Category Archives: Poetry

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change

is the wind made of words. or are words made up of the wind. I think both.

but words can also be so powerful. like a storm. devastating.

but as capable of feeding as of ending. take fire, for instance.

i have been the fire. nurtured and destroyed by the same forces.

the wind is outside, but the fire is within. we cannot control the things that happen to us. the winds that hit us. their intensity or intentions. none of that truly matters.

what matters is how it affects your fire. and what steps and structures you can incorporate within yourself. to either enhance or diminish the impact of the wind.

every breeze, every storm. every whisper, every song. however long it takes.

of course things go wrong. miscalculations are made. things are expected that don’t come through. while other things, once unimaginable, like miracles, come true.

the world is a large complex puzzle. you are a piece. but a piece that can change and evolve to either fit in where it is needed, or grow out of places you don’t belong. regardless of whether you once did.

if we stop changing, we stop living. stagnation is death. life is change.

so, change. no matter how scary. you are alive. and things must change. if you don’t, then you fall out of the spaces in the world that until now we’re holding you up. or back. or down.

there is no good or bad. there is no correct or incorrect. there is only this moment, and what you need from it.

getting what you want from it is a bonus.

but, in every moment, take what you need, give what you can, and move on.

whether it’s forward or backward, up or down, better or worse, move.

change.

it’s the only way to live rather than just exist.

so, change.

by

the escape

I wrote out our names in both blood and sand

Not knowing that all you wanted was ink

I told you that I did not understand

But we were just waiting for us to sink

.

Ink fades, blood stains, and sand shifts with the tide

Nothing true is real, nothing real is true

For you, we know, I would have gladly died

But I just would not, could not, live for you

.

Under drowning moons, upon burning seas

I danced towards an edge you could not stand

You dragged me back, with chains around my feet

But I was never made to crawl this land

.

And so I waited until darkness came

Even though I swore I wanted that light

But not at the cost of a cage built of blame

I’d rather burn, free, alone in this night.

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Change is the Only Constant

There was a moment, once upon a time, long ago now, when I thought that i could belong. Ever since and ever before, I have spent every waking minute well aware of how alien I truly am. Feel.

Feeling, maybe everyone feels this way. Maybe we all feel we don’t belong, and do increasingly insane things to try and fit in. Inside boxes that can never contain the circumference of existence.

Existence, does that make sense? A sense of being? Or a sense of forever trying, and failing? So how much more of a failure am I for never even trying? Not because I didn’t want to. But it would have been too easy. And it would have been too hard.

Hard, because I was too far away, and even if I were to make it, leaving is all I have ever known. Easy, because all it requires is self mutilation. And I have always been so good at self destruction.

Self destructive used to be an insult. Much like the feeling of being trapped in a tower on the moon. Not one person understanding that the cost of meeting them halfway, or any way at all, necessarily involved falling and crawling and falling again, crashing through the atmosphere in flames that were my own as much as they were not.

Not that I knew any of this in the beginning. I thought I was trying. But from that beginning, it was always a given. That if I had to cut and burn pieces of myself, I would rather destroy what I didn’t like, rather than what other people, constantly changing, forever fickle, perfectly imperfect, just like me, didn’t. And I learned to instead pride myself on being true to myself, real. Real.

Real. As if something like that even exists in this world of ours built on lies and illusion. From the biological to the astronomical, from the living to the endless, we are all caught in intricate webs of lies spun lifetimes before our own. Even the idea of immortality assumes a beginning.

A beginning is inevitable, after all. Because it’s easier to imagine forever stretching out ahead of us into an as of yet mysterious future. But the past is a separate matter altogether. We have none of us ever experienced the future. But we have each one of us come unfailingly from the past.

The past, past the edge of today, lurking below, an ever changing shaky foundation of differently remembered, differently perceived, differently being. How can we stay the same when nothing ever does? When nothing ever can? Not even rivers or mountains or planets or suns or stars. For everything must change.

