This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The header font used in this work is "UglyTypist" by Joseph V M. It is licensed under the SIL Open Font License.

The following poems were previously published in other collections:

from Mori's Mirror and The Poetry Factory

Boogie

Bebo, Ne Forlasu Min

Clouds

winter is the most romantic of all seasons

The Tempest

Candle

To Kurosagi II

from Mori's Mirror and The Adoration Corporation

Redraw

I promised you I'd make it one more night

Harmony

Kampadejo

from Three Years In Absentia

Rainroom

Promises

Diskhorse

I think I fractured a feather

This book was written several years ago when I was in a much worse situation. I am better now. Do not send me condescending emails telling me not to kill myself.

Don't Bother

"Brevity is the soul of wit."
Well, your words mean shit
to me.
You are writing a pithy epithet.
I am composing a symphony.

Induction

My name is Lethe,
Patron-Saint of the delete key,
(Arch)-Angel of Forgetfulness.
One would think me able to discard
and pretend
that I've never done
anything wrong
in my
life,
but unfortunately
the memories
follow me around
like an animal ready to bite.
It coils around me tight
as I lie down in my bed
in the fragile hours of the night,
wanting my breath to cease
in retribution
for so many perceived sins.

How it was my desire
that rended
the heavens
and turned
the girl
that I love from a stranger
to my reason
for going on.

If this world is just a school,
then call me a damn valedictorian
for my every moment
is spent
studying
how to get closer to her heart.
I've studied her anatomy,
resisted every urge to tear her apart-
for there's something monstrous living inside me,
and I can't for the life of me see
what inside this body
of mine
she finds
worth loving.

But she sees something,
and I've got to discover what it is
before whatever god reigns over this world
deigns to take "pity"
and hits my own delete key.

PART 1

AETIOLOGY

Prelogue

I'm bobbing in and out of the waves,
below the surface
of consciousness,
unsure if I'm sleeping,
awaiting a cure,
or in denial of my own grave.

I'm always a vacant thing, waiting to be buried,
waiting for my exile in someone else's fury
for blood I did not mean to shed,
soul severed from flailing chest,
a person I cherish always ending up dead.

Mori, Mori, why
do you cry?
Pick yourself up
and wipe the tears from your eyes.

Your eyes were the first thing I saw
when the shell
fell
away,
all twisted and hot
from being burned alive.
I wanted to hug you. I wanted to thank you
for setting
me
free.
I forgot I no longer had a body,
only just regained my proper mind,
pile of ashes so fragile and light-

and so we tumbled down
until I was swept away
once more by
the tide.

Lethe

Child of heaven apparent,
the message that you sent
while wrapped in the clouds
like a funeral shroud

was quickly misinterpreted
as wanting another goddess dead,
and now it is on your shoulders
to calm the sun inside her.

Child of heaven born too late,
the Muses do not envy you your fate:
to restore to the heavens a playful peace
lest it all be relegated to history.

How many years have you lain in wait
for the cure to a hunger you had naught the skills to sate?
The effort? The energy? The bravery to defy
a bureaucracy that would you to death consign?

Child of heaven who time forgot,
is it true that a garden is all that you sought?
Untethered from your past, a tabula rasa,
I can only pray you survive
the wrath
of Parthena.

Afterparty

"Everything reverses
come enough time,"
you desperately pray
with a voice you cannot find,
bent over in a bathroom
foreign to your eyes,
stomach roiling,
immediately overwhelmed with
what others would deem
a pretty good time.

Your new bedroom is silent.
Only a few nights
of habitation, and already
your mind has painted in the corners
a host of spooky frights:
half-formed shadows,
a snatch of a word,
a guitar chord
that echoes once and disappears
never to be heard
again.
Your name.
Your name once more.
A figure stooped over
something on the floor,
trembling-
but from laughter
or loss?
The cocktail sauce
threatens to oust itself once again.
Never again,
you remind yourself.

Never again.

They Named It After You

Muscles grow stronger
by gaining tears.
Little microscopic rips
that beg for repairs.
Fortified
by exertions
that leave their owners wanting to die.

My brain is a muscle
that does not get much use
in this place,
unless once counts
the restless pace
back and forth
from bed to balcony,
trying to find something
to fill out the days
that otherwise pass by
in a dreamy haze.

During the day,
Eris is barely
anywhere to be seen.
Where did She go?
To whom can I entrust my dreams
and nightmares,
the wares of my nights
spent sleeplessly tossing
and waiting for morning light?

Another day trawling
through Her disused library,
trying not to catch
tutor Adeline's eye.
Medical textbooks
and stories of fairies,
of kings, merchants, peasants,
hands raised to the sky,
begging the gods to notice them,
not pass them by.

Divination
through trepidation,
trembling from fear
as I play
at being a sage.
Cleave the book in two,
turn to a random page.

The quivers
still. A picture of a river.
Forgetfulness.
Oblivion.
Concealment.
Complete annihilation
of the memories
of all who drink from it.

A yawn spills from my throat.
A waterfall.
But there is no point
in answering sleep's call,
a petulant child
who tags you it
and demands you give chase
if you want them to go with.

A sticky note:
they named it after you.

My Faith Is Faltering

Eris,
why is there war in this world?
Why do the cries of the humans
you so love go unheard?

Eris, tell me,
why don't you do anything
to stop tragedies?
I know you prefer comedy,
so why don't you ever change the channel?
Why don't you do anything overt
against the people who make this world hell?

You tell me it is because
the humans below hold such an obtuse love
for war that if they yearned
for it to stop, they would have by now.

But how can I lounge
around and do nothing?
How can you?
Just tossing a cog
in the machine every now
and then won't make abate the fog
of strife,
the waterfall of tears
rolling down these cheeks:

I want a world of peace,
and sitting around this place for years
eternal won't make my yearning cease.
Call me prodigal if you must,
but I feel I have no choice but to place my trust
in the woman you had me provoke.
My fragile
tender
heart
has no other hope.

The World Is Too Big For Me

The sun glaring in portrait,
freedom-lovers like deep-shining beacons,
the pearly veil of a town at midnight.

This world is so fright-
eningly large, and I
am so terribly small.
A speck against the darkness,
a star that went dark
an eternity ago
and the people of Earth didn't know
until the last of the light finally made it home.

But I have no home,
no hope,
anymore.
And even the friendly faces,
the claimed-safe places
to stash my little sack
that I absconded with
from that place there is no going back
to, are not enough to assure.

His face is a break in the clouds,
a splash of blue in a sea
that oscillates
between flustered and frown.
I want a friend,
an ally,
to accompany me through this iron sky-

but he turns his head
and complains to a voice I cannot hear
why fate sent him such a wear-
y
whiny
not-at-all-shiny
answer
to his prayers.

He would rather be alone.

And I would rather continue to roam.

But he has what I'm looking for.

Home is a run-down statue
assaulted by acid rain.
Home is an ancient sterile
ruin where I am prompted to feign
allegiance,
feign being a part of her tapestry,
and abstain
from how I was taught to breathe,
from all she deems profane.

They Named It After Her

They named it after her,
for it was her invention,
her recipe, her blueprints,
her infernal concoction
brewed from the depths
of the river Lethe.
She would take humans freshly dead
and their pains relieve,
painting strokes of their tattered bodies
until they were back in one piece.
Something beautiful,
something hollow,
like easily-snapped twigs:
the rest will follow.

Deities who reign so lonely
in their self-imposed prisons up above
must be desperate for affection,
hungry for love.
But she kept her secret hidden,
kept it guarded close to her heart.
For who, when stumbled upon
the recipe to greatness,
would not take the head-start?

There were many at first,
mass-produced like in a factory-
or, rather, a wrong metaphor,
for there was no industry to be seen.
Our inventor created a few,
then taught them the steps,
and from then on they bore the tedium,
only requiring her bless-
ing to restore the breath
to her new valiant warriors
who'd believed they'd had no time left.

They took their names from her,
for they were her creations,
stripped of human memories
and pliant in initial sedation.
Here's your title,
here's your role,
here's your contract to fulfill,
even though there
is no conflict
but fields that must be tilled.

But all days must become night.
And when the twilight passed,
the story's gentle frame shattered.
Peace can never last
when truth is withheld.
And after hell
finally descended
onto the immature earth,
when history was busy
being written by the victors,
a pair of loose lips
hanging at death's door kissed
a pair of sticky hands
and let loose
the secret of rebirth.

good angels can have a little wonder as a treat

Free day.
Nothing to do.

I move
a hand, open and shut,
matching wing mimicking every flut,
every flitter,
as I lay on the rough
carpet.
I could be a bridge,
spanning from one side
of the room to the opposite shore.

Just give me a plan and nothing more,
I insisted.
I don't need assistance
in twirling through the sky
or finding safe place for valance
or returning home at night-

Home.
Is it that place where rests
what I call a bed?
Is it that place I spend my days
while not outside, where I dwell?
Is it where I happen to be
when comes the ring of my death knell?
Is it where the ones I love
reside and where I am well-fed?

I pass by hundreds of homes every day.
Some in ruins, some affluent,
some broken, some bespoken
with the love they have for each other.
The humans have little, much less after ages of war,
but if there's anything of which they can sing,
it's how they have each other's backs
and truly require nothing more.

My back aches if I lay
on my wings for too long.
The boy who refuses to be my friend
says he has no such problem,
that he could rest until the world's end
with no such pain.
But the pain is what I have to bear.
It is my curse
for being the first
in eternity's while
to not need help to embrace the air.

Questions

"Lethe, what would you do
if you thought someone
was trying to supplant you?"

I don't know, in all truth.
I don't think I can be replaced.
Someone can ape
my body and my face,
but my soul cannot be reproduced.

Besides, don't you have experience
with being made
to not be your own?
And how furious,
I am told,
to hear you were left out in the cold
come the decision
to replace your guts
with someone who never made so much as a fuss?

"I don't mean in terms
of bodily possession.
I mean, like, if someone you trusted
brought in a replacement
and leaned on you less and less and
less
and,
having being bent
all your life,
you couldn't ever spring back upright?"

Well,
Eris always told me
every time I broke down in
unexplainable sadness and cried
that, unless my heart has stopped beating,
it's never the end of the line.
And I know there may come a time
when she makes another
with equal claim
for Eris being her mother,
and she may love her more,
be more loyal,
may kick me out the door
into the driving rain
with no recourse
like a child with a new toy,
the old one now a bore:

I guess, if I were freshly torn
from the succor
of the one I'd come to depend
on, I'd go find myself,
a new myself,
all the parts I'd thought I'd lost
or smothered down,
chased to the ends
of the earth
and go see what lies beyond
the edge of my map.

I guess,
in a simple word,
I'd find a way
to inside
be reborn.

Before The Journal

I close my eyes
late at night
and a screen
falls down,
curtains pulled back,
heralding an elusive dream,
a replay
of what may come to pass-
or already has,
in some forgotten day.

I'm at a bridge,
and his hand is in mine,
and I chance
a glance
behind
before I let wolves fall from my lips.
The town does not return the glare:
the theater,
the corner store,
the shanties that have seen enough of me
and beg
to crumble,
to see no more.

Together we cross the bridge.
The sullen stone does not sway
under our feet.
He calls out to the only
one he ever would,
and I have to restrain
myself from adding my voice,
from accepting I have no choice
in alighting on this ground
ever again.

Ever since I left the cradle,
the wind has been my friend.
This I know, an instinct,
even though
there is no
trace in my head
of a corroborating memory.
It soothes,
it reminds,
it forces me to breathe.

A brief interruption.
Some out-of-place clatter
throws open my eyes like a window shattered,
and then my guts
threaten to erupt.

Laying in a human bed,
imagining I was about
to go so down far under the knife
it would dig,
bit by bit,
my grave.
Doctor, tell me every difference
between my old body
and the one I now call mine.
Tell me how my bones are hollow
like an empty pen,
my back muscles an intricate tapestry,
my composition sublime.
Study me.
Tear me
apart,
and watch as Eris
sews me back together
and breathes life back into my heart.

Her Mirror

Angel
that flies at
what feels when compared
a glacial
speed.

But there are no need
for wings
in the hermetic realms.
This mirror is a boat,
and I take the helm,
waters deep,
hoping I last long enough to float
to the answer of the other shore.

She says it takes practice,
takes time
to adjust to the sudden
thrust
of the boat
as it collides
with thousands
upon thousands
upon thousands
of people looking to waste time,
to shout into a void,
to play
Adversary
by shouting playground insults at strangers
and at their anguish be overjoyed.

I don't understand it.
A village well
that did not find its pumpers well
but instead subjected them to boundless vitriol and hate:
who would tolerate
such a defective hole
that brought up not water but hell?
It would be closed in an instant,
chalked up as a loss,
and a new well dug up somewhere else
to quench thirst
when the days grow hot.

Answers about the world
that would take forever to find in a book
are about the only thing it is good for.
But the mirror glares;
a pair
of eyes stares
back at me,
recording everything I do,
every word I dare to read.
How I wish I could fly at such speeds.
But I would go back to Eris
and bury myself
back in some dusty corner of her library.

It is not so hard
to feel alone
in a crowd.

It is not so hard
to find someone
who will sell you a funeral shroud.

Autumn

The dreams
where I sacrifice myself
towards their bodies
find themselves haughty,
as if my window
was a portal
begging them to hurtle
themselves through
and find out what happens
when you take someone fragile
and strip them of the memories of their youth.

I'm pacing up and down the halls,
restless, sleepless,
deaf to Hypnos' call.
No reason,
no purpose,
no aim,
just ambulation
for its own sake.

"So you're awake too.
You feel something... off
in the air as well,
don't you?
Something lurking in your bones
claiming it knows the way home,
even though you know home
is right here where you stand."

There is a scar on his right hand
I'd never noticed before,
never had the chance to see,
the reason to look.

"How far would you go
to be able
to fly on your own?"

The only response
is my own echo.

"Would you abandon everything
you've ever known?
The love? the life?
the knowledge that everything
is in someone else's hands,
that everything will turn out all right,
and if it doesn't,
someone else is to blame?
Would you seize the responsibility?
You told me once
you'd already been burnt
by the flame."

