When all eyes turn to nature
When all hearts brush the trees
Whisper into the leaves

When all feet steps the grass
When all hands grasps the seeds
Speak into the trees

When all lips breathe the wind
When all bodies swamp the waves
Shout into the sea

The dead trees whispered to me in my sleep about happy endings.
(I should have known better than to talk to strangers.)
Maybe the bottomless wine glasses were a dream and I’ll wake up.
(she didn’t wake up)

I heard them say, “His blood turned sour long ago.”
I smiled back at the shadows, nodding my head –
yes.
(But I can’t resist the taste of bitter citrus.)

Do you paint stories across the walls of your mind?
(We accept the love we think we deserve.)
Adrenaline and attraction intertwined at last.
(When is a monster no longer a monster?)

Oh, how the moonlight dances upon despair,
(I have learned to waltz with my own shadow.)
We whispered confessions to the night so still,
(Are secrets safe when whispered to darkness?)

Listen to the symphony in the chaos we created...
(When does the hunted become the hunter?)
In a universe full of paradoxes, what do you believe?
(I stare into a broken mirror, unsure which piece is mine.)

At the edge of reality, where does it end?
Burning alive, my white dress turns into black ash,
I smile, and ask if you’re happy.
(The trees whisper back that you are.)

I don’t remember when I became friends with the rabbit.  
It must have been when I was too young to know that
Rabbits aren’t supposed to talk or
Keep time with pocket watches.

I quite liked how the clocks spun backwards and the doorways shrunk.
I often laughed at the way colors swirled or
The funny way mirrors distorted images.
But only the rabbit and his friends understood.

Kids at school would laugh when I told them about my tea parties with no tea.
Apparently, the clocks didn’t spin backwards for them.
Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't.
And contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would.

I learned to hide the fact that the sky was green and the grass was blue.
Picking my personality from my pocket, I became a walking mirror.
Yes, yes, the sky is blue and the grass is green and the clocks spin forwards and the mirrors are not silly and the colors do not swirl and the voices do not wondrously whisper in your ear.

The rabbit would try to console me. (For he was the only one who was not mad.)
I cried and cried and the more I cried the more the sky turned green.
For the first time I begged and pleaded that it would turn to blue. (But it never did.)
I quite liked the world until the rest of the world decided it didn’t like me.

Please do not lock me up again in that awfully small white room, I really did not like it in there.
Please do not burn me at the stake for showing you a glimpse of my world.
Please do not cast me out in sin for being me.
Please let me live in my world, and I will let you live in yours.

could you imagine what it’s like to not imagine?
to feel a feeling, before it ever happened?
to tell a breeze from a beast, waiting in the cabin?
to conclusively deny the myth of the dragon?

could you ever really know the false from the true –
having lived so little in a world so new?
could you live with love, when all you have is you?
could you assure the blind that the sky is blue?

could you split the atom, and fill the void –
with a hate so violent you were meant to avoid?
could you find your peace, amidst a frenzy on steroids?
could you smother the fire with which you toyed?

could there ever be a time you’d know for sure –
if you should let go, or endure… a bit more?
could you think for yourself, with thoughts obscure?
would you dare to tell your child - ‘you’d better mature’?

Curious got me this far,
But conviction has done me in
Periphery sights in the fore
Can’t see what’s settling in
Give me what I came for,
And I’m out the door again.

Craving sylvan hillsides
Verdant and turbulent,
Set me down under arboreal parasols
Only glints of radiance grace the skin,
A life full of demons, I confess my sin
Here within the confluence baptized in chimerical reverence.

Jade eyes staring into the cerulean sky,
Seeking truth in nebulous phantasmagoria
Counting clouds pushed by a zephyr,
Evanescent temperance,
Fleeting like a whisper,
Caught in the ineffable grandiose
Let me wander here, aimlessly.

I wish to see scintillating diamonds
‘Cross the crepuscular horizons
Grant me resplendence in gazing into the obsidian
Contemplating the cosmos and all that tableau science,
Lose me into the abstract chasing the infinite
Nebula iridescence covers me in oil slick coating
And light the match, I am but a burning star.

Curious got me this far.

It's intelligence that's speaking,
But is logic responding
And has emotion been consulted?
But no, you;
You're all three.
Sure, surely; clearly,
That's why everything
Seems so confusing,
Right?

When will I be young?

I asked after mum’s story --


of her girlhood years.

Each moment carries hidden plans,
where potential lies beneath,
and courage finds uncharted lands,
with steady steps and cautious feet.

Shadows dwell where the light retreats,
and brave souls remain vigilant,
as destiny and fortune meet
while fate unwinds it's masterplan.

Through the passing of endless time,
navigating the winds of change,
fueling the inquisitive mind
as blood pumps tirelessly through veins.

The risks taken on this journey,
where mystery meets certainty's shore,
we find our paths by curious light,
as we find what we were searching for.

©️Lizzie Bevis

A trap? Then I'll step

into it, wondering what --


will happen to me.