they say home is where the heart is
but then what is a house?
is a house the absence of a heart?
you don't have to like where you live to live there
I'm lucky enough to have a home
some aren't

Grab my hand for a minute,
I'm ready to rip you into my element.
You want to dance, here's a chance,
Sweep the bones from the floor
Skeletons galore, oh I'm sorry.
You don't want to be here anymore?
That's a shame I locked the door
Lit the fire at my very core.
Welcome to my mental house
Let's venture in a little more.

Look at the walls, they're crumbling
Look down the hall, more nothing.
My head is busting, imagination rusting,
Haven't been dusting, confidence mistrusting.
I tell myself that I can make it
But every part of my life, I fake it.
Stuck in work, passion unawakened.
Oh wait, it's this talk, let's inflate it:
"It's really great you still write, Ryan.
I truly mean it, I don't read it.
I'm glad you're still trying after a decade,
Still laying your soul for all to see,
You must really believe in that hobby
I'd have been stopping a long time ago
Anyway, that's great for you."
Thanks for the encouragement, ******* too.

Let's go to my bedroom where the day starts
I've spent most my time in this part
Too angry at the cards birth dealt
Every day I wake up seeing that hearse
Feeling cursed, suffocation hurts,
Couldn't swallow so I thirst.
Get the adrenaline pen again,
Inject, inject, keep it flowing,
Keep him going, blue skin showing,
No one knowing that mental tolling
Like the tides I just keep flowing.

I get a queer eye for trying to help,
Most get their rocks off for hurting someone else.
I'm a ***** up, so I recognize that pain
But I'm looking to help others from going insane.
I'm not narcissistic, more masochistic,
Self-sadistic, lost myself, where is it?
No one wants to stay and play
So I guess I'll just keep this house locked away.

Bells chime.
The world is a pale imposter of itself,
gray in the moonlight,
but not indifferent.
Coy perhaps, complicit.
In league with me, perhaps.

The paper birch trees shuffle aside,
in line like ghostly sentinels,
and the briars curl back in black swarthy masses
to clear a path,
mumbling a song in their old forgotten language,
each leaning toward me, toward my house,
pointing the way.
A faint glimmer, light ahead,
yes, the warm glow of firelight
beneath the moss and stone of the highland hills.

Distant laughter, the *****! of glasses and
bell chimes.
The susurrations of the nighttime grasses
whisper in time with the tunes of my fiddlers;
they know the songs of my blood, my bones.

Come to my house in the hills – yes, you must come!
We will dance as the swallows do,
as the daisies do when the winds blow,
and watch the walls and faces
blur into one another as we spin round and round,
swapping faces, swapping bodies.
The other guests wear garments of wanderlust and daring,
and their dance is one of flame and dust.

Come!
Dance within my house,
between walls of polished ivory
and a ceiling studded with pearls and diamonds
and the teeth of extinct animals.

Come!
We are free here:
free to forget,
free to deny.
Free, at last, to revel in the revelry
and be as unwise as it pleases us to be.
Here is a place where wisdom
is useless and none
will accuse you of sensible conduct.

And after,
when the sunlight tosses me back into the ocean
and hauls you out
dream of me.

When you wish upon a star
just to forget who you are,
what does that say
about this girl wasting away?

To keep you in my life
was such bitterness and strife.
I pushed you away from me
because you were close enough to see

To see the scars painted in my head
and the thought I wished would just stay dead.
And when I go to bury you
there's very little I can do.

You spark a light so dark within
maybe I should let you win.
But the light burns me from inside
And from your love, I run and hide.

I don't know why I am this way,
But please, don't go away.
I need this love, so little I've had
even if it feels so bad.

It's not your fault I feel this way
the earth wanted my mind to decay
I stay awake through the night.
wishing I could stand the light.

What would happen I took a step?
Would I burn and wither where I slept?
I want to try so desperately.
But I'm terrified of all that may be.

So take my hand and guide me there.
away from this world of despair,
This house is a fun-house of slaughter
Because they can't take care of their daughter

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/30/2019

You love your home, family home,
that every summer night, through silver mist,
with rustle of its linden trees accompanies your dreams,
and with silence soothes your tears?

You love your home, this old roof that tells a tale
about long-forgotten past and olden days,
family threshold of moss-covered entrance doors,
that warmly greets you after every long hard road?

You love your home, a refreshing aroma of golden grain
and grasses in the morning freshly cut,
of moist alders high and red roses wild,
that weave flowers into hawthorns' green thick hair?

You love your home, this forest dark,
that noise of its powerful songs
and ghosts moaning, and winds choir,
is pouring into your ever-restless blood?

You love your home, family home,
that amongst storms, in days of doubt,
when the thunder hits your soul,
with its memory saves you like a protective shield?

But if you truly love, and if you truly want
to live under this roof, to eat bread of grains,
guard thresholds so dear to you with your heart,
and lay your heart among beloved walls! ...

Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)

Mighty, calm and composed she lies,
Like a sleeping queen of Arabia.
The wind is blowing kindly and soft,
Barring the rise of her waves in wrath.

Besides the sea there lies a sand-dune,
Twinkling in sun and flying in wind.
Stars above are fewer than her grains,
Whiter than the white, she looks so pure.

Besides the hill there lies a garden,
Fresh and beautiful, flowers she bear.
Greenish meadows and cool air always
She a beauty, the Garden of Eden.

Besides the garden there lies a forest,
Without any trees, full of buildings.
Settings of sun made her beautiful,
The golden city, then she is called.

Above the city nearing the clouds,
There lies a heaven, smaller than hell.
An angel and two kids, opens the door
Whenever the bell rings, for a new soul.

It is my house and you are welcome,
Six hundred and three, written outside.
No need to die to reach our heaven,
All are admitted, except the dead.