Like this,
You're any way I want you
Wrapped up safe and sure
Inside my head.
Pull the string,
I unwrap you with
Closed eyes
Play with the gift I was never given.

My mind
Is the ultimate preservative
Where time touches nothing.

In this moment, I love the face of a dead man,
Repeated by chance in the guise of a stranger.

His lips quirk the same way in
Sweet sarcasm,
And in that moment,
Three years beneath the earth scatters,
Ashes to the wind.

And you are here.

His shoulders span the same width
And I know- cupped in my
Needful, grasping palms-
Their touch before I even
Pass a phrase to their owner.

I know, his abrasiveness is softened from a scour
To a pleasant heat
And those who hate it
Love him fiercely, unreasonably, and unquestioningly.

I know this
And yet this man
Is nothing more than a mirage left
In the wake of a fire storm.


After the remnants of goose-flesh have failed to leave my skin
I'll take it.

This racking need forged at my core
Lives and breathes to want for more
It peers between my bone and flesh
From wall to wall, it's fingers press.

The gnashing, chewing, rending pain
That bows my body up in twain
Seeks the surface, yearns to breathe
I stamp it down inside of me.

Child, monster, cursed thing
Precious, putrid, close to me.
In clips and phrases, peer on through
The world will see a glimpse of you

Place you in the netherplace
An internal nudge to nowhere
Where the line of your smile hurts less
Than a break;
More a persistent ache or
A fading bruise.
In absence,
The presence is still there…
I can still smell the summer on your skin
Catch traces in the steps I’ve taken
To keep the span of the earth between.

Passed the time searching,
Tracing the circles
Of this tired path I’ve worn in the soil.
Eyes touching faces,
Skimming the places
The crowds that have swollen and roiled.

Red brimming eyelids,
Sleep stolen violence;
I’ve curled up with nothing, away from the light.
Drift off to no where-
Found you were somewhere,
Sought then to flee there: off into the night.

Read me, Hear me.
I am existing somewhere
Strewn between each letter that
Your eyes caress.
I'm mingling with the meaning
I've chosen to impart
With riddles, with metaphors,
With everything but
The truth.

I'm tangible.
Whisper my writing and know
That I am a scrawled sentence
Of desperation;
A Vagrant, caught wandering
In the downpour
Without the language
To capture the way
The rain smells, or the wind tastes
Or the earth sounds.

Oh read, and know
That I am crying out
Along each line to the seraph
Of a letter that I've struggled with
To grant a modicum
Of the nonsense left in my heart.
I've cried out
Thousands of words;
Screamed them until they furrowed
In paper, in computer screens
Into the faces of hapless lovers
To no such avail.

At the end of the day, read and know
That my writing is as futile
As loving a dead man,
An errant, wandering heart,
And a depth-less, angry river.

Cross the distance
Close the gap,
Make a stride traverse a
Infinite chasm.
Every pale replacement
Is a soft lie
Whispered inward
At a truth, a need
To accept that
The otherside has faded to myth;
Fallen to shadow.

Having recall
Of the way oasis feels
With certainty, the grass is greener
Back in the place
Filled with emerald eyes
White teeth smiles,
Skin like guilded earth.
These
Recollections
Made me certain I was touching eternity
When the waves brushed my skin.
There is wordlessness in this knowledge
A sublimity, a divine loneliness
Knowing the expanse that
Divides lands,
Stretching beyond sight, perception, and physicality
Feels like nothing
In the distance between us.

One for one
To equal another
When one's snubbed out,
What comes of the other?
I've done the math
Enough to know
That one minus one
Leaves one a zero.
One half an the other,
A one and one pair
When one splinters off
Then one's beyond repair.

Nobody's enough, no body with me
Nobody loves no one/ No body loves me.

I said I'd wait a thousand years
A thousand years I've waited
The fragile seeds of hope I've hewn
Have blossomed forth-
And faded.

The span of time, the falling sand
That journeys down the glass
Has shivered down to rest against
The last wish of the past

Words I've writ of you by night
Have lightened now by day
Would that I could read them now
I'd not hear what they say.

Truthfully, the beauty of a newly conjured flame
Undeniably must end
When met with winter rain.

These days it feels like I've traversed
A whole entire universe
Yet two decades with one year shy
I'm slowing down at Twenty Five.

Short of breath, I close my eyes
Yet keep the inner open wide
Upon a place that won't exist
Unless I choose to reminisce

Sleeping bleeds the staunched off wound
Once bound and kept from swollen eyes
And in the welling, gaping maw
I see the truth swept in the tide.

The sleeping gaze, turned inward then
Sees faces I won't see again
The lover I once washed away
Sweeps shore-ward, where he'll always stay

Within my skull, against my mind
Beneath the dreaming cobalt sky
The softest skin, the sweetest sin
Will always fill my dreams with him.

I want the jagged forest line
Against the setting sun;
The smear of black across the sky
Where night had just begun.