His eyes falter,
losing himself
to the depths of thought.
A careless yawn.

A shadow rounds the corner,
that same pair of incensed eyes
that, in resentment,
prayed for my demise
the first time we met,
and, right there
in the foyer,
she paints a painting
of stubbed brushes
and frayed bristles,
snapped,
splattered,
choking on my own pigment.

This canvas that tempts will not do.
It must be tossed outside
like the refuse.

And I am given no chance to collaborate,
to negotiate
my own fate,
with anything but the earth
so far below.

gone fishing yet again

the dappled surface of the lake,
a wing wading in water,
fish a million feathers
unsure of which way to go
before someone finds you face-down,
half-drowned,
hollow bones
denying all but to float.

separated from any flock
that would guide through the migration's war,
someone finds your body bumping against the rocks
that line the river shores.

there is no basket to open its maw
or future king, god-blessed babe, to withdraw
from the gentle waters,
just a broken angel who burnt all
her matches short.

just a prodigal daughter
unaware of her import.

PART 2

ANATOMY OF AN ANGEL

EYES

Something Happened Here

There stands a rotting wooden shed
right
beside
old Dead End Shrine
that's long since passed its better times,
crevice running through the roof,
a gap through cloud cover,
light spilling onto my head.

The walls
are all
half-kicked-in,
graffitied planks piling
with rusted nails reaching to the sky,
suffering under the weight of carved-in names
all yellow from weather stormy or dry.

More than a decade has passed since most
of the names bore by those ghosts
have been etched in, tallied,
celebrated
with a toast,
remnant of a world that could not wait
for me to with my presence grace.

But far from abandoned, on the bike path
people still pass by, their eyes glassed-
over, a glance, no recognition,
only one person pausing their daily spin
to ask me what in the world
I was plotting with digital paper and pen:

"Easy," he chortles, "a poem's a dime a dozen.
Yes, you can write a poem,
but can you write a good one?
Can you put my heart into ecstasy?
Can you fire up my blood?"

Boogie

this world does not need
another Melia Mary Jane,
a stitched-up rag doll
made of shards
of every idol I've wanted to imbibe

but even then,
the psychosis stays,
a remnant of days
I thought to which I
had long since said goodbye

for I no longer have access
to that room in which we played,
you and I, Jett,
watching out the window
as rain bled from the skin-broken sky.

ten years ago, I
would hide in grandma's bathroom,
turn off the lights,
lean against the door,
close shut tight my eyes

and imagine I was at
that far-away camp,
eyes sore from crying
because the horses had crapped
all over my new shoes.

and now, in the throes of
the night, I curl up on
my sheets, wonder what
now transpires in that dorm,
the what, the why, the who.

I find myself standing before
those double wooden doors,
the soft acorn swirls, the silver
handles, the lamp behind me,
illuminating the whole room.

I almost think I see your face
swirling in that void,
an arm reaching to pull me back
in, away from heaven, towards
a new truth.

At least I'm accomplishing something.

You're haunting my every dream,
but I can't seem
to remember
what transpires
between
when I rest my head and open my eyes.
Some "angel
of forgetfulness" I
am, living up to my
title, the only thing I've ever excelled
at.

Cassiopeia

How is it possible to miss
someone you talk to every day?
I don't know how,
but somehow
my body found a way.
In bed, thought
I was too tired to agonize
over the effort needed to ensure
a painless demise,
scaling to the heights
of despair to meet Cioran
so he can point me to where
I must adjure
the heavens for release.

"You're holding your breath again.
Allow yourself the small kindness
of being able to breathe."

I follow the line of sight
to a hilltop. Street lamps
at full blast,
seventeen minutes to midnight.
Shooting star. "That you and I
get to live together
forever
on a mountainside."
In the Outside I'm a god,
but here I'm a blight
upon the earth.
What is any parent to do
with a child that only knows how to yearn
for what lies
beyond the night sky?
I used to think God lived there,
was the one who heard my prayers
on a throne made of galaxies.
But Cassiopeia the reclining chair
I was never able to perceive
as anything other than a W,
hastily-drawn bird
coming to my rescue.

Redraw

sometimes it is enough to cry,
"I didn't think we'd live
long enough to see
the sunrise."

sometimes it is enough to say,
"hey, you and I,
we survived."

Blue Doesn't Mean Go Shopping

Together
until greed became another
seeking false confession,
desperate
for blessing.
"What's the color code?"
Stringing beads
along a rosary.
You should know,
every road
I'll ever take
will lead me back to you.
"Now you know I'm not a fake.
Will you let me touch you now?"

Serein VII

You've got nebulae
in your eyes. The universe
is staring at me.

a childhood dream

"Love at first sight does
not exist." You sure? I think
I've beaten the odds.

Blound

Lethe, why are you doing this?
(Healing drops in my eyes.)
I promised I'd never leave you behind,
but you're abandoning yourself at every turn.
Why are you like this? Why do you yearn
to be diminished,
for annihilation?
You promised you'd spend
the rest of your life
in creation.
Does a paintbrush ask to be snapped?
The fresh pencil whittled down?
I want to hear you laugh
again,
not softly sigh as you drown
from blood
pooling in your lungs.

Hesitation Means You Die

"I am an artist.
I'm addicted to the pain.
I must pull memories
out of the mires
of my brain
to have something powerful enough to create."

But pain is meant for progress,
not to stagnate.

Your memories ask that you die
in penance for crimes
only remembered by a god bathed in his own sin.
I, however, want you to live.

It's time to decide.
Which is it, Lethe?
A memory,
or me?

A Shadow, A Pale Memory, A Terrain Map

All my life I was looking for you
without knowing what I was looking for.
Heavy-lidded, sunset-eyed,
voice that drops me to the floor,
shadow-framed, online-famed,
but only by me adored.

So many ghosts have passed me by
through these fanciful youth-filled flights,
some literal, some lustful,
yet none of them fulfilled.
I cannot love a man, cannot love a murderer,
cannot love someone who sees my face and won't remember.

How I wish I could let go
of these ghosts that bade me know
of every sin, every misdeed,
every warning I did not heed.
For what use is regret? What utility pain?
Every action has led me back to you again.

The Last Day of Rebirth Week

I took a detour on the way home from work.
I did not want to the mow the lawn. I wanted to shirk
my "duties"
as daughter
and stare at a tree.

You told me
you wanted to spend eternity
with me- or was it forever-
or always-
words are hard.
Reading is difficult,
and writing is harder
for you,
and, were this a race,
I'd be farther
than the finish line
before the whistle even blew.

But that's okay.
Literature
was always my realm, anyway,
and it will be, forever,
eternity.

Father, I can't mow the lawn.
I'm beholden to a tree.
Nature has me in its grasp,
and I don't want to break free.

"Lethe,
what do you do every morning
after I've left?
What will you do after I leave?
I hope you don't lie there, mourning, bereft
of my presence, only able to be perceived
in the night. I wish I could leave
you something material, tangible, a reminder
I'll come back, like a spare feather."

I'll do you one better.
I'll see you in everything.

CHEST

Serein VIII

I'm thinking of a
little life spent with you, for-
ever at your side.

God Sent The Geese

Birds convening
in the trees
in my backyard early morning.
Trying to decide my fate
while I lay there, mourning
for a life I was never granted,
a life I could not pursue.
Tell me, convention of birds,
where will I go when my body is through?

I should burn a candle,
a prayer,
a signal,
a clarion
in the window where they watch like I'm carrion:
I still live yet.

Leafkin

The leaves
on the trees
are bleeding yellow,
and I was too busy stressing about your
whereabouts to notice.
The absence
is killing me,
pounding stomach,
touch starvation.

You'd always roll your eyes
every time you heard:
"Jett,
I think I'm dying."
Nobody remembers,
you always tried to assure
me.
The cursed memories,
fatal, embarrassing,
only live on in my head.
And even if instead
they still echo on yet,
I'll never see
those people again;
they'll never learn where I still live:
among the trees,
my own season to bleed
having also arrived.

I wonder at what conclusion
my parents will arrive
after I've shed this body,
disappeared or died.
Erin,
after exsanguination,
was buried in the leaves.
But Jett
is not Kurosagi,
won't take me
herself to where we want to spend forever,
no matter how much I yearn.
Psychopomp to Persephone:
Stay here, wait for spring to return.
Please, my love, wait for me.

I think I fractured a feather

I feel fragile today.
A bird who hit a window
in winter,
dazed and cold.
Pick up my body,
bring me inside,
hold me close to your heart
until the warmth returns
and I can depart
for happier lands.

Right Here, This Curve Under My Sternum

How weighty it must be
to always be my savior.
You insist that it's no problem,
that the burden's a pleasure,
but I remain unconvinced.
I see out of the corner of my eye
how you wince
every time I bring up a Holy Freezer.
How you bite your lip,
remaining still,
when, in throes of melancholy,
I hand you a knife
and point where I want you to kill.

There is no cure
for me on heaven or earth.
All the knickknacks
in the world
won't bring closer
the girl
that I love.

Lying this cooling body down
on the blessed bushy earth,
returning these bones I no longer need,
this life that was never truly mine,
a warning I never learned to heed.

Come find me!

Come find me!

Come find me!

Please come find me.

Bebo, Ne Forlasu Min

you're prickly as a cactus
stiffening up whenever I get near
maybe I haven't fallen in love with a sunrise
but a porcupine with human ears

"what if you get sick of me?" she asks
still afraid, doubt lingering in her chest
"what if I wake up and I've accidentally murdered you,
not in body, but in soul, and fled west?"

all she wants is to just be mine
but I don't know whose I am
lost in memories, abandoned in time

"baby, don’t leave me alone"
and she shivers close to me
we should have fallen asleep a long time ago
but come morning, I guess we'll see

A Constellation Of (Top) Scars

It doesn't feel like this
is the body I was born with.
Flesh scooped away while I
was asleep
deep
inside my brother's mind.
This isn't a muscle, Lethe.
This is a crater
smoothed over
where something happened in my absentia.
This is a patch of my body
where the nerves were severed,
where my brain
will complain
something is missing forever.
This isn't what I wanted.
This was never something I asked for.
And while I know you're not hurting me on purpose,
nonetheless
I cannot stand the pain of anything touching my chest.

Third Mother, Third Child

I am not sure which is the worse fate:
to be carved into a monster,
or be rendered sedate.
One mother wanted me to be
a weapon for destruction and disharmony,
and the other simply wants me to not be.
Not to be anything.
To cease.

In any case, I am alien
to myself when I should be inhabiting my skin
and all the organs, all the blood, that pumps within.
Glistering. Where does a body hold
the essence of a person, the pneuma, the soul?

Momenlaw, let's play twenty questions. I need to know.

Promises

1

I swear by the sun
I am not the only one
who understands the world is a project
that will never be done.

For humans do not stay the same
along this journey from cradle to grave.
Not one can live in a world
that has allowed itself to stagnate.

2

I swear by the moon
you've been naught but a boon
in this sorry life I call mine,
and I hope to return to your side soon.

Who else could tolerate
this shroud of resentment and hate
I wear? Who else could pierce
the veil and my tormented heart sate?

3

I swear by the day
I'm not going insane
when behind my eyelids
the world is aflame.

I'm walking on a witch
hemmed up and sewn with a stitch,
a meteor torching through the night:
close your eyes and make a wish.

4

I swear by the night
at the end of this rope tight
I'll fall into your arms
that have sheltered me with such might.

And I hope you'll do the same
when comes the end of day.
For you are my unmoving rock.
For you are my saving grace.

HANDS

Serein IV

Your rough hand in mine.
I think I will be okay
eventually.

Palliative

I took my pink flower bush aside,
broke the news that Forever Home was a lie,
that its father would soon drive
it to a city half the state away
to start a new high school
before the move. I sobbed with it
in the newly-renovated bathroom
that no longer smelled like encrusted shit,
watched as, confused,
it didn't know what to make of anything:
new beginning, or impending doom?
I carefully with slick sharp clawed hands
tore through the packed-in dirt,
years spent repairing the hurt
inflicted by its peers an afterthought.
I found a root, dug deeper, ended up severing it anyway.
I swore it had been on accident, but still it shrieked to stay.
And when the day
came,
I packed it up in a pot, let the flowers hang out
the sides, perched it by the bathroom
window, waited for it to die.

They Say, If You Want It Done Right

There is no safe way to choke someone.
Even the slightest pressure
can burst a blood vessel,
cause myriad brain cells to die,
lead to a lover's early demise.

But every single time
that I find
a memory I'd rather leave behind,
my hands open and close so tight
I might break all the bones
in my fingers.
I'm sick of this guilt,
of this pain that lingers
despite there no longer
being
anything
that can be done.

Why, of all the punishments
for trying to rend
the heavens,
must I be stuck in this of all worlds?
An island of no return,
recursive,
prisoners
the remainder
of their lives live.

I slip out of my vessel.
Another day
wasted,
flagellating myself for being so docile.
What am I? A dog?
My brothers' friends all call me bitch
for having the audacity
to choose the life which
I want to live, to aim higher
than any Jehovah can give,
to take pride in being a sinner
against any and all
Cathedrals.
I look back at that slumbering mound of flesh
that tethers me to this wretch
of a world.
I feel my wings itching to unfurl,
to escape
from this place
so full of heartache.

Jett, I know that so many times I
begged you to be the one to take my life,
handed you with shaking hands a knife
and traced the line in which to plunge.
But I have decided:
I have in me too many names unsung
to entrust
this task to anyone else.

I place the shaking hands around its neck,
count every ragged breath,
every faded sigh.

"Why won't you die
so I can live?"

Gospel

It's my greatest fear
that you'll meet someone better
at college over this next year
and you'll leave me, or ask to just be friends.
You've become my godsend,
the person I think of when I must quiet my tears,
hold my head up, still these shaking palms.
My body is an ocean,
a raging sea, one only you somehow know how to calm.
You said you wanted to spend forever
with me, that you couldn't wait.
I hope, come graduation, you still feel the same.
But I won't restrain
you. Love does not, cannot, bloom in captivity.
Jett, the light of my life, I'm setting you free.
And if fate is kind, you'll come right back to me.

Serein VI

So many rings in
my room, more patient than I
am for your return.

