I made a wish on fallen peridot,
that streaked across night's Prussian blue vellum.
It coalesced at your feet,
shimmering,
and I lapped up the dazzle of it,
thirsty,
but you never fully filled my cup,
every day pouring less and less
until I drank sand.
I clung to the coattails of your shadow,
white knuckle gripping that gray ghost of hope,
until the sun rose,
and only my nail marks on the wall
remained.

She lights a single ivory candle,
the warm heat of the solitary light
coaxes a molten puddle,
in the center,
releasing a fading summer scent -
sun-ripened blackberries,
crisped leaves - the ***** smell
of rain in the heat of day.
The wick crackles like a bonfire,
at odds against it's own smallness.
She glimpses herself
within the tender flickering echoes,
embracing the silence
like a long lost lover.
Here in the midst
of totalities waxing and waning,
she commands the whole world
stills.
The ordered moon already at his post,
on guard with the owls,
and the patrolling bats.
Her companion - leather-bound,
leaf-lined, pigment-starved,
awaits,
ready to entertain her whispers,
to shelter her tears,
to ask nothing.
She tattoos her longings on his tan lines,
in swirls of glittering emerald ink -
it smudges in unwanted watermarks -
each drop a confession
from tender heart-shaped leaks,
forever gilding her vulnerability
with saltine diamond edges,
and he just. holds them.
Softly. Tucked between ribbons,
ready to be opened
whenever she dares to want.

You see the world
through gray bitter lenses
always in retrograde,
carrying the nine of swords,
and a backpack
full of condemnation.
You sit idling,
wondering why you're never
getting anywhere -
but you refuse to drop the baggage,
won't unclench your white knuckled grip
from the wheel you let rust,
because rage
only feels holy
if you swallow it whole.
You were born soft,
but never allowed to be,
forced to clash,
screaming into armor,
baptized in the clang
of your parents' thunder
that only ever allowed silence
to respond.
And now?
Now you wait
for someone to draw first blood,
to cut into your lane,
to wear their hair wrong,
to set a boundary against your scarline,
so you can give yourself permission,
to finally swing
your swords of three-edge sorrow
at anything that dares to gently breathe.

Barefoot
Sand hot, searing white,
like my skin,
which had been kissed by a fierce
fiery sun
that mistook me for his lover.
It was my choice,
not to join the herd,
to chase a quarter mile
at crescendo speeds.
I already knew what it was like
to race the wind,
to pretend I was lightning,
no more than a fleeting flash,
bliss - and then, silence.
I chose the shamanic path,
removing the leather,
letting go of the binding ties,
and the reins,
setting them beside conch shells
that sheltered my keys
and my tether.
Fists full of mane,
thighs wrapped around
the wild grace of Tarpan Luck,
in velvet waters,
sparkling turquoise,
*******, unbridled
soul claiming Amphitrite,
harnessing currents, breaking tides,
even the sun bowed low,
as I gilded the foam.
I echoed the gulls
far outstretched wings,
singing to the envious saline atmosphere,
I. am. free.

I toss my dreams skyward,
like confetti,
born of my own stardust
sanctified in pearls of sweat
from my heartbeat.
They glimmer in the indigo,
aloof, innocent and free,
dancing on the blue rings of Jupiter,
like the moon's own illusion,
flickering in borrowed glow,
intangible,
never wholly aflame.
The heavens pour them back into
the southern sky,
once I have grown hands that can hold them,  
swift blurs of aquamarine,
cinders of plum, flares of copper,
echoes of coronal gold,
falling stars that long to ignite me
and I,
having climbed this mountain,
need only to claim one.

I sprinkled cinnamon outside my door,
whispered to the frames,
"only let in warmth,
keep their laughter outside
in the cold, where all things mournful
belong".
I wrap myself in a fisherman's cardigan,
Making clay out of tear-dried salt
and this divine earth that raised me.
I hear them jeering while I'm carving
all these stones with blistered hands,
Chisels rusted - they spent too long
curled, sleeping, unused in the moss.
They say I'm just shaping rocks
in silence,
for a game nobody wants to play,
a forlorn girl
trying to conjure gold
in a foundation poured strong enough
to hold a coliseum,
its rotunda gleaming with hand stacked dreams.
I have to believe,
if you just... keep... building,
someday, someone will see.
Even if the beauty is found
in a solitary, once lovely column
...when it's ancient.
When it's crumbling.

I fell in love with the North Woods
where snow and I dissolved
seeping in between the cobblestones
with belonging.
They held my secrets
and ancient history,
like forbidden sorcery
only the earth can practice.
I imagine my name whispered by velveteen moss,
stubbornly clinging
to old row house bricks with defiant faith.
But I'm just remnants of a ghost there,
my own heart haunted.
So I tried to love the ocean,
but she kept getting in her own way,
with her non-committal sway,
and everything that stayed
was tide-pool shallow.
I tried to love foreign lands,
wrap myself in different tongues -
Alpine lace was never warm enough.  
Exiled to the desert,
I floated like a feather,
fallen from a crow
who never learned that she could sing.
I've retreated to the mountains,
where the stone walls and I
have become kindred,
torn between the pulling chain
of a heart that longs to love
and no longer believes.