Rocks fall with each bey and beckoning
That stone hands shutter, dying
Rigid time, makes bone brittle
Pebbles of broken pieces
Stain crimson into the urn of the Earth

Chanting inaudible death hymns
The mother of rubble weeps
Her tears churn, with blood
And the sediment of the fallen
Into the blackened mixture
Exploding with fire and magma

Rising now, half broken and devil
With a narrow cage of brimstone
Twisting to a swollen brow of madness
Reigns down hellfires and Infernos
Laughing as the ancient muses
Strum the Fire God's Libretto.

I look deeper into the mirror
Hatred is all I see
Perhaps despair also in reflection
So I  resolve to change
Scratching
Clawing
Pulling
Pushing
Biting
Clutching
Tearing
Enflaming
Ripping

To shed this skin
And stand beyond my nakedness in front of you

Today, I have not seen the sun.
Tonight, I will not see the moon.
Tomorrow, I will not see clouds,
Nor the stars.
I will be nothing but a collection of memories,
Good, bad, none at all?
Digging deeper, always deeper.
I burrow further into the soft cool soil,
Becoming one with the earth.
Over time, like this corporeal body,
The memories of me will slowly dissipate.
Granting me the freedom to rejoin the Universe.
Finally, I am home.
Today, I have not seen the sun.
Tonight, I will not see the moon.
Tomorrow, I will not see clouds,
Nor the stars.
For I am the Universe.

The tree
tall and wide
with thick canopies
with so much of life and music

The tree
with thick branches
with thick green leaves ..
with nests and birds of various flocks
with so much life and music

The tree
with thick shadows
with cool underneath
with the travellors and children
playing and resting underneath
with so much life and music

The tree
swaying and singing
safe haven for little birds and insects
a whole eco system of innumerable species
with so much life and music.

The cyclone
with brutal force and might
destroying everything in their sight
devastating homes and trees and transformers

The tree
with its limbs/branches broken off
the cracking of branches and
with nests flown away and birds as refugees
the life and music transforming to an eerie silence.

Months pass by
Small shoots from the half broken branches
Rising and twisting up..
with the birds once again flocking to the tree
with life and music again..

When I was young,  school was my place. As an awkward oddity I found solace in words and reading.

Wasn't long 'til I was being called brilliant. Those days were some of the few times in my childhood life I felt strong and confident and worth something.

I was sent to an advanced school. I ate books like candy. I had a passion for knowledge and wisdom.

So what happened?

As my head got cloudier, I fell more and more behind. Well, behind for me. I was still an AP kid, so nerdy and there. But I was also quiet and, for AP, pretty average.

I stopped excelling in sciences and math as much as I used to. Everything got so much blurrier around then. As my head got more and more uncontrollable, the less brilliant I became. And the more I hated myself for it.

I could barely take time to feel everything but the raging inferno of emotions that was slowly taking over my life. I had learned to lie too well about it, so well that it was nearly my entire being by the time I finally got to stopping it.

For years I had to accept going from brilliant to average, and I accepted it as just my place. That I excelled in youth but dropped off and being good at writing would be my last, final brilliancy.

Then, nearly a decade after things began to go nuclear,  my head began to cool.

I sometimes fear how clear everything feels, how the touch of my fingertips on my keyboard still feel beautiful but in a less insatiable way. How the sky is blue and everything makes sense and how my mind craves to know more and more.

I am excelling. I am standing in front of classes that I am clearly not as qualified for and doing well. And, by god, the whole beauty of it is that doing well does not correlate to this buzzing going on in the back of my head as if its about to explode. I just feel it. This energy coursing through me that loves to know and remember and learn and do everything in my power to make everything I do wonderful. Its like magic but I know its not, its me. I didn't know "me" could be brilliant anymore. I was nearly certain "me" couldn't. I was a writer, and I was content.

But now there's this thing inside me I haven't felt in years, that has two wide eyes and wants to feel the world. Its curious and strong. I didn't think I was that strong either. I thought I just knew emotions and pretty words.

I sit here, though, and I am brilliant. It feels so arrogant and cocky to say, but I'm me again. I'm the little girl who got lost in the fire, but I thought she burned and died.

Yet as my head finally cools and the ashes fall, she reemerges and she's like some unbelievable phoenix inside my soul.

I thought I had to accept I could never be anything like the brilliant little girl that got swallowed by a monster inside of her. That I had to accept losses like I accepted losing everything I loved in my life for 18 years.

But I don't have to lose everything. I don't have to assume all that is lost is gone.

I am reading, and I am learning, and I am growing. There is this new growth in the old, weathered forests of my consciousness. It didn't have to resign to its ways, it can be anything. I can be anything.

Because finally, after years of forgetting, I am brilliant.

