White dreams cascading
down my spine, down my
trembling thighs
with thoughts of slumber
close to you,
I must have been swept away
by this crystallizing sugar.

Heavy eyes, fluttering open
like an aloof spring day,
I have had my fair taste of
******* for the day,
yet it tastes rather like
infidelity and prayer.

Bitter to admit, yes,
this ******* has overthrown
my gut.
I have witnessed the curves of
it's chest and wrapped it's
spinal cord around my neck.

Platonic it may have ended,
yet my *******,
began with such a sweet taste.

A dictionary of words
Thousands---infinites!
Little marks to describe a vast world
Lest not care of lacking logic
Aroused by imagination is my magic
Lemon zests the cornucopia of citrus
Are not they a splash of kalopsa?
Charisma, karma, euphoria?
Not allowed to bleed in blanc
Wail in rosy franc
Puddles of messed reflection
Fictions wonder reaction
Wander in the wildest wilderness
Describe the autumn, fall
Moist, solitary
Fawn on the lawn
Reality is the contrary
Refuge in the creamed sugar
Like a cup of iced kiss
Deep burrowed in the mapled hiss
Wait for its marmalade bliss
Head exploding in fireworks
Magnificent, what about nightfall?
Showers and streaks befall
Stars shoot smoke of ball
Cry tears of meteorites
Sprinkle the blinking sprites
Flow streams of sparkling silence
Swim the chasing glares
Enchant me in your chemise, evangelic skin
Leitmotif of mimes' maim, mean?
Speculate the pixelled fairies
Hide in the fruits of Alice
Spark at the dance of hands
Paint the faint trees
Baskets of floating sheep
Bounce in the enigmatic realm
Drooling in
As they transgress the egress
In chiffon blush flushed
Bittersweet caress
Bare grasslands with strangers
Wet the glory shine
Morning then hoots for sleep
Shush, weeping willows
Flowers of your scent hover the grove
Voices sweetly surrender
Linger for tender
Gloam or roam
River of innocence soul
Reaping the afterglow
Aglow my fountained lockes
Blur for it to be clearer
Illusions of ambiguity
As its lips meet the prism
Of brilliant optimism
Breathtaking fauvism
Breathless onism
Succumb in the limitless reverie
Rare of not having aneurysm
Persephone's persepolis
Blood of perenelia
Where Opheus court Eurydice
Winter solace holies
Lakes of beating lights
Bloom irregularly
As the sesquipedalian crawl out from its vine
In the Brobdingnagian it creeps
Line between sublime and wine
Harmony weave in palette
Rhythm rose from my red
Fresh breeze hush the roulette
Leaves blade the crafted well-made
Dusk, dawn to diiferentiate
Eclipse the hysteria and the impeccable
Love waltz
Glide the glistened clarity
Perfume lilies
Stares of lavenders
Rain the clouds of keys
Crystallizing and fractalizing
Mesmerize, astonish, aghast!
Rise your mile
Fragile my rile
Bridge this moonlit immeasurable, fantasia distance
Repertoire of piano choir
Luxury in the polychrome noir
Royal in the loyal wintermelon
Poppies color the spring
Butterflies fly in the effervescence
My painting sings a summer fling
Jump in the pantones
Rest your all
Stones amble swish scone
Wishes twinkle then hone
Will-o-wisps chill your bone
Lend me a wing
Let not be done in a ding
What I fear, free from the fringes of meek
My, this lexicon is not enough!
How to occupy the million, jillion, eternal galaxies
Shout in the rave
Echoing in the waves
Marvel at the bejewelled revel
Image my imagery
Oh, dive away child!
Let us drive in the garden of glaze
Careful not to be too amazed in the maze
In the hummed woodglade
As the critters flutter and flute
No way to chain me out of this loop
Pool of pretty astonishments
Diamonds of nature
Endure, not inure
Words alone are insufficient
These are just mere fantasies
Some are unexplainable
Some needs to be felt
Some needs to be seen
Not just read
Not just dreamt
I may sound dubious
But this is incredulous

One of us will never see,
        True light by essence of purity,
        Ever once more
The contamination of one of us,
Has taken, has blinded
The original vision.
        One of us has let it spread,
        To the other, filling dread,
        Infecting and destroying purity,
       Crystallizing something important
       That wasn't to be forgotten
                        Preserving righteousness
                        Through Arrogance
                I must curse you.
                I must thank you.
                            You.