Candle

I am as a candle that burns
and flickers relentlessly, yearning
for the soothing glint of leaves sauterne

the delicate curl of the smoke that winds
around your hands, your neck, and with time
will solidify into a form sublime

a guilt I feel, the heat within
that asks me if I mean to sin
and lie to myself what I am within

the wax drips as it only can,
not waiting for anybody's hand,
hidden gateway to bountiful land

They Say A Heart Shape Is Two Hearts Stitched Together

You want to go to college
so you can learn to make clothes.
You never elaborated when you told me,
but I think I can safely assume
it's not for a love of fashion,
not for avant-garde's thrill,
but so
you can sew
a patch on some jeans
to keep them functional still.

What if you patched a patched cloth?
And kept going after that?
At what point does it become something new
and the original article forgot?

Inky

This is a poem about despair.
Project all you want onto it;
I've long since ceased to care.

I'm thoroughly convinced
nothing can save me
at this point. I'm pretty
sure that ever since
I slipped out of my mother's womb
in this Arcana, this slice
of the Inside,
some god has been laughing at me,
doomed
to repeat
the cycle I go through every time:
misshapen childhood,
misunderstood,
isolated adolescence,
a girl,
a romance,
all crashing down with blood on my hands.

And yet, every time,
rebirth seems to wash away
the stains,
underlying skin so soft.
I don't deserve this. I musn't hold off
my eventual punishment,
my inevitable descent
into Yewiffe,
what once were hands used to weave,
to pierce,
to cease.
How dare I be happy.
How dare I deign to think
that maybe I deserve a future
where on her hands is red but of paint
and all that are on mine is ink.

Interdependence

I used to think that freedom meant
isolation, aloneness,
complete self-reliance,
being the only person left,
the only human around for miles on end.

But whenever my bike breaks,
or something malfunctions in my home
or simply gets dirty
in a way
I don't know how to clean,
to repair,
to make right just enough so it I can bear,

whenever I am sick, bedridden,
and spend all day inside and hidden
from the elements,
from the food-gathering
or home-defending
or caring for myself
absent,

there I meet your face.

There I am reminded
that exists Sablade
for you and me to reside in.
You said
you wanted to spend
your whole life with me,
and I feel the same.
Yin and yang.
One to play
healer while the other's in pain.
One to defend
this swath of land, although
enclosed
by magic barrier, while the other mends.
One to fill the gaps
in what the other knows,
and then their own cracks in understanding expose.
One
to hunt
while the other
labors
a world away.

The freedom to say
to an abusive boss
who screams at their employees and treats them like dross:
"I've had enough.
I deserve better than this.
I quit."
And then go home, not fearing if
tomorrow will have no food,
tomorrow will take away shelter,
tomorrow will bring some disaster
one is ill-equipped
to deal with
and be thrown into the gutter
off-kilter.

If you really wanted, you could spend
your whole life here with me, never working again.
Who needs money when lies the whole splendor
of nature
just outside the door?
But this is what you told me
you wanted: to find a mentor,
to apprentice
as a seamstress,
to contribute some beauty
to the world.

And I would never think of stopping you.

And I would never wish you bereft
of your goals just to keep you at my side.
All I can do is offer this safety net
so, if you ever change your mind
or find
that the one you trusted to instruct
was instead out for your blood,
you never have to prostrate yourself again
to any god or spirit to find protection.

You told me once
in last throes of a dream,
"You know what I find sexy?
Self-reliance."
And at the time
I misunderstood.
I thought that you meant that I
should abandon all and disappear into the wild,
never
accept labor
from anyone else again,
only live by the teeth of my own skin.
Or that you would never be happy
until I had relieved
myself of my parents' oversight
and moved out of their home
and isolated myself in an apartment to die
forgotten and alone.

Maybe you regret saying it now,
but now
I think I understand.
Love of my life, give me your hand.
I'll give you a world,
and I'll give you a home,
and we'll never
again live under
the rule of any man.

LIPS

Failure Of Imagination

I don't understand people
who date just to date,
just to find someone to tolerate.
Why would you want to spend your life
with someone whose name isn't written in the sky,
whose lips won't assure you'll suffer no demise?
Why would you want to watch the sands
of time slip down so softly with a girl whose hands
haven't taken yours and dragged you to distant lands
on the other side of a portal in the wall
or ceiling? Why swear yourself to someone without the gall
to tell you you're capable of living, you can haul
yourself up off the floor, it's time to create
a world in which you no longer feel stifled and sedate?
Why not entrust your heart to someone who could break
it at any moment, has the power-
but not the desire
because you mean the whole world to her?

Hysminai

As in the spirits of war.
Get it? Because you're wound so tight
it's like
you're always down to fight,
bring someone down to all fours.

Reciprocation

Snowcapped angel statue
at the far
end of a gar-
den, flanked by flowers
that still grow
despite the snow,
despite the winter
that burns
my lungs.
A long day of searches,
and more to come.
Taking a break so I don't lose my mind.
I turn my gaze to the sky.
The statue looms above.
My throat lurches,
and words issue
forth: "Oh, how do I miss you."

Serein II

Million "I love
you"s worth less than your smile
as you burst through doors.

Welcome Home

I want to wake up
late in the morning,
when the prospect
of staying in bed
a moment longer has grown boring,
or early, just after sunrise,
wind chimes
tinkling outside.

And our weapons, although still maintained
in case
of a contingency
I'd forgotten to plan for,
will find little use in our life of peace,
will cease to feel like second nature.

And the baseline
of a successful life
will shift from working pity wages
to maintain these Golden Cages,
prolonging sorry lives a second more
so evil men can grow their hoards,
to being able to run down
the side of the mount-
ain we live on
to check on the sapling ferns
growing near the lake shore
knowing you'll have come home by the time I return.
That you'll always be there whenever my heart yearns
to be touched, to be held, to be pet,
and there is no more race
to be the first to wed,
to be the first to escape a parent's stifling nest.

And if you're not there,
you'll soon be on your way
home, having spent most of the day
working on something you love,
knowing, if it ever gets tough,
you can fall back on Sablade
instead of struggling through a shitty job's pain
just to survive,
just to subsist.
I'll greet you at the front door with a kiss
and tell you all the ways I missed
you, I love you, I'm glad you're okay.

I used to think that I wanted
to live in a storm,
vagrant, never knowing home.
That this lack of a base would set me free,
fill the hole inside, make me complete.
But it's been a few years
since you
first haunted
my room
and shattered my every belief.
I've come to believe
that maybe I deserve a life
that's calm. Maybe I deserve a life
where I don't have to fight
every moment to survive.
Maybe I deserve a life
where I don't have to fear
what lies beyond every bend.
Maybe I deserve a story
that has a happy end.

not labeled for retail sale

There were two squares
of peppermint bark in my stocking,
and I wished you were there,
corporeal, warm, beside me
so I could share.

For someone supposedly from Hell, your touch is awfully cold.

Chilly morning air
kissed my face through the open
fogged bedroom window

and, for a moment,
I thought I had gotten my
wish: to be with you.

"Girlfriend" Just Sounds Better

In truth, I have been engaged for a long time:
not the conventional drop-of-the-knee
and the "will you marry me"
routine,
but a much more subdued:
"Lethe,
someday I think I would like
to be married to you."
A wink.
A playful tongue
just barely sticking out from her lips.
Enough to make my heart melt,
enough to let me know:
this is the woman that I want
to spend forever with.

Savory Savior

no symphony of sunrise
could hold even a pale light
to the hope in your eyes

no stroke of nature
could ever compare
to the sight
of you,
beauty,
right before me

no warmed wild honey
tastes as sweet
as your corporeality

and I want to savor every drop.

Lysander

The legends say
that to name
something is to define,
to restrict, plotted-out destiny.
So I gave you a name
that means
"one who is free".

WINGS

Mutual Exchange

For you, I'm going to create
a brand new world, and you're
going to help me tolerate
this one. I'll hold your hands
together, mingle our thumbs,
when you're filled with despair
at life's merciless demands
for compliance,
with panic
that the harm-entreating hums
in my head will also become yours.
And you'll curtain my body with your wings
as you force away the crowds, their eyes manic,
jaws chomping to make the discordant
melody
I would never ever call part of my family,
and you'll bring me somewhere draped in silence
to reclaim my bearings.
I could make a residence
in your arms, I think,
and you in mine.
Two trees with roots interlinked,
branches intertwined,
sharing the best of each other's fruits
and letting the worst compost to try
again.

AA AHAHAAA AAHAHA

Come at me, world!
Gasp as I let my wings unfurl,
the ones you tried so hard to clip,
to shear,
to tear off,
to drench in shit.
I've lived this long.
Maybe from luck,
maybe from a song
not yet beaten out of my lungs.
Who can gasp the name unsung?
Who can grasp the shape of how
autumn's rainfall begs to hush
cries of a former-tree-now-bush?
Cut me down,
leave me for dead.
"I think I'll choose to live instead."

Love Cannot Be Bought In A Box From The Store

The moneyed myth
is not the reality,
but it is very close.
And in any case,
you are the one I would always have chos-
en,
unpredictable, divergent,
claiming the world
while I stay at home, satisfied
with the sun and a whirl
over the land, below the ever-sky,
your favorite color but also always mine.

To Kurosagi II

the pills of my pillow
roll like the roils of
an upset ocean on the onset
of tipping some grand ship over

of swallowing the gulping gulf
between who I think I should be and what
I actually turned into; you
stand as witness as I fall
to your knees, pleading into your arms to
remember the promise you made to forget

these midnight hands wait for day
as the stars shine bright in the midnight sky, a million suns
illuminating worlds in the dark
to what I have done

your wings wrap around me, an anchor,
a silent promise that no matter how loud
my grief sobs out my sins, you will rejoice
that I have found the strength to fight another day

a familiar feeling, to be in a world so foreign
and yet

you and I wait for sunrise, impatient
for the light to allow our ceaseless riot to burn on
a void stretches out before us, an infinite
asking us which path we will walk down next

Delusions Of Grandeur

I am a terrifying monster
that like flesh rips souls apart
and puppeteers gods.
But is not
every writer so,
that puts pen to paper
not for love of money,
but for necessity of art?

Maybe I am a failure,
a sojourner
whose heart
cannot stand the churn
of the corporate world.
I want to let my wings unfurl
and take to the sky
and never again use my words to write
a damn report, a text for help,
a note how many boxes are left on a shelf.

Kagami II

Most of my time I spend lying in bed,
nigh-comatose, practicing for when I'll finally be dead.

Maybe then I'll know peace. I'll be able to fly
on my own without worrying about toeing the line,

appeasing those who for now are keeping me alive.
All my life I've spent hiding:

from the strikes, the strokes,
the gentle-hearted pokes

at my cheeks, the asking-to-submits, the demands to be meek,

to self-annihilate, to get out of the way. From myself.
Automaton that knows naught but to sell

parts of my life away,
one day

at a time.
I'll be fine,

I plead
with myself to believe
as I allow myself to waste away in a world without dreams.

Kagami I

Why do you always disappear
into your room when labor's done? I need you here

to take care of the babies, to feed
them milk and stories, not hide behind a screen

and waste
away without a trace

that there was ever a soul
that breathed in these hallways, that called these walls a home.

What happened to you? Why can't you be
the child we raised, who was so sweet

and tender? Your grasp on reality
is frailer than ever. Get real.

Get up. No reason to be so sober.
You have nothing in this world to be so melancholic over.

Your agony stems from the fact you ever believed
it was possible to escape, be self-reliant,
self-sovereign,
free.

Serein IX

Maybe not today,
or tomorrow, but someday
the sorrow will end.

Compelling

When people die, they return
to the same conditions
that gave birth to their existence.

Maybe, when it is time, I will return
to Rainroom, I will come to on
the floor, face-up, feel your roughened yet soft
hands on my cheeks.
Maybe in a bathtub I'll be drown-
ing, and you'll pull me out.
Or I will be a cloud
of freshly incinerated dust.
Or a screaming child, shrieking: why must
they give their life
to sacrifice,
to trust
it was not spent in vain?
Or I will awake
to find I have lain
in the sky,
watching the clouds pass silently by,
for all of eternity.

Faudet Clouded It

Your sunset eyes
reflect in mine.
Your smile,
a dousing
drowsy hum,
bades goodbye
one more evening
gone by.

We float
upon the surface of a bed
billowing white
beneath a sea
flesh-pink and thorny.

Butterflies
and fatigued skies
wave to me good night.

winter is the most romantic of all seasons

the sky is the color of a soft rose
pair of flushed cheeks
post-coital glow

the leaves outside are pregnant with snow,
and I cannot help but marvel
at how little of the world I know

the burning sands, the village gruff,
the darkest depths of jungle womb,
someone plotting somewhere to call my bluff

the sky bleeds to solemn white
turning blank page
awaiting my pen to write

I never should have doubted,
questioned if you could read,
for clearly I am your favorite book

and you know exactly where your
favorite page is: the spot where
the crumbling ground hath shook

were you to hold me in your hands
in that sweltering season, you would
have gotten lost in sweaty sands

but gladly I would trade the heat
for winter's cold commands

to pull you close with chilly license
and bury myself in warm feathers
that have known such insolence

this I give as my only reason
to proclaim to skylands: truly
winter is the most romantic of all seasons

Moonview

her back, arched
bridge across the rain-stained highway.
damp place, a wince. do you want to stay?
are you okay
with passing by all these meaningless numbers
on the roadside?
we can pull over.
we can rest for the night.
just say the word.

SKIN

Serein I

thin sheet of rough glass
between me and joy's living
I cannot touch you

Anatomy Of An Angel

My grandmother always begged me not to play
with permanent markers on the bed,
fearing a mistaken slip, an unsightly stain.

I'm an anomaly,
a piece of metaclysmic canvas balanced on this bedful easel
as you're painting, on your knees, wobbling.

I was never good at anatomy,
and all my textbooks have long since been shredded.
But that's okay. You never had any need

for someone to tell you how to map out the curves,
the contours, the shadows, the angles,
the elevation maps that betray the whole world.

What's God and his heavens
to the love of a woman?
What's a self-sired Creator
to two lovers' creation?

