i feel the pieces slip between my finger tips, and they
linger in the air longer than gravity should allow, but still,
i cannot catch them no matter how quick and agile i become,
so i try being flexible instead and the back bends serve me
well until they don't, but that doesn't stop me from continuing the practice

i stay awake and bathe myself in moonlight even when
the clouds hide all of the pieces of me that i thought were already
illuminated, i lose myself in moments of stillness in a bed that
doesn't really belong to me, but really, what do any of us truly
own on this rock hurtling through time and space? i wonder about
that for a long while and hum along to tunes that belong in music boxes,
not the heart of a girl who will never commit long enough to release them

i sit in the sadness so long that the muck dries like a crackling mask
over my entire being, the peeling back reveals loss on a scale i still
don't really comprehend, but still, my feet move forward into one day
followed by the next and the next and the next, and in the moments that
i find stillness i think nothing, just relish in the embrace of an effortless breath