A          feeling          of         claustrophobia         has        begun         to         confine         me.

This swamp of ideas thickens inside me,  the murky clay mud making each step twice as demanding as the last. The once clear flowing waters of my dreams seem to be crystallizing, clouding and freezing over, ceasing the stream of my escape. My brain is callusing over incarcerating me, forcing me to experience the hardening of my own being. A reaction inside halting my imagination and depriving me of the ability to call out for help. These thoughts and words I evacuate onto this page only act as a catalyst speeding the process of my inevitable silence. There will come a time when the swamps have solidified, and the waters of my dreams become frozen clouded crystals trapped in place. My brain will develop into a callous, rendering my mind mute, I can feel this metamorphosis materializing yet there is nothing I can do to stop it, the development has already begun, all I can do is wait until a feeling of...

A          feeling          of         claustrophobia         has        begun         to         confine         me.

our laughs tumbled around us
as our eyes crinkled in mirth.
and I froze the moment,
crystallizing it in my memory
as the words "god, I love you"
freely fell from my lips.
he caught the soft words
with his own: "I love you,"
and our lips danced in harmony.

The first time I bloomed
was under the threadbare covers
on my silk mattress.

It was odd.
I mean, the utter controversy
of the two cloths clashed teeth to bone,
gums to tendons.
Made by the same mother,
abandoned by both.
(I guess in some way they were meant to be)

I grew out of childish fantasies
years ago, shredding it
like satin snakeskin,
but I can't help but wonder
if lukewarm serendipity
and blushing luck
were controlled by not a higher power
but our own heartstrings.

It would be an interesting sight,
to see braided desaturated yarn
entwined in our limbs like a tangled puppet.
Does that mean we are controlled?
Or perhaps the "control"
we see is merely an illusion,
easy to rip through like tissue paper.

I remember that my body burned.
From ever-growing light coiled around
split ends and twisting fingertips.
The light was skintight,
another layer of my skin.
My bones unfurled,
eyes glowing like fairy lights,
weeds creeping out of the fringes of my chest cavity.
Hands turned into bouquets of lilies,
pedals waving farewell,
why, I could not say, but it's metaphorical.
Kissing the wounded parts of my soul,
I grew bundles of baby's breath and chrysanthemums.

The second time,
while my hair grew into flames
and the hinges of my heart
oxidized into green,
my mother found out.
What she thought was a childish misunderstanding
grew into a maze of prejudice and disgust.

I knew, my mother never liked it, from the start.
Perhaps she was stuck,
in the past,
in the mindset,
in the fear,
in the normality,
and this,
this was not normal.

She sneered at me and my father
shook his head in disappointment.

Twang in my chest,
I tried to atone for my sin,
but I stopped halfway
because I realized even if I tried,
the growth would only speed and this time
the flowers would be blackened and dead.

The third, I tried to stop it.
I couldn't survive another heartbreak
so I folded it away,
into twos and threes
until the creases refused to crease
and rice paper cracked
into three million pieces
of jagged bones.

I never knew destruction was beautiful until then.

The fourth, I gave up on my reconciliation.
Why try when it wasn't going to work anyways?
I waited out the furnace in my heart
and for the first time,
wondered why I couldn't be normal.

I was meant for a happy ending,
driving into a sunset with a boy by my side
and it didn't make sense
(but ironically it did).
Girls couldn't like girls.

But I did, I did.
And though my mother screamed obscenities
and my father looked at me in disgust,
I could not throw it out
like bottles of spoiled milk.
I could no less cut out my own being
than stop this.

And through my suffering I surmised
that if this was seen so revolting,
then I should go down for it.
A life for a life,
that's what I thought.

But was it worth it?
I do not know.
But me, me who loves as much as I hate---
I cannot cut this out of me.