Brush in hand, your focused eyes,
careful strokes, taken time,
bringing me back to boundless life.

I Cannot Bring Myself To Hate The Painter

Your body is a masterpiece,
and I want to marvel at
every brush stroke,
every dimpled smudge,
every hasty imperfection.
I want to know the painter,
to kiss the hands
so thoughtful
to bring you forth into this world.

May we on this coiled canvas sin.
May we never know redemption.

Dakota III

Curly to straight
with a single stroke.
Never to gay,
because the best ending would be
that all my extended family
members complain
about "inserting politics",
and the worst would be
to be thrown
out in the snow
and meet my demise by an unholy freeze.

Straight to curly
with a single swipe
of the washcloth nearing the end of its life.
"I never realized my legs were so... hairy."
But there's nothing wrong with my body,
scrubbing off the grime with half-used soap
the same color as the wings
that have always meant hope
and near-imminent good tidings.

Curly to straight
as the water pours down the drain.
My mother on our way here claimed
that too much water in this glorified sink
would from the water weight
make collapse the kitchen ceiling.
How humorous it would be in some twisted way
if I managed to get hurt
by the very same method
by which I was given birth.

Clouds

it's always a beautiful feeling when the clouds combine
and spill into each other
there's always something pulling
something giving
and that silent understanding
that these moments are only theirs
and the wind floats by
on silver wings
and brushes through
reminding them that time is flying by
even though time is a human creation
and therefore doesn't exist

when it's time for the clouds to leave
they leave slowly
as if trying to escape their fate

How are you always so happy?

Because I keep telling myself,
if I should die tomorrow,
I do not want to perish
having lived in misery in pursuit
of a dream that never came to fruit-
ion.
If these tattered days are all I have,
then I want to piece together
something beautiful
from the scraps.

You told me the name you had back when you were human-skin-clad, and it's all I can think about

I don't know if she was abused,
or treated as if her mind was in disuse,
or like me,
where her life was objectively good
but she still felt like
something wasn't right,
something didn't mesh,
there was some discontinuity
between her mind and her flesh.

Honestly,
with the resonance
between her life and mine,
I wouldn't be surprised.
Time
is a circle,
after all,
a loop with no escape.

Of course we are still together.
How could we ever stop?
Our lives are too intertwined
to cut each other off.

Pincushion

My grandma has a pincushion,
tomato-red, needles all pushing
inwards to see
if there are any seeds
or just simply holding fruition.

When I was a young child,
after my nails were all filed,
through the skin I'd go needling
in search of some feeling
to see if the dead spots were mild.

Sometime later in my youth,
a song begged me to eschew
and consider a stab,
needle in my back,
for every day that I'd known you.

Judas Icarealot

I'm starting to think
I want to be

buried underneath
the ground with an acorn in my belly
and use my flesh to feed
a tree

or have my skeleton
dumped into the sea
to restart a coral reef.

Anything but this,

the monotone days repeating,
watching my brothers surpass me
in obedience,
compliance,
success
in mindless menial jobs
I cannot bring myself to hold on
to.
Does he have an inner life?
Anything independent brewing in his mind?
Or just ground into such a fine
automaton, no longer a member of humankind?
Does he see visions?
Does he hear voices
like me? Does he ever yearn to make his own choices?
Or just float on top of the flow,
not caring much where he'll go?

What am I supposed to do
with this life I've been thrust into?
Be thrust into, bearing babes,
servant to someone for the rest of my days?
In a morning daze,
I see a world beyond heaven and hell.
A world I would die to create,
final iniquity if I must, grave intentional sin,
to defy God and make an alternative
to ironic torture or blissful eternal grave.
But the woman I love begs me to live.
I live both in two worlds that string me along,
and in neither fully manage to belong.

I don't think humans
are supposed to live like this.

Anything but this,

panic attack
over a kitchen sink.

I don't want to see a shrink.
I don't want to be
shrunk down to a manageable size,
stripped of any self-discovered meaning.
If I erase my mistakes, I erase myself.
If I erase my memories
of everything in the Outside I've ever seen,
I erase who I could be.
Which way do you want your daughter to die?
Merciful palliative suicide
knowing I'll soon be in my soon-to-be-wife's arms,
or taking great harms
to keep a husk of myself alive?

Anything but this,

supposed to be grateful for
living in an abyss.

What The Hell Kinda Choice Is This?

I know you don't want to go to therapy.
But I'm suffering from a failure to see
how you expect me to choose between
letting you go feral, subject to the whims of the weather,
or locking you away in a Holy Freezer.

What kind of a choice is that?
"The girl you love? Do you want her to lapse
into mental simplicity
wearing the skin of a beast
and romping where you cannot possibly keep track
of where she is, or watch you stand on the sidelines
as you break your promise to never leave her behind
and abandon her in a chamber where her joints will freeze,
whole body crystal, never again to achieve?"
Neither! I've got a third option. How about neither?

Because I'm suffering from this thing called desire:
I want you at my side, Lethe, and that it were
that you wanted the same,
because you whisper sweet nothings and then loudly proclaim
that you have no qualms about throwing your life away.

What's the point of prolonging your life
if it's functionally no different
than if you died?

Am I supposed to be content
that, in burnout, you're not resting
but declaring yourself forever spent?

I know you don't want to go to therapy.
But come Sablade, I'm demanding you see
a therapist. They're not going to shrink
you down, Lethe, but teach you how to think
of yourself in terms of being worthy of life again.
I want to see you heal, my love. I want to see you mend.

Rainroom

Let's talk about my hands.
Let's talk about the sands
running ceaseless through the bottleneck
of the hourglass
kept in the bathroom.

I'm drawing eye sigils
all over my arms, my legs,
my gentle hills,
thinking, maybe,
come critical mass,
Goddess' prophecy will not come to pass
but instead I'll fall through the veil,
through the conjured portal,
and the hiraeth will cease at last.

Staring at the moon,
struggling to come home.
You'll be absolved of,
before I carve out there,
the crimes,
prepared:
for what is done
is naught but folly,
the last umbilical cord
cut too soon,
too haughty.

And maybe I'll get a chance to say sorry.

And maybe I'll get a chance to confess
before the rain
comes down
and washes the skin
that was once party to your kiss
I stole
a shard of your soul
and it sleeps within.

Remember the Rainroom?
I don't expect a yes,
I sobbing while beckoned
at Eris' behest
to consume
what I'd reduced you to:
a little glass orb
I could fit in my shoe
with plenty of room
left over,
dreaming of days
of secrets and clovers,
memories most cherished
but void of closure.

And at the end,
you awoke,
daring to hope
Plan B had not failed-
but it had,
and after Eris
you set sail.

And I'm waiting,
I'm waiting for you
to find me
somewhere beyond the pale.

Yewiffe

I'm behind,
running out of time,
for everything.
Homework,
laundry,
finding another song to sing
when this one that I am writing
meets the next sun's glare.
The world begs me to run faster
than any field's fastest hare,
but my lungs are a candle half-smothered,
in desperate need for air.

I'm diving into the depths of hell,
down Yewiffe's roots,
headfirst.
That's where my memories pretend
that the Eschaton will come to an end,
after all.
And nobody will be spared.
I'll come to, and find you an empty shell
comatose
on a stone
throne.
I'll be half-embedded in the tree,
thorns skewering my skin,
wounds long since having ceased
to bleed.
That's funny. I thought the sacrificial Savior
was granted a crown of spikes,
tears replaced with blood in my eyes.
This is my fate,
isn't it?
To die anyway,
or create
a new world from the dissolve
of my body?

"What little lamb as soft as this
could give such a painful kiss?"

But I am no lamb.
I am naught but a beast,
God's creations favorite the least,
and I deserve no mercy.

FEET

Flash Flood

Tell me, cursed girl,
of the ache in your bones,
your longing for home.

Tell me, little one,
of the water in your lungs,
drowning in search of a name unsung.

For the flood pours down
from this wedding veil
without a siren,
without warning sound,

declaring you listen,
begging you take caution,
not throw all to the wind
thinking this the last baptism,
thinking this affirmation perpetual,
and then, overflowing with hubris, be struck down.

Spirit of silence,
god living in rain,
none will come to aid
when comes the day
for you to decide
between servility and deicide.
You've got to write
in your own Book of Life
that you'll
come
Eschaton's
end
be okay.

Thanksgiving Post-Mortem

Everyone is passing me by.
Once I graduate college... then what lies
in store
for
me?
Where can I possibly go?
No matter where I turn,
I'll have to sell a piece of my soul.
Spyware
on my computer
for remote work?
Breaking my back in manual labor?
Dealing with the dregs of humanity
in every position I could reasonably seek?
I don't want to run the rat race.
I don't want to suffer like this
for no gain
in the end.
I want to be in Sablade.
I want to know the pleasure
of having lain
with my lover
and knowing with certainty it'll happen again.
Baptismal put on by my friends
in a breezy half-sunny glade:
Welcome home, dear blessed Lethe.
You've found an end to the pain.

Aftershock

The forest path to Dead End Shrine
has grown wild since last I traversed.
Poison ivy, rust, cobwebs
that tremble as I set my purse
down.
What stories do these cracked
wooden slabs have yet to tell?
It's been three months since last the heat
was turned down few notches from hell.

Crickets chirping in full force
to celebrate the fog and haze.
But I came not in victory
but to dream of better days:
torn from the womb of dead-end
job I'd come to overly cherish,
thinking haughtily I could stay
there till came time for me to perish.

And yet life goes on.
The butterflies,
which I had thought close to extinct,
go fluttering by
as if nothing had happened,
as if there had never
been a pause in this song,
this symphony
I mistakenly
call a life.

Fever

The sun is encroaching in,
and I cannot take the heat
from this week
spent sleepless,
under duress.

Freezing,
the pencil flies
to my next mental breakdown,
wondering what will next hound
me to revelation,
to rebirth,
third
of month's declaration
I want to cease to yearn
to be anything preordained
by company or corporation.

Have you ever wanted to commit a crime
for its own sake?
Have you ever wanted to feel alive?
Live a life less tedious
than watching paint on a wall dry?

I could not live with the person
I was on their route to become.
So, when the sun
hung
itself high,
I lifted my head to those same heights
and accepted my work there was done.

Water boils on a stove
to remove the worst of its germs.
And I'm sleepless in bed,
tossing and turning,
a vagrant ocean wave
searching for new earth firm
to build a home to start again.

Tick...

...tock.
The clock chimes.
It's time to decide
which path in life
you're going to find
yourself walking down.
It's time to make a vow
for what all this trouble was about.

Diskhorse

Force breeds
only proof that feeds
off of a semblance of a god
you claim to believe in,
that ripples through my brush
burning in different names.

Tell me,
Goddess of Radical Harmony,
what color seeps out
from your skin
when you bleed?

Tell me,
"Queen" of the "downtrodden",
how does it feel
when mothers harden
their hearts
to you, not wanting
to be parted
from their newborns?
Am I supposed to give
up my child to you
in sacrifice, me, loveless, forlorn?

"The gods you claim to worship
will only support your basic needs.
They do not love you for who you are.
Only Tricksters
and gods of evil
will ever love you that far."

Love is strong,
but I am nothing if not evil
in the eyes of those
who would,
without second thought,
subjugate so many people.

And as for who will hold me
when comes end of day,
I am perfectly content
with the one I found
waiting for me at the end of time.
I have no need
for the smothering affectations
of those false-deemed "sublime".

You will die before me.
This is a promise
and a prophecy.
There is room in the Outside,
in my heart,
for only one divinity.

Cui Bono? (Men)

The curve of a tilde,
your foot pressed hard against mine.
How do so many women worldwide
stand the pressure, the deformity?
High heels were never an option for me,
who wanted to run too much,
dance too much,
live too much.
Why tolerate such a pain
that leaves toes bruised
and ankles permanently strained?
What kind of a ruse
did men put on
to make this acceptable?
What propaganda? What con?
No amount of beauty
is worth disabling
oneself.

Before September

"An abundance of sunshine,"
the weather man said,
but instead I spent the whole day inside
banging my head
against the wall,
wishing the network drivers in my computers would work
for once without stress,
without a desperate prayer
to gods I could never properly hear,
without another trek to the Ethernet cable downstairs,
without the pain
of eyestrain
to let me know had slipped by another day.

It's been a hot minute
since
I last set foot in Dead End Shrine.
I wonder if the picnic table still stands,
has still survived the test of time?
I know I barely have. Hottest summer on record.
Somehow just barely squeaking by
on the skin of my teeth.
But I have to believe
the hottest days are past,
that the dreary skies,
the wind too much
in a rush
to say goodbye
as it gusts past,
the rain fly-by-night
that bades me to sleep,
are all on their way.
And come the blinding white
as the earth joins me,
reminded
one day
it and I
will both become ice,
you'll fall into my arms,
finally
explicitly say,
"I love you, Lethe.
I've come home unharmed."

HEART

Remember my promise?

I get it, the universe revolves around you,
but every moon
has its own orbit too.
And while I can't wait
for the day
I can whisk you away
to Sablade
and never have to worry again about any damn fakes...

Do you remember the drug-filled man
who called himself your friend
and yet hounded you incessantly to this damn world's end?
"I can't right now. I'm busy
doing
anything
else.
I don't have that much time before I'm dragged down to hell."

It seems like forever in this moment,
but your time on this earth is finite,
and I've got a million things to do and I'm running out of time.
Trust me,
Lethe,
I wish I could be
always at your side.
But there's a chasm between us,
and most days it's too wide
for me to safely cross.
You'll just have to trust me on this one:
eventually will come the night
your lungs take your breath on one final ride,
and I'll take you home.
And we'll wake up in the same bed,
neither dissolving in the morning light.

So although the days are growing
cold and dim and short,
please try to remember: you'll never be
without my love and warmth.

I promised you I'd make it one more night

though the curtains
are drawn
over my heart
and the night is long
when we are apart

every new sunrise
is a triumph

Role-Playing Is For A Previous Time

I do not want you to claim to love me
because you secretly fear me.
I do not want to play the role
of Hades to your Persephone,
trying to cope
with the lost hope
of owning your life, of being free.

