a blackness unlike any other slowly relieved by blue, its post forfeited for a rest, for a while, devoid of comfort and warmth but for the melancholic birdsong through the windowpane.
a strange emptiness glued tight to saying the wrong thing every time and a sadness that cannot be swayed, no matter how strong the wind blows, these candles will not go out.
and a yellow light tearing the fog to pieces beneath fingers that only tried to stitch closed wounds, until they shook too much to thread another needle and dig the metal back into skin, searching for another splinter.
a wanderer, in sunlight when the world is cast in shades of ocean blue and the palm trees sway in the winds but do not fall down— death is unbecoming of them, though death is an illusion, a mere side effect of sleight-of-hand that ignores the eternal and focuses the eye instead on the ephemeral:
the fog will always clear, but the sun will always rise, and the birds will sing their melancholy.
April 2: i never lost my way when dreaming of you for my dad.
you were a warning. simple, and clear, you were a warning, and your beacon-brightness focused my eyes away from the rocks and the shore—
you were a guardian. with wisps of smoke greying your hair, you sat on the bench under the lighthouse and clutched your cigarette, your beacon of fire, to guard you—
you were a rhyme. a children's toy, for people to use and abuse until there was so little left you had no idea who you could even be any more—
and you are recovery, a blank slate desperately trying to fill itself in with the mumblings and murmurings of darkness in a seven-year forest with everyone turned against you.
and you are my hope. i wish i never told you that i hated you.
o, lover's cowl wrapped tight around my head to drown me in your arms and see me dead your kisses fall in silence on my cheek to drown me in your arms, o, i am weak
the white-capped waves are gravestones for the lost who ventured out upon the sea, at cost beyond what mortal eye can ever spy a love, a trickery, or yet a lie
and still i love you, o, for i am weak and still i need assurance, i am meek to love the ocean is a daunting task so aid me, o, my love, for you are vast
and some day soon the waves will carry me from edges of the shore into the sea, i shall be washed until i'm naught but sand and then my love will lead me from the land
minds are unquiet things catching every hint of a harmony and fabricating melodies in the rhythm of a polyphonic heartbeat every key pressed down until nothing comes out any more
savoring every second of silence that comes intermittent with moments of peace a skipped breath dangling over the staff in the middle of the most important word and a page break at the most important line
but every hesitation is the death of music
the microphones give nothing but blurs of static to wandering voices fingers snapped to hear the feedback while the choir stares ahead at the intoxicating red glow of the exit signs
whale bones run up spines not ramrod straight but tall with shoulders back and six inch heels hiding broken hemlines while the satin pulls and shows off every flaw every wrinkle
the choir holds its breath but is not silent every eye trained on every movement like it was taught and at last in unison the polyphonic heartbeat has a voice
names were always bitterer on my tongue than they had to be;
from a young age while i still traipsed close behind the edge of my father's trail i repeated my parents' mantra that names shall only be spoken when something is wrong, names shall only have weight when they are accused
and that silver bullet lodged inside my temple was a curse but they showed me it was a blessing because trust and love was for well-adjusted people and we were anything but well-adjusted in those days
hatred is all your children learn from you when your tongue is so sharp it slices them open in two simple syllables.
they named her after a chalk wharf and expected her to grow up beautiful but instead, she grew up overlooked
they forgot about her after she was born and again after she was five and when she was eleven and they split they said to themselves, 'why should she matter?' she is a smudge of chalk on the face of the earth with pink bloodstains on her lips where she has chewed them; her hair might have been white once and her eyes might have been coastline blue, but no longer is she allowed to be beautiful
and when they finally remembered her they couldn't find her: not where they had left her and not anywhere near because she had discovered in their absence that she had legs and she had wings and she had fins and she had dived into the surf and come out with freedom spilling out of her lips like jewels every time she opened her mouth to sing; she had launched into the sky and come back made of sunlight.
they named her after a sheep and ten queens and expected her to grow up daring but instead, she grew up fragile
they put her on a towering pedestal made of glass, always crumbling and she thought that losing her balance was a problem with her and that she should have been able to fix it she is all their expectations shrouded in timidity with too many crowns upon her brow to hold them up and too many tears behind her eyes to hold them back so she leaks sadness like runoff from under her fingernails as they dig into her skin to assuage her nuclear temper
and when she finally realized she was human, she tore the uranium from under her skin and cried all the tears she had been holding back since the day she was born, since the day she was named, she shattered the pedestal under two heavy heels and was proud of the destruction she had made; she melted down the crowns that she had borne and made them into swords to cut down all those who opposed her.
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