And maybe, just maybe---
even as I fade like the waning moon under my parents' hatred,
and this thing inside of me is cherished and kept inside
the hearts of others
---maybe it's alright.

Maybe I will be okay.

I do not feel myself today
Stolen stunned sparkle sunned
Crystallizing adrenaline ***** hypertension maniac
Overwhelming in here. Crowded.
Always willing to be the first to jump
Potent love affairs with rushing wind and endless heights
Break apart.
Come undone.
Let go.
More surreal than tangible
Fading softly into the mist of kilauea
Great fire mother blessing me with the burning
Ablaze, a Phoenix from the flames, rising into the night
Bursting all over the constellations, adhering to the cosmos
Third eye open
Awed.
Amazed.

Flesh scaling mossy rock,
trepidatious toes clamber on.
Seraphic sunlight beating down on naked back.
Approaching the edge of all fears.

Standing on the pinnacle.
Surrounded by the best friends in  the world.
all there is to do is let go forever.
brace the fall, elongate with majesty.

Rhythmic heart, beating on all cylinders.
Di Dum: Fear
Di Dum: Anxiety
Di Dum: Stress


End of celestial descent.
Arrival in ecstasy.
Piercing icy blue water,
rinsing away all woes.

Circles of smiles,
and unprecedented unity.
In nothingness,
therein lies the foundation of all things.


Euphonious drum of waterfall.
harmonious chimes of birdsong.
Velvet blanket of heart warmth.
Soul soothing of clear water.

Utopian infinities crystallizing.
Dream't like folklore and now realized.  
Naked as born with no things and everything.
Tight clothed and old with many things and nothing.

It was the first snowfall of the year, a very soft, quiet, powdery snow that silently swept over the town. She stood at the door, watching the soft flakes collect on the ground. Every year she thought of how she dreaded with wintertime, the cold, the snow, the slush, all of it. She had been quite pessimistic towards the idea of the first snow of the year. She wasn’t ready for the absolute sign of cold, not so soon. She sighed, knowing it was inevitable. The month was November and it had been cold since mid-October. She could only accept it and move on with her life for the rest of the winter.
As she stood, watching the snow dust the points of the grass, she felt something swelling up inside. She couldn’t tell whether it was nostalgia, or happiness or sadness, it was a feeling she had either lost the name for or it had no name. She felt her eyes sting as the tears filled them to the brim. She thought it was ridiculous to cry about the snow, of all things. There were more important things to worry about and she was crying about snow.
She shook her head and closed the door, walking away from the view. She held herself as goosebumps covered her skin. Slowly she went through the motions she went through every night, with the exception of the tears crystallizing on her skin. She rubbed the skin before going to bed, that curious feeling still filling her up.
She thought of the snow, and the one she loved, and everything else. As the night grew quieter still, the feeling became apparent as a nostalgic loneliness. As the soft snow covered the little down in blankets, she covered herself and wished to share her blanket with another.

She had seen a glowing screen that emitted queens
Whose skin haven't touched the sun's cheeks
But had bathed in the moon lit's creeks
It glowed and beamed like a seam with a sheen
So she loathed and loathed; hated how bronze she is
She sought remedies; burying her color in sleeves

Hear her, o deities; she's down on her knees
She had thrown about a millenium worth of pennies
Hear her, o deities; whisper secrets into her ears
Cast away her insecurities crystallizing into fears
Tell her, she need not strip her cinnamon hue
To trade for a porcelained debut
Tell her, she wore rust colored armor
Stronger and more radiant than Helios's summer
Tell her, a crown awaits in a far away throne
She can also be queen even in her earthly tones
Tell her, to embrace what she hates
For her honey dripped shade need not to be ashamed

My morena queen, snatching everybody's glance
Like a finely baked bread seen in a window in France
With hairlocks in the rhythm of romance
Like a finely chopped chocolate
Oozing with a bouquet of sweetness and a hint of fate
Oh how she wore beauty like a swan waltzing in a lake

Mostly i hate to shiver, but
as of late
my mind floats
like a glacier

on a tundra. it’s almost as if
i long to be frozen, of finally

crystallizing.

spread thinly across a moment. For

what is winter but
a season of correction and
what else does snow
hide, but warm seeds
not yet equipped or

ready:

to make an assault;
to reach for the;
unfolding firmament.
and how else:

will white blankets behave?
then to collect and save
every prism of light”
crawling toward it,
like the pilgrimage of a wave~
no longer discriminating].

against boundaries:
past, present, and future
and (all at once).