I miss the way the silhouettes
Of Trees did frame that sky,
The inky way it scrawled across
The blue in craggy lines.

I want the silver moonlight tipping
The horizon-line
To glaze the earth in black and white
And cloak the looming pines.

I miss the sprawling milky way
That luminescent stream
That cut across the onyx sky
Within the starry sea.

It's Novocaine, in a way
Slathered over my brain
In a chemical cocktail
That's supposed to keep my mind
From the endless cycle of self imposed
Punishment.
There's no On or Off
And therein's the problem
Capping off something
With no particular filter.

To clarify, I'm a bit all or nothing,
And the promise of peace they gave me
Also implied artistry of my thoughts;
The conversely sharp and wonderful inner workings
That once gushed forward effortlessly
Are locked up inside in the plugged up
Pool of sludge.

What a paintbrush they have these days,
Drenching things in black and white;
I see the logic in settling, to gripping these little oval promises
Of a better life for sanity.
This cold clarity enables me to remember
What once was with a measured calculation
Of the good weighed against the bad.

Grey is a foreign object after my descent into the Matrix
Red pill, Blue pill,
I finally understand Cipher.
Somethings are better left unknown
Sometimes ignorance IS bliss.

In my chest, the tipping point's
A high hailed peak that scrapes the sky
The concept tips from front to back
And longs to plunge from either side.

In one which way, the drop would shake
The foundation of what's inside
The collision point would rend the base
And throw a fissure far and wide

The sure descent, the easy course
Should this notion plunge rightfully
Would quiet yearning, wanting things
That have no right to come to be.

Though balance seems precarious
Atop this inner mountain top
Decisions cease to help provoke
This fickle notion's needed drop

Were you a summer citrus fruit?
I'm unsure.
You struck me with a sweetness
So demanding it curled my tongue;
Flooded my mouth with hours of sunlight
And warmth.
I peeled you eagerly down
Knowing each sliver as I handled it
Consumed with the simple scent
Of something so pure and clean.
Eagerly cast aside, I exposed
The sweetest secret
And felt your balmy flesh with my fingers
Learning each groove and plain
As if you'd never wither.
Silken skin brushed my lips
And I felt the hours of  sun,
The showers of rain that resonated
In each pace of time that shaped you
Into the gentle perfection before me.
Tasting all of that, I swore you were a flavor
Somewhere between citrus
Summer grass and lilac.

Were you a citrus fruit?
Who knows,
But in your absence
Any sweetness has been a
Vague reproduction
An echo of a necessity
That tasted of luxury.

Winter has settled in
And paley, I am deficient.

I've had a lot of overflow from this site to Facebook and I thought it would be appropriate to make a fanpage. You can like it, and communicate with me there rather than here or my personal page. I'll post art, post updates and other goodies to all who are interested.

https://www.facebook.com/sarahquilpoetry/

Thank you.

The cusp of the moment
Felt like a precipice;
Like pressure rising before
That first flash of lightning
That bleeds into the next.
The air was charged
Before those words were said;
The crackle as tangible as static
Raising hairs along my arms.

They felt like hands
Spreading across the furled wing-bones of
My shoulders
It was that gasp before the shove,
The realization dawning,
The knowledge of the fissure below
Where the sun found no purchase.

The words left her lips
And I fell
Unhindered to a place
Where you're not breathing.

When we were young, all things were new
The rising sun, the morning dew.
Through you I saw the ocean first,
From stormy eyes I saw the surf.
I tasted summer in your lips
The flavor of the brackish mist
That lingered on with days and years
That veil of time was thin and sheer.
When we were young the summer months
Seemed everlasting, endless once.
Heated asphalt, mosquito'ed creeks
We dipped our toes to beat the heat.

When we were young, immortal then
I never thought there'd be an end...
I never thought I'd move away
I never dreamt you wouldn't stay...
I never thought when we were young
Your final song would go unsung,
I never thought there'd come a day
Your final words- you'd never say.

When we were young
When we
Were young
When
We
Were
Young
I never thought
You'd die.

Borderline, borderlands
Of shifting, whipping, changing sands
Around the ankles, grain by grain
You're buried once, then twice again.
The grains are hot, the earth is cold
Your failing stance will never hold
The North wind blows, then South returns
The nights are freezing, Sunshine burns.

A mile forth, and rain will fall
A suffocating summer squall
Another mile, and the snow
Will freeze you solid, keep you cold.

When you're around
Someone slips down the thermostat
Plays it like a violin
Drifting a decent toward
The most poignant Minor cord.
I feel lost within myself
Like an island watching a beautiful ship
Sail by without stopping.

And yet-
You leave and it aches;
Hurts like the thud of pulse
Behind a ripening bruise...
Feels as though my heart is about to
Rend my ribs and squelch
Painfully though the cracks
To slither away in your general direction.