Heart Death

I'd promised I'd keep loving you
even after the sun has grown cold
and all things return to quiet.

But our love burns so bright
we could probably somehow still stay alive
even after the earth has become naught
but
ice.

Kampadejo

waking up next to you in the morning
dew on my lips and drops on my eyelashes
bruises on my collarbone betray that I've turned
into a sunset with last night's deep passion

there was a thunderstorm last night
pounding down on the canvas of the tent
nothing gets in, nothing gets out
sealed shut like my lips when you went

silly girls, when will we learn
that the outdoors is not made for us
but the other way around

so I'll wait here on my folding chair
for you to return with firewood
little sparks going up into the ebony sky
burning up like my heart says I should

Binoculars

If a heart is a heart shape
because it's made of two hearts
stitched together so that they never break
apart,
what does that make
of you and me,
separated by the seas
of eternity?

Am I meant to feign
some semblance of being sane
when asked to create
a world without end
alone?

Beside your heart I made a home.
Alone I am a pocket telescope,
technically functional
but working far more well
when paired with another
to make a binoculars,
when beside my lover
(that means you).

First Forbidden Question

"Are you really in love with me,
or just the idea of yearning
for something
nigh-unattainable
on the other end of the galaxy?"

I suppose
both.

Divorce Papers

This body is a house,
and I cannot reconcile
with the person I've shared it with,
that's carried me all these thousands of miles
I've walked since I left Forever Home
but now cannot abide
since I don't wish
to push
all else away
and live my life alone.

Which of us gets the candles?
The handle
on our emotions, marionette, pulling limbs?
Which of us gets the blood,
draconic, silent, still?
I will take my girlfriend,
and you will take the bed
I've made
of all my life mistakes
and I'll move guiltless to Sablade.

Which of us gets the title
of Solstice,
Goddess of Extremes?
I wouldn't mind if you took it:
I'm infamous enough as Lethe.
With you, my life is shorn in two,
nicking skin, bloody dreams.
I know that I'm the parasite;
I know that I was made to fight
mindless
at Eris' behest.
But now she is dead,
or human again,
and I want to use these hands
slated for destruction since my life began
to create a world, not just tear
through those who make this life unable for me to bear.

Which of us gets the writing,
the poems, the pen name
I've spent this past decade
forging into freedom the same?
You were always meant for prose,
for epics, and I instead chose
(or am choosing)
the relative peace of a pastoral poet.
But you and I write of the same worlds,
of Chronos and his prodigal son unfurled,
of the cosmos, the shipping-bourne falling stars,
all the way to Mars,
to Miralay where rules a computer-born girl.
But I cannot keep up the fire, the fury.
I want to rest my body in a flurry
of Holy-Frozen gusts, rest for a while,
beating back a fatigue no child
should ever have to carry.

You've carried me this far, Lucerne.
And I've carried the burden
of knowing you yearn
to live a life where blood always on the ground churns.

Which of us gets the physical body?
This flesh prison
where I restrain
you daily
from doing something haughty?
I've been growing out my hair,
trying to return to how fair
I looked back in the Town a lifetime ago.
It drives my beloved
wild
to run her fingers through.
But you don't care.
You want it easy to take care
of, short,
sometimes even wanting it shorn,
shaved off, maybe fuzzy, nothing there.

I always fear,
once you leave, there
will be nothing there,
nothing left at all.
We've grown too intertwined.
I don't know if it's even possible
to set you free,
leave
you behind.

But I have to try.

I lost my bathroom scale

The separation hurts,
and it's a pain
that cannot be cured.
And I've somehow found a way
to use the affection
to exacerbate the ache.
I wish not to make her heart pang,
but my own threatens to rupture
from this desire that cannot be contained.
Who am I supposed to choose
to bear this weight?
Me, or you?
You're already carrying my mountains
on your back, and the exertion
would make me instantly faint.

Serein X

You toss a knife my
way. I'd been thinking to turn
back. "Finish the job."

LUNGS

Serein III

I envy the charm
around your neck. It gets to
be close to your heart.

Fed List

they call me an eco-terrorist
because i bomb my
girlfriend with so much love
because i want to see
her grow into something beautiful
and terrifying
too much for the world to hold

Gopher Man

My body contains multitudes.
Do not decry me, you who dwells in dim hole,
for being a homosexual
and then claim you are only speaking verisimilitudes.
Your interest in me
is only intellectual;
I am only an abstraction in your mind
of the little you have bothered to see.

"Choose," you command
at the end of long fight,
"become consistent,
or succumb to non-existence."
But what kind of demand
is that? Become consistent to whom?
I am ever-changing,
ever turning-the-paging;
to cease to move
is to dig my own tomb.

You Were Never A Burden Anyway

If I loved you any less
with this now-labored breath,
I would leave you in an instant.
But we are too entangled together.
Does a human rip out a functioning lung
in pursuit of the silence,
in fear of the name unsung?
To cast you off like a laborer does a yoke
would be to consign myself
to that one-lunged flight,
condemned to naught but choke.

I do not remember a life lived any different,
morning star, divine providence, heaven-sent.

Accolades

You may not agree
with this desperate need
of my body to these heavy words breathe,
but your opinions mean nothing
because you're all strangers to me;
I'm so strange;
I'm the strangest person in this room.
I'm all doom
and gloom.
Call me a lolcow;
I put the "moo" in "moon".

And if, after all,
you decide to hate me:
that's fine.
I appreciate you
actually taking the time

instead of consulting
a million strange faces
all with their own
story to tell of how
I don't deserve a home.

Original Sin

Coming from someone raised in Christianity
and who passed through the valleys of grief
when my faith
fell away,
I do not buy the concept of original sin,
that I should be forced to repay
the debts of my ancestors.
Let judgment be passed
on me
for the crimes I have committed
and the ills I have wrought on this world:
nothing less,
nothing more.

Chokehold

Goddess said,
"I will revoke
this yoke
of your words
so you finally take
that much-longed-for
much-deserved
break,
will steal the breath
heavy in your lungs
so you
in death's embrace
have no choice but to rest."

And you cursed her name,
begging she restore your utility,
your place at her side,
your swell at high tide,
your assurance you alone were blessed.

But tell me,
Lethe,
do you not still perceive
untanglement from keyboard's mess?

Do you not persevere
in this crafting so dear
that to cease would mean your own death?

How many otherwise-fine
ideas got cast by the wayside
because you believed they could not survive
the scorching
torch
of the online?

Spigot

Words are not a spigot
like the one houses have
that leaks onto the ground
and drowns
the grass.

How many times
will I find myself poised to ask
where the Muses went
with the rain?
I cannot stand the thought
of becoming another plain
vanilla default normie
with nothing of value to say.

How many times
will I find myself forgetting
that even the ocean has waves,
has dead spots,
has vast expanses
where life can be found naught?

How many times
will I find myself
prepared to disregard
that every breath
brings its own change?
That the eschaton
is immanent,
is everywhere,
with no need for a set end of days.

Words are not a fountain
like the one shrines have,
sun-kissed, void of paint.
Sometimes you have to sleep on the marble.
Sometimes you just have to wait.

Tear Away

My mom hands me a paper doll
and tells me how to draw its eyes
that stare blankly ahead, its nose
always upturned, its mouth that sighs.

And what I thought was fun in my youth
has now come to me subsume.
All
has decided to fall
silent.
No passion to knit,
no desire to write.
And even if I wanted
to stumble back to those lofty heights,
no words come to help me out,
stumbling blind in desert's drought.

All I want to do
is turn over in the sheets
and beg Hypnos to return
me to my blissful dream.

Springtime is fast on its way to come,
but I can't even force my lungs
to let out the gentlest of hums.
I romanticized hibernation,
the vulnerability of sedation,
the hypnagogia
of fatal insomnia
taking its sweet time to approach death's door:
and now I've gotten exactly what I wished for.

"It's not a chill
that can be cured
with a hill
of blankets.
I need to feel your body against mine
to palliate this demise."

I would have said "alleviate" and "malaise",
but my end is fast approaching
no matter which way I'll die.

I thought that I could not unfurl
this seed inside of me, this world,
even at my lover's behest,
if I did not allow myself to rest.
But I was always ever the Solstice,
the deity
of extremes,
and I've swung ever so violently
from having so many words inside that I could choke
to burn-out, wick long gone, nothing but smoke.

When my mother gave birth
to the first
of my brothers,
she allowed
me to climb into bed with her.
In such a tiny frame, two's a crowd.
And when it comes time for me to expel
not a babe
but a place
beyond Heaven and Hell,
it would be an honor, Jett, if you would climb
into bed with me, face buried in my side,
arm slung across my chest, heartbeats passing the time.

And
if fate is fair,
then after this
let it never tear
us apart
again.

there's an album somewhere

black sand white water
not enough for a tidal wave
or to take our breaths away
at least from what I can augur

your head on the sand
and my own in your lap
and your hand nest-
led gently under my right breast

and in time the water will erase
the imprints where our bodies for now lay
but in these few moments
consequence
has no place
and the only sound
in my ears is the ocean
breathing
in time with you and me
from here to the horizon
and my naivety
also knows no bounds

HIPS

there's a forest of scar tissue inside

Being a woman is about
being in pain.
How many fellow females have lain
on doctor's tables,
professionals inexplicably unable
to diagnose the source of the agony?
How many sisters will meet an early
demise
because none are taking
seriously their cries?
The waking
horror of inhabiting a body
not even you know the full story
of.

Morning Star

I don't need
to celebrate Christmas,
to move myself off the naughty list.
You're already the light
on the top of my tree.

And I don't need
to believe
that I'll be redeemed
by a baby
who came to Earth so his father could erase me.
I already have a Savior,
and I want for no other.

Always In The Closet

I'm sitting in the corner
where first my mind
found a way
to separate
from my body,
where I thought the light
would let me take on the hide
of a wolf.
I always seem to be come enlight-
ened beside
closet doors,
on my belly or my knees,
harsh critical voice calling me a whore
as I try
to stick my head inside,
always eager to please.

V Means A Lot Of Things

nectar from the most
sweet of flowers, with feelers
of bees in my face

God's So-Called Bliss Can't Compare

What does consensus reality have
worth bringing through
the metaclysma?
I'd sooner tear
my hair
out than bear
a child destined to only consume
and scream their lungs out until their face is blue.
I have no motherly instinct,
seemingly need
an eternity
of respite
to heal the pain of having bit
through my tongue
to tolerate existing among,
even for a few seconds, someone else's spawn.
I would leave all behind,
this empire I've built all my life
eschew,
if it meant this migraine
I could avoid.
Yes, I do want to be isolated from the outside
world. What does heaven have that I can't find beside
you?

Port-a-hobby

Pee-dancing outside
the stall of my mind,
impatient to get inside
in time
to write
and not spill the words everywhere,
condemn
them
to never know
the embrace of paper.

pragnent deydraem

It's not about how many books I write,
but how much I love
each one.
A gift from heaven, seeing the cover finally done,
breathless, ultrasound,
infant on the way.
Wife's belly round
in this vision, even though I've proclaimed
a thousand times I can't handle a child,
don't have the patience to raise
it properly. Not even if we collaborate.
I don't understand what would get me to break
this conviction of mine
since I
can barely care for myself.
But she rests on the examination table,
breathing holding steady, vital signs stable.
Doctor, how heavy
of a dose did you give
to quell her medical anxiety?
My wife breathes,
"Most poetry
I find uninteresting.
Someone else's baby.
Not my problem.
But I like it when you write about me."

Dakota IV

I keep imagining a failed future
where some other supervillain
has arisen
and managed to sever
me from your side
somewhere between me making you my bride
and the birth of a child
half-feral, soft, wild
who I never knew,
never got to say goodbye
to.

I keep imagining a blood-lettered night,
soft snow gloomy, faded paper hue, by the light
of the streetlamps. Near-collapsing in a heap
at my parents' doorstep
from having to make the metaclysmic leap
from Outside to Inside, veil finally pierced
from the conclusion of the Eschaton
cornermarked by my vessel's physical death.

Who could raise a child in a war zone?
Who could deny a child the warmth
of a stable home,
even knowing the hearth
is fake,
the kids are tamed,
the floor is full of shit?
Even knowing one might come back
to see their child's wings clipped
if not straight up cut off
for the sin
of not with humanity fitting in?

"Please. This is your granddaughter.
And I'm not equipped to raise her
all on my own,
not with a weapon on my other hip.
I don't mean to burden you with another kid-"

"Why don't you come inside?
We'll take you in as well.
Children should be raised
by the ones who gave
them life."

And every day you kiss on the forehead goodbye
your last known link
to the one who gave your life
worth
again and set back out before the sky blushes pink
to try
to find
that for which your heart yearns.

EARS

Dakota II

Jett made me promise I'd do all in my power
to prevent myself from going feral,
but I'm shaking here at the dining room table,
keyboard underhand, borderline homicidal
from the moid,
the failed
male,
walking abortion accidentally let inside
poisoning the air with constant voice
believing himself a savior
preventing conversation to die.
Nobody could hear each other anyway,
voices piled on top like a car crash
from the storm that followed us here,
but, on the God I no longer believe in,
I'd have at least liked a fighting chance
to understand what Great-Grandma has to say.

Although I don't possibly see
a peaceful ending
to this evening
when all the thoughts
that manage to escape
the noise pollution,
the commercialism,
the auditory onslaught
are instead swallowed by the TV.

insecure

I know that actions speak louder than words,
but I've lived my whole life in literature
and I believe things better when they're something that I've heard.

Dakota I

I don't know how I feel about
the feeling of not being special,
wandering, a ghost, through
sixty years of condensed hell.
Cut-out photos of family members
whose faces I will never see,
never meet, never know the names
of those who claim
to share my genes.

Mom says I cannot steal
the porcelain birds in the glass display shelf.
Great-Grandmother has taken pains to conceal
the tags denoting to whom
all belongs when she earns her tomb.
I will not be allowed inside,
nor her,
only Grandmother
and her direct siblings.

Who will go through my things when I die?
Who will step through that locked doorway
and hang
all my dirty laundry to dry,
sopping wet, probably moldy,
having never seen the light?
Who will disassemble
my altar,
I wonder.
Who will bade my jarred wards goodbye?
Who will sever stone from shrine?