&latel;;, i cannot
quench my thirst
for the ice 0f eternity
to melt f1rst


our corporeal frigid for/\ /\s


into puddles of everlasting
currents.|||\/\/\/^\/\/^\\||||\/\/\/^\/\/^

I believe that we could do it
If we really wanted to
I could really fall in love with you,
If I let myself.

And I bus home
On a rainy day
through the blurry embers of autumn
smeared on the Greyhound window
Remembering how she and I
Walked back after that movie
Our breath crystallizing in the wind
But barely breathing
Full of reverence
and sweet sisterhood
the cinnamon bun midnight
and soft whispers
of the life we used to have together.
Bury your sins beneath the heather
and hibernate in hypotensive hallucination
a final hallelujah
of appreciation
for the gifts that were ******
so prematurely in our arms
Straight from the oven
they burned our unprepared infantile hands
as we stood, indifferent to distant lands
and consumed by our own reality.
Well, we're grateful now.
Grateful in a way that destroys us a little
We both know we both know too much
to ever be completely okay
And who would ever want it any other way?
We smile through hard earned tears
and kiss the make-up off our years
And breathe the air of the country that gave us life
And we don't shy away from the things that make us hurt
And we thank the things that help us heal
And we know that home is never farther than a bus can carry us.

So I think we could do it,
If we really wanted to
I could really fall in love with you,
If I let myself

(Lord knows I need an adventure)

All these roads lead somewhere
Our dismembered beings will never see it all until we're dead
But we can die and make it back alright
And if we died, would we even want to come back inside?
There's something real out there and it'll always be there and all it takes is to pay perfect attention
Chance favors the prepared mind as we can see for ourselves
When we traverse this abyss
Learn to pay attention
Learn to dance with the patterns you perceive
The sonic tapestry is a music piece
It never stops , and it covers everything
Everywhere is always everywhere else
Music never stops
Listen to it beat you away
Is there a difference between me and the music?
I am you, after all, this poem is me
And yet it is you because I'm not the only one
And we'll never be apart until we die, but even then we'll be together, each as nothing
So beautiful, so absurd

Feel that breeze blowing your hair?
You are its breath
It escapes your lungs and you ride around a vibrating
Symbol, your thoughts swimming and crystallizing but never blinding
Swirling around you in coagulating meaning
The grass grows, it is your beard
Lying there in the field
Can you feel it any different?
The grass brought you here to lie down on it
The grass inhales you as you light it,
And fully grokked, your ghost breathes itself out in rings

Snap the rhythm and it ripples with the cymbal
Into love,
The path through remains you, it's full of stars and eternal youth
The gray dawn on the beach is a constant truth
Our dreamtime dreams of being awake

I woke up and thought I could fly
How wrong I was
Spying over the shoulder of God
I told him, "You're a character in my story
I am you,
I am more.
What can you do to me?"
And God looks back, knowing that what I say is true
For I perceive him and even as he marvels me with illusions he can never erase my mind
I don't even capitalize his pronouns

God and his carpenters joined the dancing eternal parade
Like the end of an Animal House knockoff
Where we send off parts of ourselves to new times and places we've never conceived of
Populating the universe
Which gets bigger the more detail we observe
An optical contradiction
For you are the greater resonance of both your
Self and your Opposite

It all starts with the condensation of emotions
Cells supersaturated with sadness
Solute buildup presses outward
Overloaded tear ducts haphazardly spill forth
Distilled thoughts leave shimmering trails
before crystallizing leaving
a crust of salt behind.
An ephemeral remnant
bound to wash away

A jackhammer smashing into concrete
Flooding my ears
My brain pulsates against bone
A volcano is on the verge of eruption inside my chest.

