You don't stay out of my shadow
a mirage dancing in moonlight,
translucent locks and hazy eyes breathe life.
I go to lean into you, and you're not there.

My oldest friend, I shouldn't think anymore
I see that same look in your eyes
reflected back that same child who'd been locked out
only to peer in, too petrified to speak.

I've survived with it-- the hesitation to go back in.
Is this something that can be severed?
I feel its phantom limb when I kiss my wrist
thinking it's your lips.

You, the creation of a heart-broken child
stitched with a gentler hand
only words of love and breathless laughter sewn
patched up with whispers in the night
weaved in all the conversations I wanted to have.

You don't ask more than what I can give,
you're just here with me
there's no hatred or mistakes
no need to go back out again.

It's Pygmalion's curse
dipping your toes back in reality
only to be dismissed again
and I'm back in your arms.

Tell me sweet nothings I don't deserve
let my mind wander in a lucid dream
while my stomach grows a bitter pit
because you're a haven, I never leave.

Shriveled, clutching a beating chest
A beat, pause.
Automatic hesitation.

A crowded room surrounded
with noise and light and myself
At a stand-still.
Suffocated, snuffed out
Unable to reach--
To grasp inside my throat.

And I see red,
a collision of petrification and passion
still hidden from most.
There's an invisible curtain here.
They won't come to me
and I won't come to them.

Flickering candlelight,
embers across a jagged shore,
I throw my arms out
trying to grasp and throw out my thoughts
before the survival mode
and they're cloaked.

But when I do call out,
will it all go wrong?
I open my mouth
and, look, I did it again
Better to keep it all in
then make another mistake.
And I'll still see red
until my words bleed

I see red
I see red
I see red.

Just as there's light, there's darkness in everyone's life.
It's stark, shadowing sunlight, and doesn't yield.
Just how is anyone meant to jauntily thrive
in an ostentatious world meant to shield
Beading, beating eyes from those that suffer
from vicious, bleeding lies?

A pawn cannot decide where it lies
in the everchanging game of fate that is its life
being puppeteered by monsters who make their pieces suffer
from their callous thrones that do not yield.
For they always use an invisible shield
to ensure that they always thrive.

In such a world, how is it we are meant to thrive?
Sinking deeper and deeper in blatant lies
of the quixotic dreams of old to shield
the simple fact that we are taught to live a life
where we stand subservient and yield
the abuses of those in power who make us suffer.

For such a long time we were taught to suffer
through storming skies. Beaten, impossible to thrive.
Time can wither our ability to yield
the pain inflicted by those who tell noxious lies.
A sunken arrow into our psyche to devastate life
worth living and love that cannot hide though any shield.

What else other than our love do they want to shield?
Without, there is no cure for those who suffer
and carry on with the hardships of life.
We live in those pockets of light and thrive
in a different world where we banish the lies
that our worth is measured in what we yield.

Despite my pride, there are the times where I yield
to those shadows in the sky. Yet you shield
the rain and I can see where that crescent lies
above our heads. Cease what we suffer,
the moonlight sonata within tries to reach out and I thrive
from your touch of endless life.

I know it seems we're predetermined to suffer
But take my hand and we'll thrive
as I try to hold onto the fragments of this life.

If a cloud must release its aggressions into rain than I should with mine.
Release some unfathomable emotion too heavy to bear into the abyss of life so that for a moment I can feel.
Just feel and nothing else.
Feel and do what I wish without all that painful noise that just keeps banging in my head.
For once I’d like to do what I must without having to drag my brain so it can meet my heart
So that I can finally dance that dance I’ve been wishing for.
Yet I never budge from needless distraction to needless distraction fogging the path and blinding my will.
And I just hurt and keep it in.
Just build all the hurt and self-inflicted shame and pain
and stow it away
While I continue on my half-assed existence.
No one knows when that sweet recipe poisons the heart until its too late.
So much turmoil cannot exist inside a soul no matter what.
And I begin to molt and malfunction trying to hold my broken self together amongst the storm in my heart.
It becomes so difficult to just be human when on the precipice of breaking down.
You can’t even find the strength to eat let alone smile.
It ***** your marrow and leaves you frail to touch.
One even goes the length of finding different cures to try to rid themselves of this ache doesn’t sustain any life it latches itself on.
Although it’s never quite enough to stop the pain completely.
Even with the perfect magic potion, made to adjust the chemicals in your head, it might not work completely.
One must take it in themselves to make a change as well and release all those fears collected by the years in open air
and continue to do just that.
Know that there’ll always be storms in the heart that will try to devastate your life.
Let the rain flow from your mind as I’ll try with mine.
And maybe then the sun will come out once again.

I walk another broken path, across a collection of burning fragments of orange and brick red, towering above my seemingly insignificant head down a pathway of forgotten futures to foretell.

Each tender leaf just falls. A crisp, whispering wind numbs my face, which would be all too great if it doesn't start to turn to a skeleton freeze and harden to a crystal clear.

Turn back time-- to a more pleasant day.
A day with no wailing cyclones of color circling around me,
No almost-black bark barred trees stretching its arms above my head,
No crunching sweet beneath my feet,
No musty fog to lose myself and forget,
No thundering storm cloud lingering not too far behind to finally come down upon me and sneer as I soak,
No looming forest to navigate through this seemingly endless broken path as I keep moving on.

But it can't be done. There's no going back.

I come across a clearing within and lay my head on the damp, wood soaked, earth-scented soil and look up. Look up into the ever-gray eyes of the sky, hiding its greatest secret--the infinite cosmos of possibly.

Oh, what worlds could there be?

Worlds of echoing majesty and light. Worlds that could cut the mold of ordinary life. Worlds where one doesn't need to navigate on their broken paths but where you can fly high above all else till they're insignificant to your gleaming sky-dried eyes.

But no.

In the forest is where I am. Does that really matter though? This is my fantastical world, here, so I should make the best of it.

I must go on. I step up again and continue in the journey. My journey. I walk to the sound of a trickling, icy, stream. I step over knotted root to knotted root. I almost glide on a mirage of gold and crimson.

As twilight whispers into the wind, I take a look around this endless wood of possibility and march forward on my broken path.

Starless nights and narrow paths
rule this life.
Two decades ago felt so long
yet so sought.
Numbing herself through the day which
she used to celebrate.

Is it the gaping hole of a chest?
Is it the pre-recorded track of existence?

Has life always been losing its light
when they drag her to try
to play the game where she stumbles and falls
but still gets up and still remains off?

Maybe after pricking herself, she stopped
and now lives in sleep-walk
keeping on the same face
while ten feet from the grave.

There's only the doubt
that she can't get out.