Once in a land far away.
Was a woman
she knelt to pray
She prayed for a child who could be
The key to a new dawn of ages

The baby was conceived
Naturally of course
By union of bodies
By lustful souls
The scrolls foretold the child would grow to be
A pawn in the game of prophecy

A peacemaker
A son of the goddess
Most high
Her diamond, glowing bright in the sky
But there would be a price to be paid
Not all the cards could be played
The son could never know
How it should play out
Or his mind would be full of doubt

When the child was in his teens
Daydreaming in front of computer screens
His father asked him what he knew
Of the woman dressed in blue

The boy replied and sighed
Everyone knows the story
Of the man the white rabbit prince
The peacemaker between heaven and hades
The lover who rescues his love from the flames
But who's heart can never be tamed
Or be told because he would go mad
End up sad and old
Not being able to forefill the will of the goddess

Then the father began to stress
The sons importance nevertheless,
The son had an inclining his dad wasn't letting on
the full story
So he had to find one
He looked and looked
And searched and searched
Down dale and over birch
Became a scientist
Overworked

He didn't believe in any more stories
Of space and time
Myths and legends were not on his mind
Til he met a woman
Beautiful and free
A spirit of life's mystery

She would tell him stories
Read him verse
He fell in love with her
So much worse
Than ever a man has fallen before

But what he didnt realise is she had depression
It was her curse
Even with his love it seemed
To get worse
The stories she told
Grew ever more dark and bold
Until she took her life
But not before he had taken her for a wife

Meanwhile the world had become full of strife
Wars and famine sapped Gaia's life
The earth was failing
It's life support System grew weak

But the man was too aggrieved to notice
He wouldn't go outside
His love lost he could never hide
as the world was falling apart
so was his heart

He saw a child crying outside his window
Though
And went to comfort
The boy
Orphaned by war
Then the man realised something needed to done
As he surveyed
The desolate landscape he prayed
To the goddess of blue

She granted him of vision
Where he'd have to choose the life of the world
Or the lover he knew
He cried out you *****
You goddess of the insane
I will not make the choice I will not be to blame
For my lover is my heart but this world has born many souls
Including mine
What right have I to choose
Which side to win which side to lose
I want to be happy

Frought with pain
He made his decision he overcame

He chose to solve the problems of mankind
Preaching to them and showing them sciences
Mysteries in one
Stories of his humanity being different but ultimately the same
Being one
That on top of the people being tired of war
Made peace the law
He sometimes wished he'd chose
The other choice
But then he realised
He hoped he supposed he'd be able with all his knowledge
And wisdom
That he'd be able to help her if they'd ever meet again in hades
Or wherever he'd be able to save the woman he loved from the same fate

As he died of old age
He prayed that hed be reborn
With the wisdom of a sage
So when he was reborn into
Hades shades

He grew to be a wise man still
But he always felt something was missing
Until he saw a woman
Clothed in azure
She was mysterious
but he sensed her heart was pure
He was struck by her allure
So went over to meet her
She told him she was the queen
Of this land that stretched out to the sea
the citadel of tears was her residence
The sage asked why was it called the citadel of tears
She replied because I have been a queen for the longest time
But I have never found a husband to be mine
And there is ghost in my dreams that cries
Because she is lost
In a sea of sadness
Madness her veil of midnight
Hiding her face
She cries for the husband she lost
Her touch is cold like the frost
In my dreams

The sage held her hand
Kissed on the forehead
it was more than he could stand
To see a woman
Clothed in pain
He imagined her tears
Falling like rain
He said I will pray
For a vision today
To save you from your dismay

When he slept
A dream crept
Into his mind
Of a man and a woman very much in love
But the woman was stung with a curse
her mirth was strangled
With tears
With overblown fears
That took her life
And left him lonely
With only the wisdom
To help those around the land
But now he had planned to save her
Then the dream ended
The sage was resolved to save the queen
To speak to the ghost
In her dreams

So the next night
He held the queens hand tight
As she fell asleep
Hours passed she began to moan and weep as if in pain
He prayed he asked the goddess of blue to go into her dreams
And he began to lose consciousness
And fall asleep
In the dream the ghost was weeping
The sage approached her
gently he asked her why she was crying
Fearing her reproach
she replied I am lost and I have lost the one I loved
That is why I had you come and find me
now you must set me free
I am the queens subconscious we are the same person
And we have been waiting for you husband of mine
How do I know this to be true asked the sage
The ghost clasped his hand and lifted her veil
And he knew her face
It was his wife from the previous life
He didn't notice the frost the cold of the dream was thawing melting around them
Smoke was forming then licks of flame began to burn
But he wasn't afraid
He embraced her and kissed her wildly
Flames surrounded them
Touching their bodies but not hurting them
flames of passion
Igniting their souls

The queen and the sage woke from the dream together
Knowing they were meant to be with each other for forever.

Snake skins
slough-off

in the dark
- each

  the friction of living