Snooze…exhaling fire
Inhaling crisp air crystallizing my lungs
Fog engulfs the place that used to be my bedroom
Awake or dreaming?

Warmth and comfort are now distant pictures
Shattered from the tremor inside my head
Smooth angelic touch of finger tips
Slipping away into a riddle

© 2013 Rachel Fairbanks

huffing cases float into the endless abyss
     taken away by the heavens
             sodden fingers bid adieu
                       waving off drips of gray fondness
           diving into heedless currents
                crystallizing with the past
amongst severed mountain heads
                rivers of lost marbles roll for rollings toll
           smelling of folly, fog dances with trees        
                   only shadows are left to breathe

he avoids me as he strolls
through the double doors
of the empty hills mansion.

the home was not a home.
rather, a skeleton;
a naked vessel holding nothing,
but a half beating heart

our eyes don’t meet for hours.
you dance in bathrooms with
girls names you can’t recall.

you’ve got candy in your pocket.
it’s burning through your jeans,
crystallizing at the back of your throat,
and eating away your brain.

hi,i’m me, you’re you.
you intro yourself with your half-bitten
charm, and sweet eyes that are ringed
with sadness.

i fell in love with you then.
the brokenness was something i thought i would bend.
instead i found myself breaking,
in order to fix you.

The air is magic
In the same way a human nervous system is divinely inspired by tree roots

As tree roots seek other tree roots to bind to, sharing nutrients and information underground in secret tongues lost to time (but not to trees),
So too does the nervous system talk to our various insides,
electricity and fat and water and blood,
mysterious even to us as we haphazardly propel ourselves through space,
a mess of actions and reactions.

Magic

In the same way that time exists only because death exists
And death exists both because of and in spite of time.

And I am alive.

(If you ever doubt yourself, remember the incredible odds you overcame just to become).

Months maybe, a year?
We were unmasked in your home or mine,
Or on a walk
Or texting our words into knitted ropes that became our strength and our life line
And you said
“I never realized how connected we all are. That every moment spent with others, I am breathing their breath. We’re sharing breath, all of us, all the time.”

Oh.
Oh. Yes.
Lashes of breath like lizard tongues
Forked and solid and hot
Plunging and coiling;
Ariel losing her song.

(I carry this with me still, like I carry the threat of the possibility of blood drying in the veins, crystallizing there.)

A sharing of totems, airborne on the exhale, between the vastness of humanity.
Maybe it’s a
Heart,
feather,
child,
guitar string,
equation,
pet,
sense memory

- a bit of mustard,
a crumb of cheese -

a shame,
a secret,
an illness,
a loss,
a hope,
a flame,
a diary entry,

a passage in a story that is so written on your DNA that your ancestors will possess its truth and sacredness,

Not ******, but nakedness.

The unknowable intricacies that terraform the gallery walls of every life ever lived,
Each of us a cavern sprawling brimming with a trail mix of escaped fragments of other souls, nestled among our own wreckage and music and roots of trees.

This invisible connection to each other,
so wrought now, warped and vivid
against the sky.  
Drawing breath as drawing sword,
building blocks as barriers built,  
We are withdrawing from each other in our sick rooms,
dosed on breath from birth,
suddenly forced into thickened singularity for an easier swallow, weighted heavy on the chest.
Oh I know, it’s the X-ray blanket at the dentist when you were a kid
It’s Ian’s sweaty shaking hand during that first detox, 20 bars deep, wanting to tell him that I ******* told you so, I TOLD you. Knowing that no one’s voice would ever be louder than his own.

You look at me,
And I’m losing you.
I see it like bitterness on your lips
But I don’t mind.
You’re right, I’m exhausted too.
I wish I was better at being frank.
How, though, to make sense of this new world if not to drag the old world into it?
How to point and name and say “this is”
When all you know is what it is not?