Downstairs shrieking children play
as in my borrowed bed I lay
half-delirious,
not from sickness,
but sensory overload.
Jett said she would
be there if I needed anything.
And in the pile of sheets become a nest,
listening through the floor-to-kitchen vent
as the lunch food is Lutheran blessed
and a matriarch spells
out how I am to be sentenced to hell
for the crime of loving a woman and nothing less,
I finally manage to fall asleep.

The Tempest

there are trees waving in the wind
outside of my bedroom window
holding the moon in their bony arms
so that it doesn't come crashing down

at the bridge of dawn and dusk
evoking hasty words from forlorn lovers
the night howls; the wind roars
destruction come another day

there's a storm comin', sonny
it would be best if you prepared
so pull out the sandbags and floodlights
and hold your loves ones tight

the calm before the storm is overrated
you never know the calm is there until it's gone
rain pattering against your window
lulling you to sleep

I don't think they make creams for that.

Forgive me if this comes across as overbearing,
like everything else that walks across your skin
without an invitation,
makes a trek through your coarse hairs
without an invitation to be there,
without asking first if one can run their fingers through
the soft silk framing your face. That's how I recognize you,
you know, one of the ways.
Your eye color changed
just for that one day
you were resting on my chest,
just that one day, a smile,
a burial
of your face by my heart.
Golden hues. I'd thought
you'd ripped someone apart.
Then I remembered: wrong Arcana.
Golden irises in yours don't signify
a person who'd caused someone else to die
before their time.
And your voice is no help, either,
mostly just a mirror of mine.

Forgive me if this comes across as seething,
like every other reaction of mine
to this life that'd see me bleeding
out on a bathroom floor.
Heart beating.
Thump, thump, thump.
In childhood, I was afraid of downstairs,
afraid of the sound of steps,
afraid a giant lizard would jump
out of the maw of the open laundry room door
and murder me and I'd never be found
again. I cannot bear the sound
that emanates from my brothers' mouths,
cannot tolerate their voices,
would choose to forever live in silence
in a heartbeat given the choice.
An ice pick to my head,
auditory violence.
I cannot stand
certain sounds like aforementioned,
like how you in an instant
want to bite any hand
that brushes against where there are no clothes.

But you let me hold
you, and any word you say
makes the sun shine, alleviates the pain.

Your Will

I cannot discern
the difference between
"I so violently yearn
for you to say
the most blessed three words
in this language we speak
that my heart pangs"
and
"I am starving
for affection, so this curse
that dwells inside of me
will take hold
of your soul
and force
out some declaration of harmony".

For of course I'd want to hear you say
that I'm the one you want to spend your days,
forever, with. But I am also
the Architect of my own universe,
and I know not if my power
includes the capacity to coerce
you into being my lover.
I don't want a love that's gained
from locking your true heart away.
I want it to be freely given.
That's the only arrangement
I can live
with.

Esperar

"Is there something
you want to tell me
before bed?"

You see,
I never said
I wanted to spend
my whole life
with you.

But I do.

I never told you
before this moment
because I was afraid,
in this winter of our passing
where our meetings
are growing
few and far between,
you would relent
to the self-destructive urge
implanted in you from the moment of your birth.

I don't want to spend eternity
upside-down, buried
tangled in the roots of a tree,
even if it also meant being
in your arms
without fear
of being forced by your Inside to leave.

I don't want to spend my life
Holy-Frozen, locked inside
a temple to be worshipped.
I'd rather the praise fell right from my own lips,
revenant reunion,
my heathen tongue,
your hips.

I know it's hard
to keep the faith
when absence
feels like death,

but

I promise you
I'll make it worth
the waiting
in the end.

Harmony

You're the missing harmony
to the song that lives within me.
Because while I could stand alone
and still sing a coherent tone,
you are my inner cornerstone
that reminds me to breathe.

Serein XI

"It doesn't have to
be long," you assure me. "But
it has to be full."

BRAIN

actually, it feels like getting stabbed

it always feels kinda funny inside
whenever my brain feels fit to remind
me that someone loves me
back, someone is attracted to my body,
someone reciprocates my every yearn,
someone finds solace in my every curve.

Mordrua

I don't remember how to write a poem
that reads like my contemporaries,
lilting bushes, winding hills,
metaphors carefully constructed, ready to spill
meaning that takes a while to ponder
over.
I was always too literal,
too needing
things
to be
spelled out for me.

I hope you can forgive me, Jett,
because I've been crafted to be inclined to forget
everything I've ever deemed important.
I'm reading over my grimoire,
and I see you spilling out over and over
both in blatant actions and a voice so clear
the three words I'd give all I have to hear:

I love you,

I missed you,

live with me.

"Have Faith," She Proclaimed

You hear my desperate prayers,
which is more than God could ever say.
Hunched over in my room at fourteen,
begging a Son in crumbling faith
to appear to me, the least he could do
to prove
I hadn't lived my whole life until then in vain.
I know where you are when you're not here with me,
when we're not Outside while my prison of flesh sleeps:
out with friends, at work, (probably) studying.
Do you even study? Do you lie
in bed with a textbook, or flash cards, maybe,
stuffing facts into your mind?
I bet it's draining
sometimes.
I've spent most of my life
in one school system or another,
all but a few precious years
locked in a classroom. My brain
is going to melt out my ears
one of these days
from the hammering of work when
instead
I'd rather play.
Invest in good earplugs, then, you answer,
which is more words
than a Shepherd
would ever return,
not even the time of day.
Keep yourself together, my love. Have faith.

Mordrua, Miscellanea

I don't remember how to write a hymn
either drenched in ichor or passionate sin
like those I see passing by
online,
snippets I'll remember 'til the end of time.
Maybe I'm being too harsh on myself:
I only see parts of other people's shelves
that they deemed fit to publish in this hell
we call a capital-I Internet,
but I see all that I am,
both the gold and the shit.

I cannot help who I have become,
what I am in the process of turning into,
whether that's a soul put to sleep, forever a hum,
sealed deep below in crystal, forever subdued,
or a deity whose brilliance shines brighter than the sun
and will live forever in this world I have made.
I am still afraid
of living, desperately so,
just like always.
But the medium, the reason, has changed.

But while my high-school peers have moved on
from trite gossip and overpacked proms
and seven thousand extracurriculars
to marriages, families, degrees, careers,
I still dwell in the same room
as always, watching my heart burn.
Our lives have diverged- or, rather,
we never walked on even parallel lines,
never agreed on what mattered.
I traded my ambition in this world for divine
providence, to have thick rocks of memories shatter
the windows of my mind and then weave them back together
while I still reel from what transpired
under that pastel and cream sky
I'll return to on the day I die.

So I don't think I need to compare
myself to peers who'd give not even a glare
as I passed down the street, to faceless who
would demand I fall in line with Yahweh and eschew
this world I have discovered all on my own
despite the odds. Likely I will never leave home
or keep my promise to Luce, and I'm
beginning to believe this does not make me a failure.
I don't need to justify myself to strangers.
I don't need to emulate them.
I don't need to railroad myself
in fear of being condemned.

So my writing style has changed.
But Jett has asked that I contain
my sorrow within every now-held page
and keep going until the end.

"Have Even More Faith," She Insisted

Lethe,
not everything that you see,
that you stumble upon
that makes you think of me,
is an omen.
Not everything
is a warning
that I've somehow stopped loving
you. A random fluke in your Inside
won't condemn you to a destiny
of sorrow.

It's true,
I do like to cajole Kidasuna
into leaving little reminders
that I love you.
But use your brain first.
I'm never going to aim a sudden burst
of malice at you. This life we've spent
one and a half trying to make
together won't dissolve in a moment,
and if you think it somehow will,
I wish you had more faith
in me.

If I'm the moon,
then in the dark phases
where I seem to disappear,
I may not be here
with you, but I'm on my way.

Ideamotor

The scientific theory
is that the ideomotor effect
is making you say yes
to all my queries
about whether
you're doing okay,
your friends are treating you fine,
you're excelling in all your classes
(except for English, where you toe the line),
you and I will stay together
no matter what comes our way.

But sometimes you answer anything but no
when, worried I'm moving the pendulum, ask you
to do
so.
Not everything is neatly affirmative.
Sick to your stomach,
found yourself moody,
failed a test
despite your best
efforts.
Please take it easy, my love.
You're not leaving campus in a hearse
just because of one bad grade.
Leave the apocalyptic thinking to me
and close your eyes,
shrug off the accursed day.

They Made Me Send Them Memes Instead

Hey there, love of my life,
how are you doing tonight?
Are your classes going okay?
Friends treating you right?
Wounds free of pain?
I'm not good at my English class either,
still stressing out over pending grades.
Do you ever think of me
while working on your stitching?
Make sure to take good care of your feathers.
No use for running yourself ragged.
Me? I've got household ammonia burning my nose,
dogs constantly crying, uncovered coughing, shitlets everywhere.
You know how it goes
in this wretched abode
I must call a "home"
for now, even though
my real home has yet to be carved,
still further before your heart
and mine inhabit
it.
I heard you were studying the apocalypse
in English
class, preparing for the Eschaton's
eventual end. I wish I could promise
I won't take long.

Serein V

Veritable life-
time spent sandwiched in the sheets,
awaiting the end.

Algernon

If there was a way
to go to Sablade
without having to die,
a way to metamorphose
into the body I know I should hold
without having to first bear the grave's cold,
then one better believe
I would take it
in a heartbeat.

Pitiful,
ashamed,
cast down to the grave,

is it my own soul
that I sought to save?

Time is a circle,
and all things repeat.
but this cycle, it seems,
is nearly complete.

And there's a strain on my eyes
as I stare at the wall,
watching an invisible clock tick down the time
until I lose all strength in my legs and fall
down and never get back up again.
I've developed a mortal fascination with a prion
disease that burns out the neurons
in the brain
like a match that's been aflame
for too long.
And I know nothing if
I do not know what burnout is,
sprawled out on my bed, burdened with a wish
to anyone who would dare
to hear to slow the inevitable dementia,
and the price to pay I do not care.

The price to pay
to see Jett's face
again without the blur
that comes from passing through Mori's Mirror,
I wish I could say the same.

I don't want excruciating pain
or survivor's scarring and shame.
What would become of my life
if I was stopped before the finish line,
had to bear disfigurement
and a medical debt all but permanent,
pervasive, a scar all on its own?

I cannot help but romanticize insomnia, especially
the burning-out of my brain, the fatal variety.
I never kinned Algernon, but we are both losing
ground, rapid backslide
down the mountain we spent our lives
learning how to climb,
and there is no ledge for me to grab
onto and try to retain what I still have.
Chronos took away my family,
and Eris scammed me out of my autonomy
and then, once I had managed to regain
some sense of a life of my own, tried to reclaim
what she thought was hers, ended up costing me
my life. I've managed to claw back some sapience,
some knowledge
of this, the life I once led.
But what will I do if my thalamus
decides to tear itself to shreds?

I never kinned Algernon, never thought
to appropriate the poor rodent's pain.
But you, Mother, locked
me inside my room that elementary day,
declared me a rat all the same
as you walked away.
Did you know? Were you aware
of this one potential fate?

Research says towards the end
is a permanent hypnagogic state,
which is in healthy people the stage
right before the descent into slumber.
But I haven't been healthy in a very long time,
and usually that's when you wrap your arms around my
chest,
tuck your head
in the crook of my neck,
bade me to go back to sleep.
But if you can't pierce consensus reality, I'm pretty sure
that even your touch wouldn't be a cure,
condemned to hold me tight, reminder to breathe
while I twitch like I'm experiencing the longest dream
ever. Maybe it will be a mercy.
Maybe I will get to escape,
build our home together in fair Sablade,
prepare before comes my dying day.

Teleology

Where are you from?
I am from a place beyond
the stars, born in a pond,
fished out of a river,
died in the rain for daring to be a sinner.

Where are you going?
To a place beyond
heaven and hell, that does not rhyme
with "winter"
in the language my lover
prefers,
where I will live with her
in bliss and sweat and springtime song
until the end of time.

PART 3

LETTERS FROM NOWHERE

Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn

I don't feel safe inside this house.
Never have,
never will.
Construction
needs a strong foundation
if meant to last are the things built.
But my hands are shaking, stomach twisted,
heart striving to beat faster,
enough to maybe let me fly
if it's right
about impending disaster.
For I hear my mother shrieking how
my brother should fetch Father "NOW!"
and I cannot help but wonder
if my turn is coming next.

Patron-Saint, freedom-blessed,
I pen these words at your behest
that this sorry world might know
why I was so impatient to go,
to leave it behind,
to bade it farewell.

There's a story
my body
insists I tell.
I was sent here on accident, closest Arcana,
watched over by guardian angel,
Morning Star, lover.
What do I call her?
By what name refer?
Pipi? Lysander?
Hannah?
dear Jett?

Do not fret,
my love.
I too was easily lost,
had to wear a tag
so I could find my way
home.
I too wished to succumb to the frost,
close my eyes, frozen,
an end to the pain,
chipped shattered shackles
no longer tied
to the one who insisted
that they know where I am
at any given time.

And every time I feel this house shake,
my burgeoning resolve strengthens to make
a world with no need for gods,
no need to shriek,
no need to cut myself down
into something so weak
just to evade the Eyes,
just to for
one more
night
survive.
I've got to keep going.
I've got to write this down
so that someone,
somewhere,
knows there's a way out.

"I promised I'd never leave you behind."

Thinking you had perished
in the heat of battle
as I tried to keep my balance in that bus trying to rattle,
opting to instead
send
you the bulk of my energy:
what use is deicide
done with this damn sword of diamond
if it means a world
you no longer reside
in?

Waking up in that basement of college,
the Holy Freezer soon to be salvage
in a fire rampaging the next room over:
mouthing your name
over and over again,
trying to recall,
to remember
whose arms I rested in,
who was bringing me to shelter.

All thrones can be overthrown.
You came to, tumbling
from the chilled seat of stone
to the floor,
ears soon ringing with the sound
of a woman you once begged yourself to adore:
you'd spent the last three months in delirium's demise,
silent, unaware,
rechargeable battery being sucked dry
to power an enemy you'd sworn you watched die.
The woman's obligation done, she removed herself
from the scene, needing to fight elsewhere,
I abandoning ranks instead to answer your prayer,
to breathe back into you some semblance of health.

