i.

moonlight whispers against your collarbone, all but silent silk sticking to milky-white skin / you feel it, rather than see it / you do not remember how you arrived here. nevertheless, it does not matter: the drumming of waves beyond your ears and between your lips will act as your guide.

your breath catches in your throat, and you almost laugh because / you realize / like breath, what is essential for life is both abundant and precious, until it’s neither. will you risk that to plunge under waves of uncertainty for a glimpse of omniscience?

your eyes flutter under closed lids. / what is hidden hides for a reason / and perhaps this choir of waves crescendoing below deserves privacy. perhaps not. you do not know.

you open your eyes

ii.

well-worn waves dine on the stars with jagged teeth. you think you see something under the scraps of scattered reflection adorning the surface, but perhaps it’s all / abyss /

neptune calls to you with saltwater knives. licking your toes. stinging your knees / red / raw / wrapping frostbitten shadows round your waist. barnacles nip at the soles of your feet like impatient hounds.

you create ripples in the water as you wade further. you think: maybe the ocean is communicating through cryptic metaphors. the water is silent. you receive no answer tonight.

you hold your breath

iii.

there is this unspeakable fear that pulls on your wrists like rusty chains, pulls on your neck like slowly-numbing fingers, / yet / you’ve been taught not to let your knees buckle under the crippling weight of a shivering midnight. and so /

you drop your robe. slithering down your shoulders, fluttering lifeless behind you, carried away by conspiratorial waves. exposing you to a midnight jury, luminescent skin rubbed / red / raw / by icy water. dawn is far from the horizon, so you hope this inky wetness below, this cavern of nothingness, will be your guardian.

you dive

and if she drops like afternoon rain,

may her heart bloom with daisies

and her smile bear springtime fruit

and may honeycomb, sweet as she,

tickle her ears like whispers carried on the winds

and if she stays on an uphill climb,

may she face her obstacles headon

so they blossom with the glow

of her luminescent eyes

may flora and fauna rise softly under her fingertips

and become ornaments caressed by the mountain she climbs

and if she soars, oh, if she soars,

may she soar on blessed wings

shaped from the constellations etched in her memory

and may she light up each morning

like a fresh sun hatching from its chrysalis

settled sleepily on the horizon

drop, stay, soar, and may she take to the skies

with flames in her soul and stars in her eyes

and when we carried cardboard christmas boxes from the attic, i thought / perhaps they were dust-ridden, but the gritty cloth rags in our calloused hands / cleaned our flesh and souls of year-long dust, too / a year sapped of colour trapped us so far in the grey / it took me to the moment i plugged in the lights / to pull me back to the

/ glow /

when one finds themself in the grey, it is too easy to frown / to let their head swim until the sickly sweet summer fades away / and here we are, december, and / i never thought plastic lights could make me cry tears of relief / red / glistening like rubies wet with winter rain / green / an echo of the thinly-spun pine needles clinging to our tree / white / scattered like a jester's tricks across our freshly awoken walls / and in our christmas lights i think / i might have seen

/ salvation /

on sunday she broke sixteen

whereupon a sleeping city she rose

in the liquid hesitancy between nightfall and dawn

an indigo slit upon the horizon

gaping, lifting, severing the sky,

spilling over the twilight valleys

from which she sprung;

she caressed the interstellar space

draped between her libra stars and her lonely october moon

she painted blinding auroras from the top

and upon her land a morning dropped

the sun broke light and quick and sixteen

broke full of joy and life, a sun

that radiated power and shivered with opportunity,

a protector wielding a sword of peonies, allure, and love

shining where circe embraced last night's setting sun

slithering through dawn like secrets between lovers

on sunday she broke sixteen

and she broke sixteen sweet

when shadowed becomes the present

memories drip like glaciers

icy skin threatened by the sun

familiarities beading, rolling, collecting in pools

she waxes soft and springy like

buttery july afternoons

in hazy summers that settled thick as fog

hanging in the air, a gaudy chandelier

light stretched thin by yesterday's ghosts

and ocean spray smelled of broken bits and pieces

of relationships she lost

and those she refused to remake

of the incandescent smile which fluttered beneath his skin and

them, the tickle in their throat which may or may not have

been a laugh;

and this spinning snow becomes psychotic

and it falls and falls

when will we rise?

