The only diagnosis that came to mind was “homesick,” though my head knew I laid in my own bed. My bed, a ravenous beast, swallowing myself and my depression whole. I thought it might be morning, but with the blankets pulled up over my head it was hard to be certain. Sleep would not come, but I did still dream. Your voice tip toeing around inside me. My eyes closed, but me, tripping around behind you. And I could never catch you. My skin aching for your skin. A sunburn crawling across my body, throbbing and slow. And your voice, deep and taunting. And I thought for a moment that maybe you were home. And then I remembered about how I didn’t care. And then I continued to trace the map you tracked across my mind. Searching for your voice. And never making it home.

Do you feel that itch in the back of your head?

Slowing you down

Like shoes full of lead?

Do you wonder now, ‘Were they truths? Were they lies?’

Birthing new ghosts

Behind your eyes,

And all of these memories won’t stay under seal,

All of these things

Were they even real?

Where do you find enough ground to stand on?

When it feels like quicksand

You’re standing upon?

All of these thoughts, they get lost in your mind,

And questions and answers

Are so hard to find,

When every direction leads only to tears,

Why not give in

To all of your fears?

So stay where you are, there’s no need to choose,

And though you won’t win

Nor will you lose.

In this nights hour

A serpent speaks to me

conscious of realities

it whispers beyond belief

A puppet with string

theories of will... not save me

Drama exists in every story

What will this drama become of me?

Manic company.

But when I crash

I’m all smiles!

all smiles

: )

Until I end

motionless limbs

sad twisted pile

Even in a room full of light, I cannot see.

Even my heartbeat is like darkness to me:

Pulsing with pain and agony,

Aching for some small semblance of peace.

My soul opens up, a blister of love:

rejected,

wounded,

lost;

Swelling within me, sincere and certain,

but there can be no more holding it in.

My soul breaks, raw and overflowing

Pain to which there is no end on earth,

Agony which breathes dust and tears,

Aching which breeds two kinds of men:

Those who rise to love and hope again,

And those who descend into the debris of humanity forgotten,

of humanity set aside,

of humanity without dignity, without hope--

Man without sense of Man.

My heartbeat rings softly inside of me:

Of the two, whom shall I be?

I know the one beside me

...My one companion is darkness...

But is my darkness the womb or the tomb?

The choice burning and writhing within me.

When once I have grieved,

whom shall I be?

Your eyes

smiled into mine

and suddenly

I understood

leaping

catching

melting

trembling

in ways I’d never known;

a certain warmth

spread its fingers

creating the sensation

of melting

which in turn

caused an earthquake

of trembling

from head to toe;

my heart leapt

hoping hopelessly

my breath caught

in my chest

between

the leaping heart

and the reality

of the closed space

of my little world

where your eyes

only smile

happy

to share the moment

a glass of wine

a laugh or two

seeing nothing of the

leaping

catching

melting

trembling

hoping

praying

Some days, I turn to you,

Only to be met with a blistering wind

It whips at my cheeks, leaving them cherry red

A wall of ice builds between us,

Frigid to the touch,

So solid,

No way to break through it

I scream, even cry,

But nothing makes it through

To the other side

I feel as if I'm caught in a blizzard,

Vision obscured by translucent tears,

Body shivering for warmth,

Sinking into the deep snow,

One step at a time

Through the infallible storm,

You've suddenly become so distant

Winter blew in... into the kitchen where we huddled by the sink... sinking in the memories that drained us of where we might have been... been rather, last year, or sometime when. When did we get like this? This fixation on the broken. Broken shingles over head where the wind and cold come in force. Forced? as we are to live like children clinging we might have said to the hem of hope. Hope they told us is the mother of the ignorant.. step-kin to Mr. and Mrs. Invention. Invention is in our lineage as well. We'll break habits of old seasons by necessity maybe with a whole new set of blues. 

https://youtu.be/ioOzsi9aHQQ

Don’t mistake me for pity

Don’t mistake me for sympathy

I won’t ever patronise you

Or manipulate your emotions

I have no ulterior motive

I want nothing back

Just to be kind to you in need

Is all that I desire

I believe in kindness

I see the good amongst the bad

People might say I am mad

But I don’t mind

For I do what is right

I will help your plight

I will save your skin

Maybe save your life

A kind word here

A kind act there

Even the smallest of things

Can make a heart sing

To know someone cares

Is my gift to you

My healing is then given

I truly believe in you

In, through her eyes he swims and breaths the sky that reflects within her gaze. Time releases its grasp on order, waves of tears and salty seas roll. She new the time had come. The grey cast of her skin on warmth contrasted to his ripe vitalities stain, as age and sun tell a tale.

Upon gnarled bones of coldness, creases of flesh hang moist and clammy. Brambles and blood and sweat and grime reek from her apron that protects the simple garment beneath. listless and unwashed hair clings to the filth of her demise. Tacky film as thin as skin fuses her cheek close to his. Fevers shiver, long spent, leaves nothing, save the rattle of breath’s labour. As one they are their last waltz’s stage. Performers dressed in scents of sea and age and decades long decayed; no sweeter fragrance could perfumes imitate. No sense of peace and belonging could one fathom more keenly.

Each detail nails its poignance to her conscious that her soul might ever know dear these moments. Faded weather-painted pine, whitewashed in seasons recurring for eons hold the structure together. The veranda hugs them close and camouflages the boundaries between threshold and world, blue upon blue upon grey. A crowd of waves let out their roar like a stadium filled to capacity.

This where, where they were does not exist anymore. It remains preserved in the passages of communication and dimensions that tunnel through time.

Moons of wisdom pass across their eyes and light the way. She falls out of space and into the certainty that love awaits.

Words flee the beauty of inevitability. The breaths remaining grasp frailly for purchase on barnacle encrusted boulders. Jewels of jagged pain cut her senses and rend each muscle useless. Aimless reaching into a life long committed to detachment from preservation takes its toll and surrenders to the path of cycles and returning. To lives yet known and loves yet loved. The end passes into time and becomes a layer in piles of living. The scents of violets and salt skate through the fogs of memory, tickling at the edge of a conscience that she and he could both in a moment of instance share between them. They know that their sharing is nowhere and everywhere in all times.

The air was on fire, yet no flames could be seen with the naked eye. But perhaps that was because the light from the sun scorched every iris that dared peek out from under its over-protective lashes. The flames could be felt though. On the skin that reddened with dislike. In every breath of blistering wind, reluctant to provide the oxygen it should have. On every dry tongue that begged for water until the stomach screamed that it couldn't take any more.

Though there wasn't a desert to be seen for miles, the once-sumptuous soil had turned to sand, steadily melting itself into glass. And the luscious green grass had long since removed its colorful gowns in exchange for dull paper wrappings. Then those sentinel trees--old and experienced as they were--refused to complain, though their younger counterparts passed away in droves of skeletal branches.

There were the grasshoppers too, cooked in their carapaces alongside writhing beetles and foolish worms that dared venture out into the light. The dogs stayed under their porches, sharing shady passages with cats in their desperation to stay cool. And the once-boisterous birds couldn't be seen or heard for miles, so great was their distress.

The one thing that was hoped for--wished for--begged for--simply refused to visit for even the briefest of seconds. The one thing that was sought after more desperately than history could recall, was not a cool breeze, the rain, or storm.

The one thing that was desired above all else--above icy lemonade and frozen popsicles and sweetly dripping ice cream--the one thing that all things desired, as the stones heated to boiling and the ponds turned to steam--was a single cloud, to become a barricade against the sun that set the air aflame.