In your absence
I realize that simple things
Can grow into necessity.
Tiny seedlings who take root
Can somehow cross time to become
A redwood with roots so deep
The foundation of the earth is never the same
When it falls.
Air is everywhere
And yet when its gone
Beneath tidal waves
It's more precious than gold;
Riches mean nothing when you're drowning.

The tourniquet
That staunches the onslaught
Of thoughts is precarious;
Sometimes running it's course
And becoming so soiled
That things leak through the cracks.
Those days are difficult
Two hands and a will of steel
Mean nothing...
He slips out and around my fingers
Staining everything with bright
Poignant memories of another time.
My hands, on occasion, are enough
And I'm all I need
Holding the edges tight
Teeth gritted, waiting for the sides to knit
Into something strong and new.
When the tourniquet is fresh though
I remember why I need it so much
Remember the softness of cloth again my
Bruised flesh and sign in the heady relief
He offers.
I don'twantdon'tneed everything hiding behind this flesh
Seeping out constantly

I worry
For the unmoving mountain
Unable to move an inch
In the midst of an earthquake.
The shaking ground
Does not mean to destroy it
But it cannot be helped
When some things
Are just so obstinate.
They must survive
Or crumble.

The earth is changing beneath us all.
When the dust has settled,
Nothing will ever be the same.
Fall apart or carry on.

Somewhere along the line
From act, to speech to print
The text, made stained by mortal hands,
Condemned an act to sin.
The deed which brands us human
And binds the two as one
Where nature bequeathed liberty,
Religion came to shun.
The little death outside of law
That brings dual spirits close
Became an ugly, shameful thing
Beyond our own control.

If this is so, than **** my love
And send me forth to Hell
May countless masses follow
When commanded to be well.

I miss the excitement of liquor
The bite before the burn
Before the heat
Echoing up from my core
Like the refrain of a cannon's fire.
I miss the tiny suns in my cheeks
and the need to love and be loved
As the magic swam through my veins.
I miss the thickness of words
The gentle barrier between thought and speech
That made it impossible for me to tell him
That his eyes were like Spanish moss
And he smelled like the Northern wind.

Who knew that eyes could hunger?
Mine were starving,
Devouring the sight of you in
Darting, unblinking eyes.
Drawing you in like
Parched lips to a dewy glass.

I sought to forget one
Where others slept
Six feet below
Pristine lawns
And glistening headstones
That winked cheerfully
In the summer sun.
The gravestones were like stately soldiers
All in a line, the young like a mirror
And the old, stooped like the elderly
Telling the story of many rains, many storms
And many moons.
Their tales would momentarily
Fill my ears
My mind's desperate eye
To block a face
That still dwelt amongst the breathing.
A face whose significance
Needed to die
For me to continue leaving.

I remembered the other
Somewhere deep,
Leaning like an old painting
Against the inner curve of my skull.
That precious work of art
Filled my thoughts
While my feet dragged down
Countless miles
Dirt roads
Hot asphalt
And trodden trails.
There in my head,
The lost one,
The keeper of eyes like the sea
Existed only where my memories roamed.
He was not telling stories with the others
Six feet under
Nor did he pace amongst the masses
Wandering as I do...
He existed in the wind
In the air I tread through
In my desperate attempt
To have somewhere to visit.

Remembering to forget.
Forgetting to remember.

All things fade
Rain washes away the deeds done
Somewhere on the earth, in the trees
On a winding path, where the fireflies
Like failing Christmas lights flicker.

Yesterday, all things were dark
Like burning candles in the dusk.
Hibiscus, pear, and witches brew
And dragon's blood caught in the musk

Notions now, seemed **** then
And stealing out into the dark
I dreamt I was the highway man
After my Bess's fickle heart.

The moon above; cycloptic eye
Watched reverently as I crept
Across the mud and bracken path
Where willow trees once stooped and wept.

The musician crickets, with violin legs
Stroked their notes under the sky
And chirping peepers, peeking out
Sang louder in their sweet reply.

A long forgotten hidden grove
That bore the markers of the dead
Was where, for peace, I stopped to roam
Over the grass, to clear my head.

And there- amongst the silent mass,
Who find repose under the land-
I listened to their noiseless words
The silence, which I understand.

Everything was all
Lit candles and dusk
Hibiscus and pear
Unfurling out in smokey dragon tongues
Across my navy blanket.
Things seemed...
Sexier then
On a twin bed, surrounded by miles of
Forest.
Some nights,
Like a Highwayman
I stole away through the parting branches
The moon's cycloptic eye a beacon
Through the dead tree sea
And run to my Bess for kisses
Sweet, not-so-innocent touches
In the courtyard that overlooked
The Cemetery.

I am
Nothing more
Than a bag of bones.
My rib cage
Is a prison you rend
In twain, tear the mesh,
And sift fruitlessly through.
I am
An empty shell
You discarded;
All unraveled ends
And frayed edges.
I am
Orange peels
Carrying the essence
Of something sweet
As an echo of scent
And color-
-I will
Return to the earth
And start again.