Everything is clear.
All you tried to give me
I can now accept,
In this state,
In this altered reality.
It’s really not that bad,
To feel more than you thought you could feel,
To feel more than they say you should feel.
Everything is clear
When I can see your face un-obscured,
Untainted by the reality they bring to us as chains.
What I wanted you to give me
I now place before your feet.
I won’t ask
For what I’m not willing to receive.
I am not afraid
To step through
Into the blazing light,
To leave a life of shadows
That taught me to fear day.
But this darkness I called home
Will not fade so easily.
It’ll try to clutch me as its prize,
And stay behind waiting
While I manage to flee.
And sometimes I’ll want to stay
And I’ll seek out the shadows once more,
My home that for so long,
Made up what was me.
But I will kiss its black mouth,
Smooth my hand down its sleek skin,
One last time,
And turn to join night’s sworn enemy.
We came here together
To see what we could see,
To see if the seas would be different
Amongst other people’s eyes.
Light all around –
Above,
Below –
And the unmeasured water is all that you can see.
Light all around –
Above,
Below –
And I think that I may be safe at sea.
Enlightened,
Crazy,
I draw nearer to the edge,
And join your gazing, downward face.
A moment.
A waiting.
A shift.
I feel others come close.
The light bounces off the waves
And hits you in the eye.
You stagger and fall backwards
Into the waiting crowd.
There was once a cage
But now I’ve broken free –
I saw your face watch me through the glass
And I took a hammer to the reflection of your eyes.
I tried everything I was brave enough to try,
But cowardice runs deep,
And prudence maimed my feet.
But now I’ve broken free,
And I leave you my cell bars
To throw as daggers to try to trip my feet.
I run fast, as fast as my foolish heart will take me.
You never did say how long you’d watch me go.
Stretch out my arms
To meet your gaze
Bring our distance close
To find our meeting end.
I reach for your face
As you reach for my throat
There’s no greater sound
Than my words left unsaid.
Our twisting bodies twist,
Together,
And away.
Find our meaning in the way
You never let me see your face.
Together,
Then away,
Through the “nowhere else to be”,
Familiarity beats out courage
In a wasted land of space.
We’re stuck in this same town,
Same music,
Drinking the same drink,
Filling the same cemeteries,
At the end of our days.
Do not let me go,
Or I will fall away.
I fall away
At your gaze,
At your voice,
At your skin touching mine.
I fall away at every word you’ve ever said.
Stretch out my arms to chain you by my side.
You wanted to leave — I let you —
But now you’re here for my name
You choke out in endless echoes.
Together,
Then away,
Through the “time has ceased to be”.
I return to our courage-less bars,
Our courage-less songs,
Our frequented cemeteries.
Bury me beneath your ground.
I fall away
At your name,
At your face,
At your eyes slicing mine.
I fall away at every word you’ve ever said.
Stretch out my arms
To morph your body into mine.
Forever I’ll choke on your fist down my throat.
Tell me you don’t love me, just one more time,
And I’ll fall away at every word you’ve never said.
In the state we’re in, we’ll not go far.
In the state we’re in, we may not make it till tomorrow.
The streets narrow the closer we get to their end.
The rivers lose their rushing the nearer we come to their edge.
The wolves come out to play (for them) and to devour (for us).
In the state we’re in, we’ll not make it past this night.
But we’ll try, simply because we will not go back.
We’ll try; we’ll fight. We’ll chase the moon around the earth as long as it will lead us.
The answers we once knew fly off us as we run forward, like leaves being stripped off branches in violent wind. Once defining arrows now curve into never-ending circles. Once clear-cut lines now smudge and dissolve into eraser dust. This is the state we’re in.
Sometime in the a.m.:
The feeler stays awake, any way she can, through the fog of wine, through the pulse of music, through the rushing of time no hand will stop.
I did not choose to be here, not now, not ever. Yet, continually, it seems, you refuse to tell me why I am.
“I am alive!” people exult every day, but it takes more than what is in me to simply state it for myself.
Yet alive – even if just technically – I am. Grace has kept me from finding the means to willingly change this.
And so the feeler continues, through this night and through as many in which time does not play its hand.
Purpose, come to meet me.
Will, come to save me.
Truth, tread down before me the path to follow.
Time, time, I will stay.
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