I am an irrational fear
I bear claw at your beehive of a brain
I’m ice crystallizing on the window of your mind
I’ll insta-freeze your thoughts
No amount of heat will get you going again

Fight or flight
But I make you always choose the latter
I’m the elephant in the room
hanging from above your head by
Thimble thread

I’m a taxi service
Driving you up the wall
Zig-zagging up the walls tearing you to and fro
Never giving you respite from the whirl of anxiety until
Crashing you straight into the ground

A professional packager is part of what I am
I’ll pack you so tight into the box
There’s no air to fit in any crevice
The trick is it’s a mime-made box of
Your creation

I’m the black sun to your planet
Everything you do revolves around me
I don’t get off light but **** all of yours away
A tick on the underside of your spirit
Leeching away your life till all that’s left
are your broken bones

I am the ghost in the mirror
I am the shade in your stride
I’m the monster under your bed
And you cannot hide
From me

I am strong, I am fierce
I am relentless, I am calamity
I am the rock tied to your leg
Pulling you under

I am You.

When someone you loved very much dies, strange things
Start to happen to you, that you don't notice right away:
The hologram that their influence built around you
Turns inside-out; the bulk of it shrinks down
Into one of those super-dense singularities.
Their belongings start to feel impersonal and oddly distant;
Reminiscent of a strangers bags, sitting packed for the departure.
All the love and caring is siphoned out
When the owner leaves existence behind:
The void they left fills with a surreal grace, when viewed
From the novelty of their absence. A breathtaking coldness
Accompanies this second ownerless half-life:
Touching them, your own fingers are burned, frostbitten
Eventually dead to external stimuli.
The rigor travels inward from the extremities,
Making a slow ascent toward the heart,
Crystallizing everything along the way,
Melding it all into lovely, singular geometries
As one cell after another is enveloped.
Until the central core is an unmoving artifact
In the arctic waste, but unable to die.
A frozen cryosurgical intervention of stained glass
Ruby veins, suspended in frozen calciferous walls.
Other people do not notice the changes or see
Not unless you touch them-
Accidentally brushing up against you,
They feel then the penetrating cold,
Radiating outward in bitter waves.
Drawing their clothing more tightly about them,
They search for the taletale signatures of frost,
Wondering if winter came early this year.

Outside my window,
the leaves are in a frenzy~
twirling, shaking and flying about
the wind just sending them off
in a scattered dance...
so similar to the
thoughts
chaotic in my mind

Sleep comes around,
but the dreams do not.

Or do they?
And I've forgotten them yet again.

They are but fleeting wisps for me...
iridescent ribbons of subconsciousness
winding through me,
teasing,
then eluding me

When I try to touch them,
my fingers ripple through a smoky haze
So real to me, yet intangible

Sometimes I wonder
whether I could pour something
over these dreams,
Splash! And they crackle,
crystallizing them, finally captured
Smooth, sharp, tangible

and then I change my mind,
since it doesn't feel right...

Like caging something
to admire its beauty

Somehow, even the word dream
seems so ethereal to me,
they are but soft whispers
weaving through my slumbering self

My dreams,
they have a voice
so melodic, yet incomparable
so beautiful, yet unrecoverable

My dreams,
they come in color
so alive, yet muted
so alive, yet unreal

My head touches the pillow,
and I sink into slumber,
a myriad of thoughts finally settling down,
as undulating curls of dreams rise up around me

Come to think of it,
this creates for me such a
fascinating image...

Myself enveloped in darkness,
with wispy colorful ribbons
floating by all around me
as I dream on...
a quick reprieve from reality







08272011306p408

In the midst of all of this dismantling
itself into it's revolting component honesty, I try to remember the way
your arousal changed the hue of the space around you.

Memory or fantasy or dream
or lie or ecstatic state; bottles filled with coloured sand and then sealed up into boxes left by the street.

If only someone could sculpt the dance we do between the moments
of a waking life crystallizing into grotesque simplifications rattling chains in the labrynth we build for loneliness.

I try to chisel some aspect of it into wind and rain.

I try to pick out your breathing
among the howling infinity outside and my edges are reasserted by the glare of life's shadow.

My name is that of any pile of bones ever to have a candal held for it.