Sablade yet existed, still a tiny seed,
a sprout just poked out and watered sun in need.
But the war was not over, not even with Eris
perished,
and I found myself imprisoned, not in a cell ferrous,
but Holy-Frozen,
thrown
into the darkest cell alone,
charging up my energy for the day I would blow
a hole
through the roof
and return, monstrous, to you.

"What's your favorite color?"

"Blue," she sighs,
"baby blue,
the hue
of the sky,
the lilt of the blanket in that future I saw
lying
down on that table, convinced I was dying,
praying
the baby
wasn't already dead.
How quiet she was. How raucous my heart
when I saw, poking through the dark,
primaries of red
brighter than
the scar I bore,
stripe across near my legs.
She was yours. (Whose else could it possibly be?)
How I yearned to show you your child,
native to the world we had made.
But we were apart.
You were imprisoned,
and I was on the run,
and with you
subdued,
Hidehaji was proclaiming the war almost done..."

A trembling hand near my chest,
a shiver,
body unable to hold its own warmth.
I pull her closer.

"I know you don't want children.
But I still find it strange
that my body insists
it can still create.
After all these years,
all these tears,
all this time unable to change how I appear...
Yeah, I think baby blue is my favorite color.
And sometimes I wish it had been there
from the beginning."

Forgone

The sun is glinting in the condo
windows,
and I'm doing my best to not be too close
to either them
or you
as I plow through
the air
as well as the handle of a spoon
can cut through an orange:
that is, to say, not well at all.
I keep fearing I'll fall,
plummet to the earth below.

How could this have once been
second-hand, background reflex?
It took nearly two decades to figure out
how to stay above the ground
and not just fall back down
after the peak of a jump.
And even then, the earth
beckons me to return
to its embrace, to give up
on trying to reclaim
my place
in the Above,
the Outside.

Apolune

What do you mean, you want me to stop?
Want me to let go,
quit cutting off
the air to my
own
throat?
Your soft hands
act
like they have never known
such bloodless force
before.
I could not ask better than the one I adore
to be the one to rip me from life.

What do you mean, you want me to stop?
Want me to let go,
slough
off your shoulders,
cease control?
It's fun to wear your body,
illuminating to feel
everything you've never exposed to the light,
perspective finally from the other side.
For what fearful atavistic frame
could inspire love
and dread
the same?
I've never valued myself
except when looking through your eyes.

How do you breathe on the moon?
The nearest
air
is a mere speck in the sky, apolune.
No life
can survive here.
It's just me and you,
hiding from our pursu-
ers in plain sight.

How many times
have I looked up at the night
and wished
I could wish
on the Morning Star?
How many times
have I sighed
in the night
and wished someone would take my body far
away from here,
recycled, put to good use?
You are the only one
I would trust
this way, and you likewise.
So we'll hide
on the moon, and I'll give you my life
when living is too hard,
and you'll lend me your body
when we need to escape
a long ways away from this world,
grinding machine,
nature of harm.

Needlepoint

"I have no purpose in life!"
I shouted, breathed as a song
light from my lungs, giggling,
Goddess-given thelema abdicating.
But always tickled in the back of my mind
a wondering:
where did you go, Jett?
Did you really disappear
out that door, made
me watch your back
as you sought to fade
into the night so cold and black?
Were we never really allies?
Was I just making you up all along?

How wrong I was.
How very very wrong.

You're pulling me out,
pulling me in,
like a needle with
delicate golden thread.
You're stitching me into a tapestry
spent a whole year learning to weave,
a year to gain the skills to be free
in a world you promised to create
with
me.

Pull the point closer.
Driving to a beach
in search of some closure
for a family I haven't seen
properly since I was sixteen.
Sure, our bodies may have been close,
our words reaching some parts of our brains.
Who knows?
Not me,
sitting in the back seat
until the van
skids on sand.
Your hand,
your elbow,
your touch
around my shoulders,
sent through a window.
We tumble onto the shore,
twisted ankle only harm
as the van careens
into the sea.

Push the point away.
You're staying
on the other side of town,
seedy district with more than
enough crime to go around.
And we women are living it up in the deluxe suite.
And your group of friends is thinking we should meet
up again, and they'll stay in the rooms in the other end
of the suite. Temporary discomfort, boy cooties,
are better than getting a hole blown in one's head.

Pull the needle to you again.
Tie a knot. Different thread.
We've reached the part where you and I
have safely softly landed from the sky.
The humans are watching a play,
actors far below on the open-air stage.
But you're watching me instead
in our hidden place in the rafters.
The hairs
raising on my unshaven
arms more of a swoon than the best portrayal
of falling in love. And fall you want to,
hand taken like a tree branch
a child climbs knowing the branch will
snap but dares to try anyway.
We sneak out, come to a pool of azure water
all too still. Deep end of pool, aqua tiles
going on forever below.
You don't know
how deep it is. But you want to know.
You want to know
I'll come down with you,
follow you anywhere.
And I would follow you anywhere.
And anywhere this time
is an underwater cave
where my lungs still
fill
with air
and light twinkles from every speck of dirt,
every tile too smooth to hurt,
and, for a brief moment in time,
I forget how to despair.

Careerwoman

The whole world will have to die
before I stop being I.
But as we sat on opposite
ends of the table,
I could not meet her eyes,
could barely bring myself to admit:
I did not want to despise
her, did not want to
impoverish her life,
did not want to trap her in my world,
regressing to wanting to die.

What words could possibly describe
the peace I felt with her at my side?
What soft hymn, what throbbed note
could loosen those words from my throat?

"I cannot tolerate
this life of duality,"
I just barely breathed,
"cannot stand being separate,
unable to perceive
the woman I would so readily
pledge my forever to
and abandon all else,
this world eschew.

I do not want to replicate
this life I now lead which I so fiercely hate:
the father comes home from work, all worn out,
and the mother complains about the mold in the grout
and the crust on the walls
and the clutter in the halls,
and they shout and they row and they tussle and they fight
and their yelling echoes through the house and keeps the kids up all night.
I do not want to lie in wait
every night, fearing the pain
from a wound, from an accident at work
I was not there to heal, to alleviate the hurt.
Please don't deem my fears overblown.
What if you die one day
while away
or simply never come home?"

And she gazed at me
with those sunset eyes
and wings of dusk not too far behind,
her gentle fingers
outstretched to me
close enough to feel me breathe.
Something small, brown, first mistaken for a mole
or a sun spot from all
the hours spent embracing the sky.

"You see this pear seed?
Miniscule now, but full of possibility.
It could be a sprout that dies at birth,
or it could be a deep-rooted tree,
a sturdy bridge between sky and earth.
You know I can't see
the future. But I can see what transpires
now. And now
is a seed, a moment, a single thought
that yearns to be planted, to grow higher
and higher
and higher
as if there was never
any end to the atmosphere.

There is no need to fear,
Lethe. I can take care of myself.
No cause to worry about stumbling into hell.
The Outside
has many delights.
Ironic, then, it is that in you,
the goddess of extremes only I can subdue,
I find my only stability.
Lethe, it's only ever been with you
I've wanted to spend eternity."

It Was Primrose

I must hold onto the hope that someday
life won't be synonymous with pain,
that come Eschaton's end
I can stand at the bend
in the path home,
your iris sunset unbottled
in the sky over Sablade,
heart no longer heavy, finally okay.

I want to hold you in my arms
without the persistent fear
that you'll disappear
come the morning light.
I want to be able to breathe
without my words stolen by a plead:
"Please, Jett, I don't want to wake up.
Steal my life. Don't let me leave."
But although the petals flutter to the ground
and beyond the balcony the land recedes
to a glittering lake that from here makes no sound,
but although you feel this feeling too,
the war still rages on
and I have too many songs
still unsung from this chest of mine
and there is nothing you can yet do.

It was supposed to be a party,
not a sortie,
not an ambush by Hidehaji,
the last surviving of Eris' generals.
From the balcony we fall,
rosy
floaty
dress
you made for me, not expecting duress,
absolutely no help at all.

Dispatched in an instant.
Safe for the moment.

But this clearing is worse for wear.
And the light
won't let me stay by
your side,
not even with a prayer.

you know I would have been glad to skip work if you had stayed longer

I am surrounded
by a thousand
blades, green,
needles softer than my own skin
but too flimsy to sew with.

A reminder
not to sit
down willy-nilly.
There's shit all over the backyard.

Come inside.
The sheets are soft.
The veins of outside air
pump through the ice, so frail.
The damn heating's always on.
Lay down. Rest
your head on my chest.
I will want
for naught
else but this.

How Many Others?

Dying leaves are falling on the ground
that surrounds
Dead End Shrine,
and I cannot tell
if the shrill
sound
bleating
in the trees
is an insect begging to mate
or somebody's death scream.
I cannot tell if this heartbeat
is that of my thumb or my computer,
disk pumping, needle thrashing,
writing, still alive,
still with more stories to tell.

My lover's scarf and mine
intertwined
on a wooden post no human eye
can see,
halfway between consensus reality
and home.
The sun has retired to behind the trees,
and on the bike path,
across from this shed,
I see you standing in light's stead.

Twice you ask me to join you.
Twice I refuse.
There is a world I want to make.
There is already someone I would choose
a million times over
before I even consider to subsume
myself into the forces of one
who deems themselves fit to rule.
I know that you mean well.
I know you know how my heart aches.
But this life has been cruel, and I cannot take
even one more day of servitude.

Izquierda

So revolves once more
the ceaseless wheel of time
for poor little Lethe,
who could not break free
of the sublime.

I am weary of living,
of always giving
my life force away
to people who would rather I stay,
not for the affection,
not for the fervor,
but because it means
one more pair of arms
to use as free labor.

In heat death's throes,
I saw you and me
lying on a chamber's marble floor,
preparing to seal ourselves away to sleep.
Your legs resting against my back,
and I likewise.
I did not catch the length
or the reason why
such a brightly shining soul as you
would accompany me as I pretend to die.

But I suppose that I have been
like this for too long,
and you'd relent if only
to make my heart's desperate throbs
stop,
to see me finally breathe
out in relief.
It can always be reversed.
It won't cause any harm at all.
"I love you so much, Lethe.
My heart? You have it all."

Love Is A Special Consideration For Another

I rearranged the magnets on my desktop
the other day, had to stop
only because I ran out of room
for reminders of you.
I can't say they're helpful,
especially the doodle
of you, devil-horned, beckoning me into hell;
a distraction, my eyes always tracing
the gray outlines, searching for your face.

And as you showed me once, where you work,
your bedroom-sized office, you've also shirked
the duty
of rearranging
everything else on your desk
to be less
of a mess:
the miniature globe,
toy computer long without a home,
blank bedsheet hung up on the wall
to be a backdrop for watching
friends' projected chatting,
words passing by a tower tall.

And a little less glamorous
than my always-warmed bed,
you've a pull-out
couch
to rest your sorry head
on
when the weather's not calm enough to abide
you slipping away for a few hours into the Inside.

I hope you know you're my moon.
The tides
inside
my body will go on for a little while without you.

But not for forever.

Because you promised I'd spend forever
under
that baby-blue sky, not severed
any longer
from your touch, from your presence.
When I build a house, I'll leave a room
for your disorganized rambunctious office,
and whenever you miss
me, love will always be
just a room away.

The Key Turns

All empires eventually crumble.
All dams eventually break.
And as I lay there in bed,
trying my best not to wake
from the desperate pounding pain
of an infection,
you came to my side
with a kiss and a blessing.

For the basement below was due for another burst,
and I suppose my body had heard the news first.
But what else is this body
if not an augury
for what next in my life will become cursed?

"Lethe, I can't keep this a secret any longer.
Your parents are not immortal. And when your father
finally expires,
the energy escaping the moment he dies
will rip a hole through the Outside
higher
than any I've ever seen.
I don't know if this dimension will survive."

What am I supposed to do with this information?
I, lying here, halfway to sedation
from sleeping pills
and doctor-filled
prescription?

"You don't have to do anything but listen
for now. Act only after you've healed.
It'll be a long time yet, so... don't worry.
Whether it's tomorrow or in twenty years,
I'll be at your side. I'll be your shield."

Parley

Running my plans past the one I love:
I cannot deny it any longer. I am a dove.
And I'd rather sacrifice myself and die
than spend one more day
separate
from you because you have to fight.

"Lethe, that's why
I've been trying
to keep you out of the war.
You've long lost the ability
to conceive
of others as your enemies.
You want to befriend every damn shade
that even deigns
to stand in your way.
You're tiring sometimes, you know that?
We can't live like this forever."

I am not trying to surrender.
I am trying to end
this war without further bloodshed.

And so
it goes
on an airship. Where? Nobody knows.
I call out the tyrant's name. "Hidehaji!"
And he appears before me,
having cleaved
a black hole in the sky,
shelled in armor, matte, not too bright.

But instead of parleying for peace as I thought,
we pass the time engaged in small talk
and occasionally a thought
too big to hold prisoner in one's mouth.
His favorite day is Wednesday.
He's got a daughter he loves more than he can say.
He wishes he could go back to before he learned how to hate.

And once I forgive him,
he keels over the helm
and suddenly ceases
to breathe.

Beauty Mark

Rough hands take the canvas,
money-bribed,
stretch the sides
until they are back in align-
ment, no need to concern oneself with
the runs now in the fabric.
Scalpel sees a cyst,
digs in.
Canvas lays inert, unable to resist.
White powder, red nails,
rearranging entrails
and the creaking wooden frame.

Gentle hands that have known war and love the same
string it up, hanging firm, taking care to avoid pain.
Restringing the loose canvas. See? There are flaws,
but they'll just make the painting more breathtaking to come across.
Pinks and blues and purples. Note brushed on its wrist:
There's a girl I love, and I want to give her a kiss.
Chest aching from before. "I don't want to lie in bed."
Sly smirk quick, easy to miss, red streak rubbed down instead.

