I’ve Lost You

When reminiscing on the destitute
Recall the pain
And acknowledge it by name.

Scream it till you’re coarse.

Fingertip glance
At the list
Of horrors you once called home.

But,
Anger is a candle,
It’s wicked.

Black,
Soot line
Mascara still in the wrinkles of skin
By your eyes

You feel it populate yet
Smile with glowing teeth.

Have you never watched a candle burn?

It goes out so silently,
And you can’t recall the exact moment
Darkness takes the air
For light still lingers.

I imagine that’s what death must be like
The light doesn’t go out
until you acknowledge
It has,

How long have I held this
Fairy glow
In my eyes?

When is the last time
I scrubbed my face
Clean?

You speak of songs
That called your name once,
The moments I should have heard my name
Were silent.

Reach for the power of words,
Crave to do the same to others
That others have said have happened to them,
Listen to the songs and don’t let
The light burn out…

That’s all I’ve said.

And yet the mirror isn’t right,
I’m alone in the night,
Moments I once filled with song
Were not for the words
But the power silence had
Over my mind.

Did I not do it right or
Was something taken from me,
That is the question
That lit the candle.

Searching

Text:

Rubber coated throat
Throws me
Into teenage dreams
Of green,
Teaming at the
Seams.

Lean into
This,
Dream of paperback
Scented leaves,
Escape into the mind
Of someone across the world,
Live a life
You never had
Through sensations lost
Crossed
And divided.

Drink deeply.
Lick the salt rim,
Stand on the beach you weren’t born on,
Walk the roads you’ve never drove
And call it home.
One day it might be.

The Other Body

Hands on the ceiling
You crawl.

Legs bent and broken,
Up against the wall.

Head twisting,
Mouth spitting,

I wish I couldn’t see you
At all.

What are you,
But a part of me?

A part of me
Only I’m capable
To see.

I sing of your existence
Create art
With resistance
I spread your
Bane with assistance
Name with insistence
Newly convinced,
That I’m a simple minded
Fool,
Obsessed with
Attention.

But what are you?
Just a part of me?

I remember our creation,
You split from me
In the kitchen
Of Silver Springs,
I popped my bottle cap
Medication
That was meant
To perfect me.

Your chest peeled
From my spine,
I felt it in directions
Of nine.

But at once
I was two,
And the second
Was you.

The other body.

You’re repeating a cycle,
One you’ll hope I break.
Am I strong enough?
Or am I fake?
Have you enabled
Or disabled me,
I don’t think I’ll ever know,

For this other body
Reaps seeds
That past me
Has sowed.

I swallowed daffodil seeds
In hopes my grave would bloom
Before an even numbered year.

But all in all,
You’re a feast,
Something cold
And unusual.

That doesn’t make sense
But I feel vines grow.
I swallowed them too early.

Now I’m stuck with you.

Heritage

Blank slate.

Empty page,
Open road,
pavement crumbles with each
roll of my tires,

each step of my feet.

My mother ceased to exist
when I left home,

I forgot myself,
left somewhere
in the grocery aisles of
my childhood.

What happens when
I try
to go back?

Can I put the road back together again,
with melted shoes
and beeswax?

Can I sniff out the soil
that once stained my clothes?

Can I go deeper?

Can I remember my mother
for the version of her

that she feels inside?

Will I ever know her?

I abandoned my name
in this same fashion,
I left it,

and it ceased to exist.

I wish I found comfort in
the tracks I leave.

If I traced my name back,
would I find familiarity?

I want to dance on my genes,
tell stories with faces
that look like mine.

Have moments of clarity that
span eons
time,

I want to fill it
with something of mine.

Glimmer

Rays of light reach through the window
during hot, steaming showers.

Dust,
like glitter,
falls.

Sunken eyes of wood
watch my every step above.

The sink downstairs runs.
The children outside laugh
to the sound of birdsong.

These are moments of clarity
that I crave so deeply.

The opposite of trigger;
Glimmer, I’ve been told,
is their name.

The sensation of calm.

Longevity

All I’ve ever wanted
was to live in longevity.
Chase the gravity
of an open palm,

and yet I swirl the drain
of a black hole.