Change is the only constant, it is but inevitable, but what does that truly mean when even the inevitable constantly changes? For there is no real end. Just ghosts of things that existed once.

Once, I used to think I could belong. But for a long time before that, I knew I never would. And an even longer time before that, I did belong. As atoms and star dust and particles of carbon matter, made up of the Universe.

By the Universe. For the Universe. And once everything is over, I will inevitably belong again. Or perhaps I will always only ever pass by. Everything is a happening, after all. Humans, yes. But also rivers and mountains and planets and suns and stars. Forever.

For ever. But what comes after? What came before? We do not even have the answers for these questions when it comes to our own lives. How naive to believe we can comprehend eternity. How ambitious. How human.

I do not feel human. Maybe that is what makes me so. Maybe there is no thing as human. It is only a symbol, after all, a piece of fiction, a fantasy spun from our minds and collective consciousness in an attempt to make sense of existence.

It doesn’t make sense to me. But, sometimes, when I catch the sun right before it sets or rises, when the moon hangs bright in the dark night sky above (or is it below), when I stand at the edge of an ocean pulled ever deeper into its vastness, my perspective shifts, and I understand.

Understand, even if only for one fleeting moment. And I belong. So what if that is too but a happening? What comes before and what comes after is too. Everything is. And so nothing must be too… For everything must change.

Change is the only constant inevitable. But what does that even mean when the inevitable constantly changes? What does anything ever mean? To you. To I.

And I know why it matters, but how does it?

Does it?

by

Ending Infinity

There was a place not too long in the past

Where all our goodbyes, I know I was still counting

But now that we are here, long past the last

I look back but cannot seem to place the ending

.

It seems I can’t even speak of the end

Without taking a trip back to the beginning

Like I can’t even begin to pretend

To separate all of the sin from the sinning

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Maybe it’s just all the blood on my hands

Ledger Red that I cannot seem to leave behind

In shades of the memories I can’t stand

Like a tune that will not stop playing in my mind

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Perhaps you truly were looking for peace

Even if you had a strange way of showing it

With all your threats to bring me to my knees

And always on the verge of throwing it

.

It used to make me want to laugh, you know

How your blade in my throat was your idea of peace

But before I was caught in that undertow

For far longer, it only made me want to weep

.

How did we even get here, I wonder

We, who used to hold each other so carefully

How could we tear each other asunder?

How did we even reach that place of no mercy?

.

Maybe you did just want bloodless and kind

Maybe I was the one turning battles to wars

For the blood on my hands may be more mine

But I wish none of it at all had to be yours

.

There was a place, not long ago, I know

Where I was still counting all our goodbyes

But nothing of it remains any more

Nothing true, but not even any of our lies.

.

Begun: December 2016

Finished: April 2022

Edited: August 2023

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Burning Heaven

The sky is on fire.

They say it’s only my imagination.

Probably just the guilt tinting my vision.

But they’ve always been fools

And also liars.

.

I won’t be deceived again.

Not when I can smell the smoke.

And not when, on it, I choke.

Like the night so long ago when I watched whole cities drown

Burning in a crimson rain.

.

They tell me it’s not my fault.

That i am not who they blame.

Yet they clearly want my shame.

But I will not give them the satisfaction of my guilt.

And they will not see me crawl.

.

Still, I’m no liar.

So, please know, I would gladly get on my knees

If I thought that it would bring any relief

But I know better now.

That the sky’s on fire.

by

Happy Yuletide!

May the year’s longest night and its shortest day
remind thee that no darkness can forever stay
In the end, the sun doth always rise to shine
So make merry a while, rest, let thyself unwind
And through the dark, may thou find the light within
May it fill thee with hope as the cycle begins
Renewed in peace, love and joy, both big and small
Happy Winter Solstice and Blessed Yule to all!

(Couldn’t resist converting to Early Modern English pronouns. 😅 I know it’s a bit pretentious, but it honestly does (seem to) flow better this way. And if you still don’t like it, then get thee behind me, foul fiend. Lol. Jk. Happy holidays! 🙃)