turn on the night light

Like the strum of the guitar My body moves to the chords  I create with my fingers. I know the sound I am meant  To hear  And yet I know that the  Strings are out of tune. All it takes is a tiny twist Of the knobs but each twist  Pulls at the strings  With each memory tied to them  Like the knapsack on the stick  That the child takes on their first ever  Journey across the river. Each twist of the knob and  Each pull of the strings takes me Back to those memories  I carry along my back  My knapsack filled with  Rocks and stones  And none of them precious  And they all seem too heavy  To carry and I seem to buckle  And may fall off the track, But I step I strum my fingers after The first twist and I hear it, The sound meant to come From the strums of the strings  And I play,  Until I hear the sound of the tune  Out of place  And I do it all over again. 

I'm consumed by the thought of you.  The chap on your lips, the lines of your brown eyes, the graze of your fingertips along my chin bounce around in my head, a celebratory dance that circles my mind, when I think of you.  The depth of your voice matches my desire to go, know,  you, myself,  deeper than the passerby can fathom in their lifetime. The rush of adrenaline that floods my veins when I see you again, each time, like that first January night, only, stronger.  I can feel the cold leather against my skin as I felt that first touch.  The scent of you left me in tangles, twists and turns I dared not undo.  I shook out of my shoes and glared into the space I occupied that you called yours.  You stared at me from the stairs that seemed miles away, I blink and you were there, consuming me in the space where I dare not move.  Breaths were short, my heart beat out of my chest and into my fingertips and you kissed me, the brush turned to press...

you stood still,  silent watching me cower   in awe, while I slowly take  one,   two,  three steps back. knowing the flames  from within you  could, would,  will, burn me. but the fire is so  warm,  I feel cold as I  move away from you. I shudder, I feel it  in the tops of my fingers to the tips of my toes.  I couldn't find your gaze, to see what you hid within, behind,  your eyes.  you turned to me. the golden glimmer  I anticipated to see was instead, red. red turned to black as you held your gaze. I become immobile,  frozen in my tracks as you start to move  towards me, slowly, each step you take  I feel my heartbeat go, higher, faster. the fire, I no longer feel  the burn. rather, I am ignited by your flames from within, again. I am, again, consumed. intoxicated,  seduced by the  curiosity of the darkness and the flames. the urge to surrender  to you grows, st...

I pity those who choose not to feel love, to see, love.  For the beauty and  the promise within is worth the risk of  pure, absolute, vulnerability.  To build a foundation where walls are no longer needed, or wanted.  The relief of  allowing another to break down the walls you built up for yourself, to allow them in and feel the weight  remove itself from you, your mind. Your mind is clear, yet filled with images  of them, their smile. their voice,  their touch. The things that draw you  closer and closer  to their space, forming into yours. To choose a life lived  alone, isolated,  cold. I pity those who choose  not to understand.  To experience the warmth  of love is to let go and hope, know, that they will catch you  on the way down.

what I was once consumed by  in another, I am now consumed by  the thought of you. I often find myself stuck, not in a rock,  or a hard place,  but between the blankets  and sheets, wrapping themselves around us to keep us close. I immerse myself in the sounds of your breath, knowing tomorrow  I could still hear more. they deepen as we move, and soften as we lie still. I sink into your touch, all around me as you explore, never doubting the affection that comes from your hands.

 your eyes filled my soul  with comfort, excitement, terror. i saw the shape of  your wings and immediately melted   into them. they held me so perfectly, strong. your scales, each one different from the other. i noticed the ones  that were battered, scarred, dark, and i saw the ones that  shone, bright,  glistened, and mesmerized even the blindest of souls. all parts of you that  should scare me away, but i walk closer and  closer to you. magnetized by the way  you move, the way  you speak. but the fire, the fire has changed now.  the inevitability of reality that i chose to ignore, that even the brightest  of creatures could  overcome, or withstand. no, not even i can love  through this fire. the fire that once  surrounded me in warmth, began to, at last, burn me alive. beauty may fall in love with the beast, but only when the beast comes first. 

 you  remind me of him. not the way  you  look, the way  you make me feel.  wanting what i can't have.  what you won't allow me to give.  you're intoxicating,  the word i used only to describe him. consumed by his voice, as i am yours. driven to addiction,  a fiend for your  passion,  drive,  attention,  affection.  a lack of which  seems punishing to me. your words, though, punish most of all. hurt, rather, yet i yearn to hear  them leave your lips, full,  as they were on mine.  ours, ours would  never be.  a sentiment  you  both shared, yet lead me with your eyes, your words, unspoken  as i read between  the lines of your lips, your eyes,  your lies. no, you never lied. yet you  tried again, and again to pull me deeper,  darker, into the world  you perceived on your own. a world fit to hold me, close,  at arms distance away. to push and ...

i felt the weight  on my shoulders. my chest sinking, heavy. it made me feel breathless, and could not tell you why. the questions flooded, poured into my mind. would you run? i said the words, breathless,  and i stared, breathless into your eyes. you reminded me what it feels like to want to look at someone  and feel breathless. 

if you pulled me close as much as you push me away, maybe you would  see the light in my eyes  that brightens,  sharpens,  from your gaze.  maybe. there are no maybes for you. no perhaps grey areas don't exist in a mind that is so  black,  and white. white, not light,  for the darkness  within you pulls me in,  but not because you  want it to,  but because, i like that it does. 

 the void is dark, grim, an endless abyss  that swallows  what tries to fill  the emptiness of where your life once occupied. it spins, a vortex consuming the happiness in waves that crash around it. time doesn't heal the wound that came from your leave, it only scabs the edges of the void, to be picked and  let bleed when its ready to take me in.  there are times where i am too weak  to fight. and i let it go,  grasping me tight and pulling me down, falling heart first  into anything but a  wonderland.

