No Matter That it Burns

Darkness grabs at my ankles like tiny vines; writhing in agony, desperate to be disconnected from their roots.

Still, I persist.

Light peeks in from the corners of my eyes, warped and skewed only at first by salty tear ducts, reluctant to let it in.

But Truth can't hide forever. It must break its way in. It must fuse itself against every cell in my body, not only because I want it to, but because it is absolutely necessary for the freedom of my soul.

A calmness lingers here in the midst of the storm. Angry tears and raging questions fall down in drops and beat against the pavement with no remorse. Yet somehow the beating doesn't tear me down, it builds me up. I know without it, there can be no newness, no freshness, and no washing away of what would have been.

So for now, I stand in the openness of the world, and leave shelter for the birds. I let it bash my skull in, split open my ribcage, and tear my heart out.

The rain washes the blood from the street, and though it stings, I am happy to welcome it.

Ode to Faces

 My skull broke to let you in. We sit in the dark, sharing thoughts like lights fusing shadows around us. We can fold and unfold- bend and break- until we finally have faces.


A dream within a dream, a play within a play, a mind so twisted that it somehow makes sense between us. I was once burning in flames of apathy, salty rivers leaking down my spine until they dissolved into a million streams polluted with fragments of ash and marrow, eventually trickling through the soles of my feet and ceasing to exist when the earth swallowed them whole.

But now I only live to feel.

My thoughts are free, but this time there's not a soul to swallow the loss.  There's no loss to swallow.

Even the static in the quiet air means that life is not through with me. It tangles me tightly in its threads. I am grateful- even for the way it squeezes my wrists, cuts off the circulation to my lungs, and breaks my back... It makes me terrified and comfortable all at the same time.

 Sometimes bones must break before they can heal.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Imagery for a Frozen Heart

The grass cradles sparkling masses of crystalline dew in its narrow folds. Trapped in time: Tiny ice planets frozen in obl iv      i      o n.

Drifting through the cold, muscles surrender to a higher power and the black vortex in the center of my eye contracts. It sucks in the blue speckles and spits them back out. My vision goes numb and I am suddenly

 blind to the world.

A second in time   d    r    u    g   out like a cigarette- overlapping the rest like a greedy machine until they collapse onto each other and the earth stops spinning and sinks into the gut of outer space.

Constellation Dreams

Lenses meet eyes with silky pools of salty solution; my vision glazes over because the planets in my eyes are too tired to orbit.

I have much to consider, always thinking, always trying. I am always dreaming up constellations, mapping them out and making sense of it all. But sometimes my thoughts collide and I have no clarity at all except for the screaming organ in the pit of my core.

Just before my bones collide with the asphalt, I feel my body float in mid air, only infinite for one second before the sensation fails me. I step on tiger stripe shadows, like slender black fingers grasping at the bleached cement. The hot, yellow ball of light radiates through heaven and hell, collapsing at every dead end and drawing shapes on the streets with thick black charcoal.

Today I feel very lost, yet very at home.

Silhouette

The sun bleaches the pigment from my eyes, black silhouettes creep closer like mammoth ghosts and the world is indistinguishable. I follow the deep crevises in the asphalt, tiny trenches of force and destruction. For a moment I feel silent, still, and weightless; floating under a dark lake and holding my breath 'till I reach the surface, gasping for air and then repeat until I'm exhausted.

Today the world is good, my thoughts are free, and I am grateful for the ability to wonder.

Sky Surge

I stop in transition, gaining momentum in the stillness of the night. Time freezes for a second before allowing gravity to pull my heavy heart through the pit of my stomach like a power surge. I kneel down in awe of its wrath.

I turn the page on my calendar, a portrait of fulfillment as I scan months long ago past. It seems like only yesterday I was drowning in liquid misery, but today I feel something that even words can't touch.

Kalyn in the sky with diamonds.

I no longer need to know anything at all, except that

I am.

Shipwreck

Again, I find myself starving. My stomach is empty, barron, and unbearably at rest. I inhale deeply, hoping that the air in my lungs will make up for the nothingness below my ribcage. This familiar desert wasteland is hotter than I remember, but somehow today I find shade where I can rest my shipwrecked honesty on the dusty cracked clay, though I do not hesitate to acknowledge that the silence is piercing.

Time goes by like a vengeful lie, the noise muffled by secrets and restlessness. It's hard to believe it's been so long, though not long enough, not nearly long enough. My thoughts are reckless, like a sobbing symphony of crashing waves. I hear the sand trickle back and forth with the tide; the roar of chaos sucks me in and spits me out, leaving my tears to evaporate under a faceless sun- I pause as the relentless ripple of heat waves drill through the water with angry intentions. If only I could forgive myself; my mind a frenzied sea of questions and accusations that attack my insight like heat seeking missiles. True freedom would be too much to ask without draining the tank to empty its contents back into the polluted sea full of distorted thoughts.

But I do find shade somehow in the midst of the heaviness. There is a Divine purpose in every instance of questionable circumstance, and knowing this, I will forever search for the beauty in existence.