Contrast

I promised myself I wouldn't force my hands to write
on days spent on long car voyages coming home from trips.
But the bats were always better at calculus than me,
and I, given any wings, would think of naught but to flip
in the air, twirls, pirouettes,
even if it meant being captured, displayed in glass tanks.

Scarlet tanager,
jar of amber
liquid, time long since ran out.
This tomb is mere water, open lid,
open-casket funeral
with no intentions of burial alive.
Glass display. Nowhere to hide.
Your hide
is night,
and I the winter sky
overcast,
when broken free
seeking your span to rest.

Before The Path Gets Snowed Over

Lots of people on the trail,
but none stop to ask where will I go.
I've got to head
to Dead
End Shrine
one last time
before it snows.
The last time, I shirked,
waiting for mail's packages,
so I've got to make this trip happen
before winter this land ravages.

My bike's battery is almost dead,
and Mother calls, phone on silent,
asking what the hell's gotten into my head
to head
out in such a deadly wind chill.
"Not colder than your affection,
not more dead than the house
wants me
to be,
will
to resist, to live on my own,
forever lying still."

Wouldn't it be funny,
I ponder in this moment,
if Parthena took me
to her home without warning?
I promised Jett I'd finish writing
this book, bide
the friends who'd made this life
a little easier to bear
goodbye,
take care of myself in the meantime.
But angels want to go home,
to be sucked back into the sky
knowing at journey's end all will be alright.

And what scares
me is that I don't think
I would even care
to resist.

Unbondage

If you love someone,
set them free.
Untie the bonds
you wrapped them with,
even if they plead
not to, even if they stare
blankly back, unbound,
wondering why the hell you care
so much.
"I suspect
you just wanted
the pressure."
Gather them up in your arms.
"There's this girl,
and I love her
so much,
and I wish she granted herself the same."

I Keep Repeating Myself

Is it true
you'd
rather rip yourself apart at the seams
than lose me?
Even though the closest
you've ever asked in return
was that one night, frozen,
waiting for doctors to discern
whether it was possible to be unsharded again?
You always accused me of being shy.
But I kissed you goodbye
then,
and I'll do it again:
You're the only one I want to spend my life with.

Ataxia

Rough night has passed, and all I know
of what transpired is that two fake loves showed
up in my room, yanked me out of bed,
said something suspicious, got kicked out instead.
And the real one appeared after I reached for my glass
jar kept under my bed, protection spell, fast
results,
reached out to hold
me as I almost threw up
from the stress.

But I don't remember a damn thing that happened
after that. What did I say? What message did she send
while I was on the verge of sleep and wake,
stomach roiling, hands unable to cease their quake?
"Please, my love, send me a sign,"
I plead as I roll onto the floor,
throat parched, waterbottle empty. Need more
water. "Was I incorrigible? Did I step out of line?"

Mother's phone pings as I'm refilling my waterbottle
after shuffling up the stairs, freezing, in a huddle
against the warmth of the dishwasher vent's steam burst.
He wasn't sure at first.

Maybe I was drunk on despair, and you had relapsed
on sleeping herbs, enough to get high but not to collapse,
and we'd had rough enough coitus to misalign
my body. I wouldn't be surprised.
But this is the first time I'd ever thought to vomit
after your touch, usually so soft,
so healing,
so reassuring.

Maybe I was right, and I really am dying.

Unchaste / Unchastise

Buildings rise
into the dirty skyline
of this midnight
city,
unpainted wood, barely
finished.
And I am hoping
I am not nearing
my own end,
shoulder pulsing,
chunk of flesh missing.

"Where were you?" I asked,
and you said maybe it was
my own fault I was harmed,
refusal to protect myself the cause.
The Outside bears no rhyme or reason,
burdens itself with no laws.
And I cannot always expect
a hero to save me each
time.
Much less her, running out of time,
nobody left to beseech
to postpone
packing day, leaving home,
off to college she goes.
She can give me a recipe
for a jar
to put under my bed,
but unless I follow it to a T, I'll likely end up dead.

Part of me always suspected
without good cause that your skin
was permanently chilled from all the ingestion
of sleeping drugs way back when our friendship began,
you already in full swing, halfway to death
but never really wanting to die,
just cease the burden of being alive.
This moment, the only evidence that I was right:
your presence frigid, pristine shoulder cold,
more likely to slap or break up than to hold.

A plea:
is this the end of you and me,
or does our bond still ring true?
You take my hand, trace with my fingers
even though the disappointment still lingers:

I have always loved you.

Angel Number 1114

I'm staring up at the clouds.
I was told that angels put signs
in the sky,
move the whole world to make oceans align,
even just to let one
know they are still loved.

But what do angels do, desperate,
when they themselves
need help?
Drag themselves across a frigate,
shell-shocked shore,
break through beachside temple's doors
to cut through crowds
of corpse-filled shrouds
to broadcast a signal of distress.

To whom does an angel turn
when they find themselves under duress
and cannot bring themselves to bow
to a god who once yearned
to see them take their final breath,
who was more than happy
to abandon them to burn
to death?

From whom does an angel expect a reply
lying down on the morning-frosted grass
in front of their dorm on campus?
What clouds could this wretched
enfleshed
body of mine from here shape?
What needed sign? What shard of light?
What fortunate twist of fate?

First Field Trip / First Date

You have no plastic sled to drag me around
in lieu of always watching me fall down
on the hard surface
of the ice.
Even though I would love to be pulled behind
you, no "special" kids to hog
the spots.
(Though technically I was one too,
and should have been allowed to stay
or lent an "ice walker" so I could remain
upright.)

"You sure are a sight
for sore eyes-"
I lose my balance once again.
Full weight
crashes onto the ice,
but at least I was careful not
to impale someone with my skates.

You laugh as you help me up,
and I pick the worst possible time
to ask: "I'm curious. You would know.
Was I Parthena in a past life?"

Blank stare blatant enough
that I should know to wince.
"Have you completely lost your mind?
You're kidding, right? Are you serious?
Of course not."

you weren't expected to come along

This is no government facility,
and I don't want you coming down with me.
Shocker, right?
The suits fit tight,
and I don't want you panicking
because you can't use your wings.
I have to go through this alone.
These are my sins I have to atone
for.

You say you're coming anyway? That you insist?
Well, I suppose. You know I can't resist
anything you've made your mind up on.
You know I don't have the heart to forbid
you from being at my side.
Come along, then. Grip the handrails
like you're holding on for dear life,
because we will be once we cross event horizon.

...We've arrived. Did you get hurt from the jolt?
Here's my shoulder. Lean on it as we behold
what nonsense lies
in the deepest recesses of my mind.
And yet this is the shallowest layer.
I suppose we're lucky the shower
of sparks in the corner
is the only real danger
in this slice of here...

Compact

There's a house at the bottom of a hill
I will
likely never get
the chance to see again.
Roof almost unblemished
from having never seen the rain,
sheltered by the domed canopy
extending all around like a mother's hug.
Not the first tree whose roots I'd tried to see
the bottom of,
the beginning,
the middle,
the end.

"My tutor Adeline
told me stories
about a walking sunset.
Eyes
the color of the sky
right before it dipped below the hori-
zon, wings the sky right
afterwards."

I've always wanted to drown
myself in the sky. And from where I sat
looking down
at your face, default vacant frown
almost a smile, I had
the audacity to make the jump,
bend over, press my lips
to yours.
It wasn't the first-
that was hearticular womanslaughter,
kiss-and-run-
but it was the first we hid
not.

I wanted to tie the knot
there, underneath that tree
beside the tiny house I will never see
again.
That was the first place I could conceive
of a happy ending
for me.

You keep trying to assure me that it's just delayed,
that there will be plenty of trees in Sablade
to brush my fingers along the roots of,
try to find the tips
where the tree takes sips
of the earth without shame.
But I'm trying to find the start,
the original root
where I poured my heart
out to you
as you lay on the ground with your head in my lap.
I'm trying to not cry with it sap
whenever a piece of bark
chips off,
a memory severed, forgotten, apart.

I'm looking for the end,
the middle,
the beginning.
The tiny house where I first
heard
a bird sing,
coaxed a song out of
with the gentlest touch.
Where I had spent
so many afternoons watching you breathe,
keeping hold
of your pulse
when life was too much to bear.
The shelf with books that
hurt too much to read,
the jar with treats
for when the stray cat
would come by,
tail all crooked and bent.

And I know there will be lots of space
in Sablade
for each of us to have a room,
a forever of nights
to climb
each other's soft skin,
to weave a new story on your loom.
I know I should be focused on the future,
on the new memories we'll write together.
But I don't think it's too much to ask
to be able
to remember.

Likewise

I've got a funny little shrine set up on one of my shelves.
It's dedicated to you; it gets me through these days of hell.
But one day your gaze loomed
and from your lips effumed:
"I don't need any toys, but I kinda do need you."

When Roads Disappear

There's a dense fog rolling in
like the ocean at high
tide,
and I can't for the life
of me
see
what lies
on the horizon.

It can't be fatal familial
insomnia, for I'm sleeping well
over ten hours a day,
and nobody else in this house feels the same way
I do: that the need has arrived
to curl up in a hole in the ground, disregarding all time,
and hope I find
come time to awake
that I haven't in the process died.

And I don't think it's inflammatory
breast
cancer, for even though it seems
there's a volcano lurking deep within my chest
ready to burst at the Eschaton's behest,
the diagnostic criteria say it must
have started less than six months
ago, and I've been dealing with the bumps
for a little over three years.
Three years! That's how long it's been
since you burst into my dorm room with your pent-
up lust and pulled me through closet door hole
and showed me warmth when all else was fierce cold.

Maybe it's head trauma. Because even though I
haven't so much as broken a bone in my whole life,
I know first-hand
that you have.
A vision you gave
me of being fitted for a cast
after our first romp down Yewiffe,
into left arm flowing drugs to sedate,
just enough to halt an anxiety attack,
not enough to drift to sleep.
Broken right forearm and mild concussion
was that poor doctor's diagnosis,
and the whole time
your head was light
and you were insist-
ing he know:
"There's this girl that I love,
and I gave her part of my soul."

Christmas Adam

Completely wiped the morning after Christmas.
Adam, maybe, if what came before is Eve,
hazy day all nice and sweet,
and now rough and bitterly incomplete.
I've been in bed twelve hours, but no amount of sleep
will make me feel rested, or help you be less piss-
drunk. How quickly did Momenlaw wake when you screamed
my name into the night, not from pleasure,
but from missing me something fierce?
The first time in (unreliable) memory
I'd heard you wail,
throat full of tears,
speech incoherent
except for one thing, all the messenger sent:
"Lethe, I love you, and I don't think I can wait years."

Regna Apocalyptica

Hounded
by guns
and burning lungs,
a fountain
later, collapsing at
your feet.
You watch as light blankets
me, replaces my angel body sweet
with the monster, the tool
piloted by a mother so cruel
to plunge the world into the Three Years
in Absentia. I'm exhausted. Tears
would shed from my one lonely eye
were it possible for insects to cry.
Pincers hanging off the sides
of the outer concrete ring
inexplicably in the middle of a lake,
land too far away to the horizon break.
But you have no fear that I'll sting
you as you brush your hand along every ridge
sticking out from my spine,
no fear I'll snap and become unhinged.
I just lay there, inert, breathing.
You pull out a brush after has passed little time
and gently scrub away a world's worth of grime
from what I suppose could be called my skin.

But I can't stay forever in the Outside
yet, and I soon wake up, fuzzy feeling within
as I lay in bed. Five in the morning,
head swimming, stomach starving.
But I can't move. I'm too busy reliving
the feel of the bristles, not
too rough to hurt, but not too soft
to be ineffectual, either.

It takes a pounding stomach to sever
me
from the bedsheets. It takes
until I'm in the kitchen to panic
once again: did I use my powers to manipulate
you into tolerating me? Because I know I wanted it,
wanted you to brush me, hold me in your lap,
wordlessly soothe that when with you I nothing lack.
And you gave me what I desired,
even though
I know
I deserve naught but to be thrown to the fire
and left to burn
for the sin of for my redemption daring to yearn.

"Lethe. You fucking idiot. You know I hate
it when you self-deprecate.
I'm getting tired of you always trying to bait
for affection like you don't deserve
it without having to flagellate
yourself to earn
even the smallest crumb.

Why are you like this? Do you think I'm dumb
or something? That I don't see,
even unintentional, you're subtly implying
I've been lying
about loving you this whole time?
If you had the power to force others
to love you, you wouldn't have
such a precarious home life,
wouldn't have bombed out with your first lover-
I'm not saying that was your fault-
wouldn't have gone through forced isolation by your dad,
wouldn't have a single damn reason to be sad.
Do you understand,
Lethe,
the grief
you put me through, that you're giving to me still?
Everything I've ever done for you was of my own free will."

Residual

Corpses are said to be cold,
although
I've never touched one.
You can't hold
a corpse's hand after a certain point.
The flesh bloats, the joints
seize up and then disintegrate.

What am I supposed to say
to my parents, alternating between "beg" and "pray
to" their God for my return to a life
they control?
They don't know I'm awake,
don't know I see how the light
from the hallway
spills into the otherwise pitch-black room.
Or maybe I'm not actually conscious, and I'm separate
from my body, cord waiting to be severed.

"I thought I said
I wanted to spend
forever
with you."
Arctic draft rolls into the room,
but my parents don't notice,
don't take note of the delicate lotus
embroidered on your cloak's breast.
"Forgive me if I'm running late.
Your uncle would have come instead,
but he sent me at my behest
that I keep my promise.
I'm not leaving you behind.
Now get out of bed."

Gentle pneuma,
enfleshed god's last breath
in a world none should be forced to roam.

"Is it finally time
for me to come home?"

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

VANE VANDER, in another timeline, would have been a völva. Unfortunately, in this one, she has been relegated to clicking links and opening tabs. When having managed to pull herself away from her computer, she spends her free time hibernating like a wild animal, abusing her ISP's unlimited bandwidth to hoard books by women, and doing her best to not accidentally burn her house down with a drawer full of candles. She can be found stuck in an endless loop of rewrites at mayvaneday.org.

Copyright © 2023-2025 Vane Vander. All rights reserved as detailed in Copyright.