Those who took much of her
**** her
Forbid her in the smallest measures
They took much of her, rebranding it as they often do
She is everywhere though
She is the breath of everything
She is the gratitude for the smallest of small things
And with the gratitude she brings a connection
She will marry you to this world happily ever after

Everyone loses their way
Lost in their chasmic minds
Lost in their bismol worlds
Lost in their abysmal emotions
Some find a light to guide their way
A melody; a sign; a feeling
Others search for a distraction
Someway to forget the failure and lose the guilt
But for me, Hermes guides my path
Like a soul into Hades,
He always brings me home
Back from my friendly worm named Loneliness
Back from my terrible sense of direction
Back from my endless attempts at self sabotage
He makes me see the truth; the reality; the destination

Everyone is all so full of deceit and corruption
Pleasing themselves by pleasing others
Becoming someone else to be above all others
Blinded by envy and seething with a jealous rage
They hold out their open hands to me
But he whispers in my ear
"It's all a lie"
And I keep my hand down by my side
And watch as they go to the next person
Holding their hands out just the same
And chaining the gullible fools with honeyed words and empty promises
Binding to them now like a contract over their souls
Enslaved to the whims of the corrupt

He has me dream of lands across the sea
Speaking a tongue that is not mother to me
I fall in love with these foreign things
The sights he sends me, the sounds, the smells
All the excitement of leaving to somewhere new
With no fear of the unknown, trusting only
In the path on which he guides me
I see it now, so far away
I reach my hand out and I feel it on my fingertips
I close my eyes and the words slip into my mind
With every phrase I learn, the freer I become
And I walk his path with knowledge I am safe

In meditation he guides me
On a starlit beach I find myself sinking my feet into the sand
Swiftly he approaches with a grin
He holds his hand out to me and I feel at ease
No strings or "you-owe-me's" await
And with winged feet he sends me back
Gently placing me in my body
And I awaken safe and sound

I bought sunflower seeds and planted them in a little *** on my window sill
I watered and tended to the leaves everyday
Every time the leaves seemed sick or browning
I had to hold back tears as I cut away the rot
Is it weak or dumb of me that I cried?
Like witchcraft I cared for that flower as if it were our love
As the leaves would rot so too did our hearts
As the petals fell so too did your love for me
And in every falling petal
Every cut leaf
Every inch of that flower
I felt you grow farther and farther out of reach from me

in the darkness i dance
crimson hair
like flames on the wind,
the moonlight
kissing my skin
wearing nothing
but midnight
i lie in wait,
surrendering myself
to the flames
for from the dark
my love has returned.

even when I was little I had a hard time leaving wounds alone —

the absent-minded uprooting of scabs and the slow flame of revived pain.

to bleed in so many small ways, to be so oblivious to being real.

if only they were tiny sacrifices, tiny offerings to whoever dealt out hurt and sadness, if only they were enough to keep my nose above water.

I find myself lost within four walls in more ways than one.

they say you should smoke sage in all your corners,

smudge its grey into the darkness. they say it puts the past to rest.

I burn leaves and I burn grass and I burn letters and thoughts and touches and it makes me blacker, blacker, blacker.

the remains of grief wait, latched shut in its music box. I can’t bear its singing. I can’t tear this flesh off my bones. I can’t make myself fiction.

but you did. you did and now I fade into a ballad not even worth its weight in the heartbreak it rhymes.

to have sought poetry only to plummet into misery. to have the currency of my decomposing tongue and no concoction of words to soothe the damage.

the rot runs deep. the rot is real. the rot is all I feel.

you’re all the lives kept out of my reach

With the open gates of Babylon
the holy flood poured on and on
through frond-covered stone ways
on grieving Palm Sunday
and the ****** water endlessly rushed
as if turned to wine by Jesus's touch

we were his disciples but behaved like sinners
he walked on water as we took from the rich
the godless romans were quick to condemn us
thus Jesus was crucified for being a witch

they set our stakes ablaze in the night
the darkness enflamed by unholy light
covered our heads with white cotton hoods
and barefoot we stumbled through dusk-silenced woods
we could hear the flames crack like whips in the dark
as they reached for us who were blessed with death's mark.

They were innocent
The ones who walked this path before me
The ones who never did any wrong
Who committed no sin
'Do what ye will but harm none'

They were the ones who loved the earth
Listened to the cries of the wind and the heartbeat of the sky
Saw the dawn kiss the night sky goodbye
And how the moon would watch over them all
The ones who fell in love with all of Earth's mysteries

The ones who loved to heal
Who cherished all life, and wasted none
The ones who saw everything and nothing
Who ran with the rain
And sang to the storms
Who thanked the crops and respected the Earth
The ones who wrote in runes
And spoke in code
To save our craft and protect our herbs

They were stripped of dignity, but not of pride
Dropped into the water but embraced by the gaurdians of the West, resting in defiance on the surface of the sea
They burned their bodies, but not their souls
They wounded their flesh, but not their will
And like a Phoenix, they rose again
Reborn more powerful, more proud

If again we must, again we shall
No longer will we hide our pride
Our symbols, our spells, our rituals, our magic
No longer shall we fear the ones who do not love the earth we live upon
The ones who burned our brothers and sisters out of hate and refused to understand
The ones who slaughter the land and do not value
all the life that exists together
For we are witches who honor our past and rise together as a Phoenix, rising from the ashes of the ones who crumbled so we could soar