Her mind was made of bright lights,
Flashing, blinding, burning.
Her eyes were made of turquoise oceans,
Pushing, pulling, shining.
Her lips were made of paper love letters,
Touching, kissing, cutting.
Her hair was made of soft grass fields,
Tickling, laughing, hiding.
Her soul was made of rainbow paints,
Rising, arching, falling.
Her heart was made of glass feelings,
Loving, hoping, shattering.
Her blood was made of moon ebbed tides,
Cresting, gushing, pooling.
Her body was made of all these things—beautiful, ugly, tragic—now reduced to skin and bones, promises and scars.
For all the lies her body endured, her bones spoke truth—just a girl, once of flesh, stardusted dreams and ocean night breezes. Now, just a corpse—brittle bones and barely healed cracks.
Death touched her gently, kindly, lovely. Held her sweetly, calmly, reverently. For bones told no lies, as flesh so oft did. Her bones were just a girl, loved by death and no one at all.
Death dressed her beauty—
Stuffed her ribs with flowers soft, petals silk,
Crowned her head with morning glories,
Filled her heart with roses pink and roses white,
Painted her body in blues and greens, white and red.
Pink—soft like flesh—
And orange—heavy like sunlight—
These were the things of which he made her.
For while Life had dressed her cruelly, touched her cruelly, loved her cruelly.
Death would call her sweet, touch her tender, love irrevocably.
Life had given her away, flung to waves of far seas.
Death clutched her precious, a pearl in his chest of treasures: she was butterflies and sunshine, honey milk and dew drops, cloudy skies and lamplit streets.
Life had given her away and Death had laid his claim.
What she was once, she would never be again—
For now she was his.
I Sit in Silence
I
Scream.
You hear the noise
But don’t understand the why
And I’m crushed under your weight—
Expectations, illusions, lies.
When was the last time we could say,
“We know everything—about the world, about each other.”
When was the last time we could say we knew anything at all?
When I cry, you laugh, and I shrivel inside
Unwatered, unloved, pushed aside.
I
Sit In Silence.
The noise builds inside me
Chokes my airways, lungs heavy with unspoken words,
Salt and sweat and so much ugly.
Cut me open, all the secrets I hide spill out,
Fill the pages of novels that you will never read,
Let them gather dust on shelves that never know life.
I
Scream.
You hear the noise,
But you don’t understand the why,
And you don’t try.
The Fear in Flight
We lived like birds inside cages,
Wondering at the world—
Too afraid to step outside—
We’d sing,
Then cry,
As if something—
Other than ourselves—
Kept us locked away.
Soulmates
Will you let me?
Upon your skin
Tattoo these words
All stuck in my head
With nowhere to go from here,
They kneel and crawl and gasp for
Just a moment more of your ear, please
Promise me your attention so I may bloom
Like a flower gently touched by the rays of the sun
Please do not glare too harshly and burn these petals
Please do not turn your warmth to another and leave me cold
But please, I beg of you, to turn to me with your eyes which see
All of the secrets I could try to keep, but upon my flesh, I paint the truth
For you, I would speak the truth for the first time in my life and could I would I
Etch the truth upon my skin and yours, so the world sees the matching marks and they all know
Once upon a time we were made for each other like twin stars in the night sky
And though eventually my light burned out while yours still glows
For a single night in the history of all the time that has passed
We held hands like lovers that would never let go of
So many treasured memories and moments
Stolen and given like precious jewels
The world will know the marks our
Souls etched upon each other
This is my truth, my beloved
If you will let me I will
Give the soulmark
Of my love.
Another Dead Star
The innocence of childhood is gone
The feeling of its absence—Bereft—
A light not known possessed, now departed—
Another dead star in the sky.
But oh, the memories it brings:
The wish to count all the stars in the sky,
Give them each a name and purpose,
A life to live, a life to fulfill—
The fanciful whimsies of a child,
That spark of vitality that makes possible
All things—everything.
For the stars were not just stars, but planets
Not just planets, but people
Not just people, but angels
Angels that settled in the Milky Way
Dipped their feathers in seas of honey
And etched their mark on oceans of glittering black water.
This was the verve of childhood,
The baby soft savor of innocence
A spirit that shone through black ink
Wrote its mark upon the pages of men,
To be remembered, held, cherished.
For this would be a spirit that dimmed,
Dwarfed by the aging of time
Until, like a star, it was gone.
Smoke from a fire
Risen up to the heavens and joined with the clouds,
Slipping through fingers grasping too loose and tight alike.
Now comes the heavy weight of a tainted ignorance
—Knowledge—
It poisons the well of dreams once held,
Like precious babes,
Now tossed away and given up,
Dreams are traded and bartered away.
What use do they hold for men who wish to grasp the stars?
So they fall, and they do not ring when they hit the ground,
Nor do they cry out when trampled underfoot
The children that once held them so close.
No. The innocence of childhood is gone:
Another dead star in the sky.