This poem has been submitted for possible publication.  It will be reposted as soon as possible upon final determination.  Please feel free to peruse my poesy at your leisure.

Thank you so much,
PrttyBrd

I found myself today
I found my strength, imagine that
on the breath of a shy whiskered cat
imagine how great to drift out of yourself
Float off through the night to see your desires
The beautiful feeling of being unrestrained by your skin
To look upon the face you can not replace
and see them smiling and happy
I love to dissolve in the street lights hue
and dance on the rain spinning around you
You know I'm there but you can't find me
No matter how hard you stare, but you can feel me
If we could meet on an astral plane,
we could fly together and make love in the rain

© Crystal Erickson 9/21/08

Spirits and feeling
And something other than nothing
And fire in your belly
And dancing nerves in your fingers
And baby they've never danced like ice & fire
But when ice & fire dance you better watch
Your body's gonna burn down to bones
And we'll turn those to dust too, baby trust me
Don't you trust me?
I'llmakeyoufeelagain
I can make you feel again
Baby, the music's starting
So pay attention.

I can feel you, restless, in my dreams, or mind, or heart.   tortured by thoughts of nothing in blackness in the noise of a crowded room.  There is no peace tonight, in my very being I feel it,  There are no meds to remove the screams, no drugs to escape the torture.  The numbness of self medication keeps your sanity hanging by the strongest of all threads.  Can't think too much, or ponder on what ifs.  But music looks beautiful dancing in the air, and time is a concept of man that serves no purpose other than to **** joy and draw boxes of conformity in thick black lines.

the color of sound
permeates cracks in the void
tolerable life

Existence without reason,  alone in an ever-present crowd, there are no rainbows in nighttime storms, I can feel your quick breaths as you are dragged into sleep unwillingly, though in desperate need. the trepidation runs deep, silenced by normality, fear of separation of mind tethered to others by soul alone.  Pretense in surface honesty, which is perceived as truth.  But the core of it, the fear of it, the whole of it cannot be hidden, for I feel you to the depths of who you are afraid to be.  There is no loss of sanity in being who you are,  Those colors sound beautiful as they dance in the smokey air, and the math is art incarnate, science is the symphony around which all things are born and oh the music.  Yes the music that dances through it all is the very air in all it's swirling hues of blissful perfection

two halves of self dance
tangos of darkness and light
beauty in all things

                    *in wait of nightmares
                    there need not be loneliness
                    joy in one who knows

I feel your presence staring,
I feel you stroke my hair,
I feel your icy fingertips,
I know that you're not there.

I hear you tap my door,
I hear you up the stairs,
I hear you weeping all the time,
The thought that no-one cares.

I see you move my things around,
I see you pace the hall,
I see your shadow in the night,
But are you there at all?

The evening spotlights
Shine on the walls
Of David's ancient abbey.

Raised by Border people
And peasant Picts.

Shadows and silhouettes
Fill thresholds that once
Let light and glory in.

Foundation walls protect
Winds still whispering
In Gothic naves.
A thousand years' stories
Are sounded in her bells.

Night surrounds Jedburgh Abbey.

I strained my sight for movement
Of Augustinians who thrived
In cloisters and walled streets
For a story to bring home
Of a phantom cloak or hood
Disappearing on ramparts
Or passing an empty window.
Just a sound, or simple wail
Would do.

Just then, dark legs
Swooshed past me,
Fitted in knee-high boots.
I lost my thoughts
Of ghosts and sprites
With an astral figure in tights.

here's to all the beautiful people
with cracked facades and glorious souls
to the ones transparent and forgotten
who's mind's hear in rainbows and see in music
here's to the true odists and bards
who share their laughter and shine through pain
to all the invisibles within which the only true beauty resides
may you always share your truth
may we never become blinded to your grace

Rain fell in commotions—
The birds would have none of it,
The moon bellowed in ghostly white,
Faced in the sprite, ringing indifference
Of low fading stars, trees in posted dark
Scratched the grasslands of the fallen
Firmaments and the small creatures
That are holed up in days, scurried
With the creep of night and moan
Of oceans slide, mangled clouds
Clutched the murky burn of sky
And smallish eyes everywhen
Shuddered in the frosts
Of a shuttering rose.