BURNING MUSES

I am in a new era; new light

I am those last rays encroaching on night

I am the shimmer cast through

The tiny window of my grandmother's front door

The shadows on the wall

That the warmth illuminates

I am the calm before the storm

I am the comfort through the fall

I am soft and I am strong

I correct any of my wrongs

I am every opportunity

You do or don't take

I am the light seeping through your window pane

I am the reflection off of the lake

I am the sun that shimmers off the sand

I am as rare as untouched land

I am the yellow in my unruly hair

I am everywhere

I am illusion

I am truth

I travel wide and far

I am a burning star

I am hope; proof we have power

I am a light drizzle of rain

We have the right to get a say

I am my favorite part of day

I am golden hour

Written and recited by aprilfool🐸

Pictures taken by @enochdapumpkin

vertigo

instinct to brace for the fall, ungracefully spilled like watercolor over the hardest canvas. to summon black touch— blue lips and eye glaze. hip bend over flattened cushions, slow waves as a hush falls, like distant church bells from a town you've long abandoned. watch for table corners and your weakened will. ice melt and sundown as silent companions.

interstellar

your wrist bone ache, escapism etched into wrinkled gray matter, leave infertile seeds to decompose in the sandy soil. a catalog of distances, crimson connect the dots and frayed rope left as a keepsake, a requiem. cross cut shreds of a dead name, of a dying voice, a death knell over mockingbird song. excavate the chest and find nebulae, weeping dust clouds and famine.

Assuaged now, the brink Adorning l'appel du vide with its silver.

Lamentations sucked into the vacuum Reverberate not. A storm-eye beckons.

Revivified, Emerges the sight: Illumination — once again Whispering of time constructs I cannot

Possess; far beyond my grasp, this you That is permeating my Every subatomic particle, Shapeshifter.

A miracle, that you were. Deus ex machina, utterly unexplainable; An anomaly in a life merely withstood in Promethean torture:

Every day, destroyed, And every night, restored, the fear of death; Not to speak of a will to live.

How could You have been Any less than a miracle?

When after twenty-five years, Right when I thought: 'enough is enough'; Right when I had given up, and hope was Nothing more than that pitiable ideation; A soft whimper to let the end be… forgiving,

Sprang the luck I never had, And all bygone misfortune, so, turned the Simplest necessity.

Serendipity.

Salve and salvation, You. The answer to the whys Of holding on.

You, the answer To the whys of suffering; This concatenation of detriment; Every hill too tall, and every pit, too dark; Every fall, and all the exhausted stalling, Getting up;

All

Had led To You.

Your love, Those days of light in a Thousand millennia of darkness; That I still cherish as though it would still Illuminate me;

It's just one flash of light In comparison, yet, still…

Respite.

Your head on my chest. That sigh. Your eyes, and their gazing pulling At my lungs to exhale Language.

And just like that: intent.

You gave worth To what I deemed worthless; Sense to the senselessness; Meaning To all that I reckoned Meaningless,

And all that I reckoned meaningless Can nevermore be Meaningless again, Because you exist.

You, My one gasp of air.

Just one.

Yet enough to say:

"I love you."

Assuaged now, the brink Adorning l'appel du vide with its silver.

Lamentations sucked into the vacuum Reverberate not. A storm-eye beckons.

Revivified, Emerges the sight: Illumination — once again Whispering of time constructs I cannot

Possess; far beyond my grasp, this you That is permeating my Every subatomic particle, Shapeshifter.

Among the everyday hustle

I walk

Breathless

Lifeless

Losing my track

Losing my pace

With already lost ways

Legs giving up

The heat bothers me again

My body boiling

In cold nights of December

My lungs not letting any of these

Corrupted air in me

Protecting me-

These luminous lights scares me

Hurts my eyes

Like a dagger

Let me love my darkness

Under a starless sky

I look up at the moon

"Should i give in?"

"Take the easy way out?"

How would a heartless man die-

When he never ever lived in the first place

Coming to a halt

Taking a deep breath

I close my eyes

Safe from the daggers

I stand still

As i lost all my energy

Your voice echoes in my ears

I smile

I felt joy again

Heard your melody once again

Just to be pierced

By a high pitched horn

And screeching tires

And it all became silent again

Oh it feels so good now

Let me sleep again

I'm in love again

With this peace—

The time has come

to make a change.

I feel it all over my body,

through time and real space.

Like an all-over deshedding

I can’t escape,

molting into something new,

feeling like an open wound.

Sensitive to the touch,

my chest sits heavy.

I try to detach from regrets,

living in the moment

like a Minnesota sunset.

So warm I feel it

in my cold, cold bones.

The only things I’ve known,

the very thing to keep me going,

to have hope,

even when I’m unknowing.

the eyes behind the eyes

mine eyes have seen

The territory of the mind

beyond the facade

this is no place for the blind

When people don't tell the truth,

it always ends badly especially

in the darkest night

When the fragments of time

have no effect

it makes me saddest of all

And the things in our closets

can sometimes escape

and wreak havoc

While we can only

sit and watch and wonder

Shall I die for the vanity of kings?

And when shall my tired

lonely feet find the final path

once more alone

That will take me back

where waits a cool dry bed

and the welcome site

Were there always this many butterflies?

And the flowers, where they always this strong and tall?

I’m used to them hanging their head, defeated by summer’s heat or rain’s heavy downfall.

Were there always this many butterflies?

Not the insects, but these flying pieces of colourful art; these epitomes of nature’s majesty.

Maybe I’m missing something, or maybe I really have been blind all this time and just needed your smile to be able to see.

I heal me. I save me. I bury what broke me. I carry what's left.

No one is coming. No one ever was.

I don't know why I'm crying, but the world feels heavy against my chest. My heart bangs against the boney bars encaging it, each beat coming closer to breaking free of my ribs.

I want to run, but I can't escape myself. I want to fight, but I've already hurt myself. I want to hide, but I can always find myself.

So, I sit with it. I've nearly made a ritual of doing so: a formal greeting of whatever emotion this is followed by a request for a name.

Alight, butterfly,

cocoon dusty, emptied,

fluttering groundward.

Higher!

Illuminated joy -- kite-like

limned ore pattering

quiet -- silky tread

underneath verbena.

Wandering xanthine!

we all have shadows butterflies, birds, flowers, trees the sun likes to play

that wasn't complexity

All hard wired and blend in

the emotion

and the sound of music

the culture

and the rhythm of a heart best

and fairweather friends