I haunt the shadows of your thoughts

My nails rip from their beds
clawing sanity
just trying to climb out of
my feelings

my fight leaves breadcrumbs
but light causes shadows
even in the brightest smile

and while I prefer the shade
...or used to

I churn to life in that place where
my ebb meets your flow

**

You haunt the shadows of my thoughts

You run non-stop
floating on surface tension
knowing the pit is hollow
...it just seemed easier that way

My kindness
as comforting as it is cruel
in the shadows behind a smile
that blinds me
...beautifully

It feels like magic
where your ebb meets my flow

Float on that surface tension
I'll wait in the hollow

It's hard to move when we
neither run nor chase

light
this light casts a shadow on me,
one side,
one half,
but I am trapped between the light and the darkness,
this penumbra
a shadow draping itself across my cheek,
cloaking my left arm
and covering my hips
this shadow of the past
from yesterday, last week, last month and beyond
it is so warm and inviting
I feel safe in this cloak of my past
all that has happened up until now
the moment the colour rushed to my cheeks when I saw you
and when I was drained of my blood completely, when I saw you
(with her)
when every meal I ate was a plateful of screws and nuts and bolts and slowly my energy escaped from my shell of a body
when I was pinned up against a wall and swords were thrown at my body by my best companion,
my soul mate,
this blanket of darkness pulls me further back,
it grows arms and legs and claws and grips and seizes me
but I see this light,
this aura,
it is unclear of its shape but I see flashes of myself in the future
in a city where no one knows my name
but where I have found myself
surrounded by faces new and old,
who have lifted me above their heads and are passing me along, in a crowd
until I see you,
whoever you are,
you are so opaque
but I can see your smile from this darkness
and beside you, whoever you are,
stands me:
buoyant, vibrant, clear, strong
my head no longer swivels on my shoulders but is ******* on tight
and my eyes are fixed on one point and breathe life into whatever they are fixated on
I look so sure of myself,
I look like me
and this light brushes my right hand,
and my right temple,
and my right thigh
stroking me gently,
summoning me
she is so vivid and kind
but this darkness,
he is so strong and rough
I have been back to the umbra many times,
****** back into the blackness until the light disappears
it is the only home I’ve known and where my mind wants to go
but this light is so new,
I can stand in front of her,
move into the antumbra,
move in front of the darkness, escape the grasp and shower myself in her
in this new me,
who I want to be,
the struggle persists,
he is my serpent in the garden of Eden,
the Jekyll to my Hyde,
the strongest bottle of absinthe,
and so I am stuck
in this penumbra
shadow clutching; light washing
and I must turn my gaze inward and decide:
which force will I allow to win?
which force will rule me from now on?

"...We are no more than appalled apparitions.
  
        Phantoms colliding in ominous mist.

      Apportioning the continuance of death's insurrection through the intumescing shadows that We cast.

                              Bemoaning.

                              Beseeching.

                Yet unto antumbra We weep..."

to my dear me,
appearing still in three d

i remember you
playing catch with me
trying to out run me
childishly and laughing

i remember you
grimacing a svelter figure
composing a pose
with some lover

i notice often now your alarm
for this unidimensional you
gets plural in the downing of days
and you look for which of me is you then

but which of you is me then
is really what's troubling you
because don't you see it you're growing flat
and i surely dream not of roundness

so dear me in such a
dimension of extinction
oblige me and let me catch you
you my antumbra from my point of view

you run out of light i am a lesser pale shade of you
we know we shall fully fit into a penumbra

                                                       ­                                  your devoted shadow