 she welcomes the winds  that attempt to knock her down. swift and strong, all around her. turbulent and twisted,  tornadoes that sweep her off her feet. yet she pulls herself  down, her roots bear the will to keep her grounded.  the weakness they see is not all that she feels. her strength,  the resilience in her veins flows through her  more than blood.  when she touches down, she stands. and she goes on. step by step, she carries the weight  of the winds behind her. her past on her shoulder and  the world around her  watching, waiting to see if she falls, and for how long. her ankles tremble, she feels the weight  and senses the urge  to give in. but she stands. and she goes on.

 white winds blow, as the rain sweeps itself sideways against her cheek. she turns her back,  feeling the cold, sharp sting of the droplets on her neck. staring into the curtain of droplets,  pouring from the dreary, grey skies.  she desires to feel more, yearns to remember what it means to truly  feel.  to cut through the blanket of  numbness that consumes her.  she turns again,  to face the storm in her midst. rain hits her cheeks,  pointed icicles that  melt upon contact, enough to overwhelm with discomfort for some, yet she manages  a drenched smile.

the storm rages she says as she stares out  of the window  of her own mind.  her heart races,  the winds blow stronger,  the blood flows faster through her veins. thunder rolls,  she shudders, her hands begin to tremble.  the light is too bright, a bolt shoots through her as she collapses, down, she tried to ground herself. she sits,  it turns quiet. the storm passes by, leaving the destruction  in its wake.

Pain.  I remember the Room of Pain The doors were locked, bolted shut The windows concrete Thin; I fought so hard to break them I did.  Bloodied, scratched, scarred Pain.  Blood dried, scratches healed. Scars lightened.  Pain. Pain stays, lingers Sways like a wave.  Shallow, shallow, shallow, Deep.  I take one step too far  and I drown in it.  You taught me how to see  Pain. You taught me how to feel  Pain.  I can small pain.  I smell salt air I smile. I stay longer to  smell more and more. I don't smell it now.  Accustomed.  I leave; pass the  time When I return, I smell salt air.  That is how I smell Pain.  I smell it. I taste it. I see it.  I feel it. I hear it. I sense it.  My stomach, my hands, my soul.  I escaped the Room of  Pain.  But I drag the chain behind me as I walk away from it. A link here.  Three links there.  An accumulation of  Pain.  Q...

Intoxication.  I'm consumed, swallowed whole  from the words that leave your lips.  They, you, fill me, a catalyst, a fire, to burn for myself, to reach high, higher than I've dare gone before.  Beauty.  It lies within your voice, the reassurance you express  in a tone of truth and possibility,  I am awe-struck.  Seduction.  It pours itself into my cup,  overflowing with desire and  satisfaction that comes from your  touch. Confusion.  My brain tumbles and turns to determine how you came across my  wavelength, yet grateful, it feels,  because you did.  Surrender.  I fold at the sound of your voice  and the direction of your eyes.  I am your equal, yet I submit  willingly to senses I trust most.  Foundation.  The most important step in the process, where the strength, the endurance, lies.  Our individual resilience  conjoins, and within that,  holds a dynamic power...

When I said I wanted to feel your touch, I wanted to feel your fingertips along the ridges of my bare back, sliding down as slowly as your gaze fell upon my lips.  Instead, you raised your hands from my hands to my heart, and you gripped it tight. Your strength diminishing the light in my eyes. You took me when my heart was broken, and you shattered it with the palm of your hand.  I wanted you to fill a part of me that longed for you, a flame that burned, regardless of the sorrow you blew my way; testing the flames endurance, another game to you.  Yet you checked me, I was just a pawn in the game you played, another heart locked in the jar you kept so close, a locker deep in the abyss of your mind.  The flame that once burned went out, but with no credit to your mastermind of emotional manipulation, but my removing myself from the oxygen that you gave to me, by my own power.  I used to question what made me turn the page and begin again, dreaming of your wings, ...

 there are so many things i could say to you. but the words that i come up with most  are,  "i'm sorry." it wasn't my fault, but i take the blame. was there more i could do? more i could say? none of it would have made a difference. we would still be here, apart, forever. you're with me now, in a different way. that's what i hear, what they tell me. those words do not fill the void, the loneliness i feel without your presence here. there is a silence, now. a grey, dull emptiness that nothing fills.  does time fill the hole? will i ever become whole again? or am i left broken, permanently  fragmented, learning to live as a  broken record that still  plays? I feel selfish moving forward,  yet powerful, too.  the power i have to take control, to live.  but to live, to live and breathe while you are dead is a battle  i fight often.  it shouldn't be you. it should never have been you.  your warm hands quickly turned  cold....

 I twist my brain in different directions, an attempt to make sense of the tragedy that befell upon you, upon us. A rope, already twisted and tangled, a feat to straighten it out that you also took onto your shoulders, when they were already bearing the weight of your own world. In a moment, you were gone. Spirited away into another dimension, occupying the space that Mother universe has provided you, us. Though I cannot touch your rough hands and soft hair, many time has come where I feel you surrounding me, embracing me with your warmth as you once did, an inner warmth inexplicable to those who do not experience such separation as we. When I close my eyes at night and my soul begins to wake, I see you. I see your eyes filling me with adoration and power. I hear you, your soft, gentle reassurance that I am well, I am making you proud. I can smell you, morning after cologne pulsating from your neck, radiating from the t-shirt you wore to bed. I can taste you, the savory sweetness o...