My path is undetermined, unfettered from the seething potential beneath all things.

Explode with me.

We can paint the crumbling walls of our illusory disconnection like a drunken Michaelangelo laughing at the absurdity he is a part of.

**** rules, style, message, time, space, words.

**** it all.

Just go mad.

By: Abaigeal Skye*

The sun is in my eye,
Wintry breath upon my spine.
Spring in my clumsy step,
Falling into your seasons,
Each as divine.

Sprouting from the grooves,
Sidewalks melting moons.
Life dripping from the leaves,
Green driving away the blues,
Spiraling up with the loons.

Lapping at the heat they crave,
Rush by, lush grasses wave.
The earth bursts, untamed.
Eyelids flutter with robin skies,
As they rave.

Crackling ribs for kindling,
Omens for what wind will bring.
Eternal, infernal synergy,
Whistling through branches,
Weaving crowns for a king.

Crystallizing each shuddering breath,
Trees seem to whisper inevitable death.
Cheeks of primrose,
Sending crimson back,
Encasing the aftermath.

The sun is in my eye,
Wintry breath upon my spine.
Spring in my clumsy step,
Falling into your seasons,
Each as divine.

Whenever you lay in bed i imagine wrapping the sun around me like a blanket
Keeping my thoughts and feelings warm, shiny like the sunrays
I’m not allowed to speak
Because when i do all you could feel is the unbearable heat from my words burning inside you
You carry me like i’m sitting on your chest and choking you
A single word whispered
The lightbulb inside flickers
Crystallizing the concrete making you panic
So you’d rather shut me out and leave me beating
You tell me i should not be weak
I tell you who you are is depending exactly on where i stand
Arguing with me is your forte
Agreeing with me your dismay
Yet i assure myself that one day you’ll let me lighten this load on your chest
One day i’ll beat to the rhythm of a kiss
I feel empty living behind this castle
Blocking every arrow that comes my way
You wake up the fear in me
Thinking that i am undeserving of love
You reason with my feelings and clear them out with words in your head
You think love is a stain on my plate
And your thoughts the dishwasher
Break the walls and let me be free of anger
Fear is part of me
So is strength, faith and hope
Pain comes but eventually goes away
Love is my foundation therefore who i am
I feed from love
And i beat because of love
Love of air in your lungs
Love of life
Love of God
Love of love
if you could just see what a heart in love could heal

Little bird
his back turned down in his cage
the fluffy down beneath the feathers
reminding me he was once a chick
and not so long ago
(though far away in bird years).
The stillness of him seems
like it should dash away soon
and he will flip himself back up
and start fluttering
and calling in that way
that zebra finches do
saying "hey, hey, hey, hey"
As his feathers fall into place, though,
the stillness sets in
slowly
like pouring syrup on your pancakes
Death, sickly sweet
crystallizing over his beak and legs
orange and stiff
like hard candies my great gramma used to eat.
And suddenly, even the movement of death stops
and there is nothing left but death.
Frozen as a candied bird
Oh, little bird
I'll be there soon

my eyes are crystallizing
fabricating this silhouette of a smile
darling we are the hidden
shadow walkers, dream weavers
cover your eyes and listen
feel me breathe against you
together tonight, but the morning is coming
and I will surely run

Kept in small places.
Inhale: Breathing in rain.
Leave this place to the winners
the sinners
the last people standing
when the rest fall.
Remember: That crystallizing moment,
at the eye of a raging storm
when everything made sense
at long last.
Turn away, retreat if there is time.
So little time.
(Receding hairline)
We have so much to do,
so much left to say
and so much to make up for.
So very much.
Atone: Do not repent.
Make up for the things
you have done.
Wrought.
Smells like sidewalks,
after a storm.
The very storm we
run from and we
run to.
Exhale: Visible breath
like winter.
Frozen rainbows,
light trapped by the cold.
And we wait for all of
this to thaw.
Spring...
Summer...
Fall,
and those left standing.
Here in these lives,
these apartments
and homes.
These spaces
and people
where we are kept.
These small places.