To live in singularity
is a slow death.

I wish to arc
past this place

and find peace
in infinity.

Caught, v4

I used to say
that when the sun shined
in just the right way,
that the world looked
like paint.

Paintdrops

Candied ribbons,
fall upon my flattened tongue.

Soak into my veins
like you did once before.

The way you colored sound
into the air,
the way birds sang
the names of your hues

were times of euphoria.

When did life become
dried,
flakey asbestos?

I miss you,

sun painted tile
of the morning glow.

Of Paint – Series of the Acrylic

Clouds
taste like static
and sound like grey matter,

they part.

a highway of white
gives way,
candy ribbons cascade

out of acrylic tubes.

They color the world
like paint.

I’ve finally named this phenomena.

I’ve realized what causes this joyous
occasion.

It’s happiness.

Is my body so weakened to
happiness
that it spills away from me?

My tank cannot hold more than a few drops
it seems.

It builds up,
clogs my pores,
I can only have so much at once.

I am such as that
of a cracked canvas,

dried in the sun.

I’m grateful of the light,
of the liquid life
of paint.

Catch it Once More

Do I smell the sun?
Do I smell the ocean?
Is there a typical word
To simply describe
What brings back these
Images
Thoughts
Feelings of peace?
I see the sun set that certain way
As it always seems to do just that
When I feel you.

Is this important?
Am I important?
Is this telling me something?

It’s hard
This is hard
The hardest best sense of existance
That I’ve ever encountered
Those few moments of silence
When
I can
Latch onto that scene
That one ray of light
The window that’s always beside me
To send in that ray
Just so I can
Catch it

Catch it once more
As the light dies down

Closure

Talons once held me
in the sky
far above.

I thought she was showing me the world,

but she was planning my plummet.

Specks on the ground,
green,
blue,
pink…

I thought they looked familiar,
dizzy from the lack of air
I had forgotten their significance.

Art installations
were not so,
nameless beings
dropped
from the sky above
just the same height as me.

My guide
was my captor

she pierced me when I wriggled.

From below,
I caught the eye
of a little creature
just the same as me.

They had beautiful brown eyes,
skin of the land just below an eastern mountain,
a face I once held between my hands.

I thrashed at the memory
of guided hands
slapping the skin red.

The infection of manipulation
pulled me from kind intention
I can’t believe I was used
like such a tool.

They stared at me from a distance,
and hid.

I was carried off.

The green,
blues and pinks

were flooded out with R E D.

My controller,
her calling card
was the color.

She wore it as a name,
an Identity,

and I was her burning Ember…

She didn’t throw me down
like the rest of her toys.

She landed softly
spoke softly
every time I tried to scream
she would just speak softer.

She called me a monster
for the way I bled.

I was the firepit she set
she kicked me
to set the forest ablaze.

I didn’t do as she said.

I withered,
faded,
and she blew me back to life
just to call me cruel for leaving.

The weather got cold,
she wanted to take me south.

She tempted me with warm sands

But I couldn’t shake the feeling
of her hands.

Clammy.
Clumsy.

How could one person
ingest
emptiness
the way she gorged,
and feed me
silence
like her liquid words
were a gift?

How can one relish
in the way
they crumble the world?

In the night,
as these questions rolled through
the hills of my mind
I called out.

I whispered
whistles
tinkles and bells
to disguise my cries
for help.

Friends of all colors
came out from beneath
rock,
between tree
and pages,

my breath;
the wind,

had carried to the hearts
of those who listened well.

They scared the beast off.

They wrapped and tended my wounds,
they found scars I didn’t even know were there.

I couldn’t stop apologizing
for the way I bled.

They spoke softly to me,
and I recoiled at first.

In the coming days,
I would leave our camp,
and come back with wounds ripped back open
with tears in my eyes.

I called myself cruel for attempting to leave.

Not once did they say
the things my guide once did,
as if that was how the world worked.

Now,
I get to gently hold
the faces of those that tended me,
and
the face of
the rolling hills of the eastern mountain
once more.

They could of branded me a monster,
just like the one trying to transform me,

but gratefully,
closure is all I was given.