wax soft and springy, my dear

when shadowed becomes the present

memories drip like glaciers

and after she drank down the last bitter dregs of humanity

she could stagger towards home, rip off her shoes and

think about life for a while

she associated summer with saturation

speckled sunlight turned leaves into chartreuse celestial deities

glowing faintly under a periwinkle sky

and in those moments where time itself lingered in

the dusty compartment between chaos and serenity

she could see the colour of water, which, like

everything else, had saturated in the blanketed heat of july

and maybe it was her imagination, but

early morning stirred in her the most isolated sense of life

a spot in which she could reflect and ruminate

a place where she became the only wandering soul

left on the planet, a moment captured in slow motion, a

dream strung together from melancholic memories

for only a few moments

before the sun rose

she was someone who sat in the backs of cafes, her

bookbag cluttered with crushed volumes, marked

in pencil and ringed with old coffee stains

someone who regarded the coffeehouse singer's plaintive voice

with something like admiration, who thought the lyrics an argument

and respectfully made her own claims, who kept

poetic nonsense scribbled in pen on her arms and ensured

the singer could see her caffeine-stimulated eyes

supporting them with every blink and breath

and maybe when chaos overthrew that strange, suspended serenity, collected

itself into a pill and dropped into her glass of humanity

she could distract the chaos by thinking of the small things

because the big things could smash her life apart

and the small things would bring it back

once upon the sky

the stars were a compromise

between the night who filled

a loose sunset dome

and the moon

who glistened upon lonely oceans

and ignited the faces of wandering solivagants;

the night had told the moon

help me, oh moon

you are so bright

and your tides attack our children down below

with the vilest sprays

and i worry someday they will drown

and the moon replied

without me, your darkness

would cause hysteria and confusion

leaving our children down below to scrape by

alone and haunted

until dawn

and so the moon scattered its tears among the night,

drew back just enough

to calm the tides and make peace with the dark

and from its tears grew glittering stars

and their children down below

pointed at the moon's tears

and upon them made wishes

they hoped could come true

and strung them together

and called them constellations;

the night grew to love its twinkling gems

spinning unmistakeably, aeviternally;

the moon was content to let

her tears wet the sky in

the most confusing of seas

and together they watched

two of their children down below

gazing up at them, hand in hand

and one whispered

do you see the sky tonight?

the night embraces the moon

and the moon lights the water;

like a family

whereupon the second child frowned and asked

but where could the stars fit in

up in that big black dome?

what purpose do they serve?

but the first child merely smiled

and she lifted her eyes to the night and the moon and the stars

and the girl swore she saw them smiling back

and she said

and the stars shine

the child hiding under your skin

has poison frothing

beneath her fingernails

for your lungs crush her tight

and your throat wishes

to swallow her whole

but the more you fight

the more she drowns

the more she pulls you with her

mind shuddering with tremors of an aftershock

reduced to roman ruins

begging for you to release her

but you take her hope

and demolish that, too

we forget the face of fear yet

we're unsurprised when it strikes

darkness precedes the dawn

so when twilight strings faded constellations

across a dome of ink

how are we to know

the sun will wake again?

fear wears many faces

a wall of masks

which for this special occasion?

a dance of sparks

that burn and burn

across our humble fingertips

a breath in the incandescent laugh

of winter, and a jagged cut along

the cheek of an old prophecy

that we must fulfill again

and again

and again

and still we cower from slipping suns

hiding under planks of rotten wood

sunken with years of boots and memories

where we wait for the thin light of morning

to pool on our faces

and banish our fear to the recesses of our minds,

our cages of cowardice

that disguise themselves as spring flowers

because you hid yourself away

from curious eyes,

breath shallow,

throat tightening,

and nothing could mollify

the fire licking your intestines

you appreciate it, you do

here in the waiting room

fluorescent lights that are

oh so good at blinding

lemon disinfectant

p e r m e a t e s

the air and you

can't breathe

and somehow

you like it

you kept things from them

you thought they wouldn't want to hear

dancing widdershins around your own feelings

because feelings are for the real ones

and fantasy is an escape

but here when your only task is to feel

your heart torn open with the

most precise scalpel

and digging around in there

they try to find why you feel so

l o s t

and present you with solutions

and you smile because they are trying to help you

they do not expostulate with you like the others

and you thank them for that

bottling emotions like water

swallowing them and they have

the most bitter aftertaste

enough to make you spit them up again

soon as you get here

because you wait for this place

and it's a bitch

it's such a bitch

and maybe that's why you're healing