#collaborative poem

I. @traveledlight

These tears are warm mourning

for a place I’ve never been.

My body hurts,

aching for flesh

that once burned for mine.

But maybe I was always meant

to burn for something

I could never keep—

to love someone

just out of my reach.

I’ll always wonder the what-ifs,

or if I wasn’t enough,

because you said you’d never leave.

And now I’m left with ashes

slipping through my fingers,

the residue scarring me,

blackening who I was

when I was with you.

And yet I long

for future moments

that will forever escape me.

And somewhere,

someone else feels this too.

II. @4-ngelyn

Call me when you want me.

The darker, the better—

that way your light will seem even brighter,

my star.

My love for you is alive,

faintly breathing.

I long for you endlessly.

But now you seem so far—

we’ve become strangers after dawn.

Oh stranger, how I miss those nights—

I miss your hands between my thighs,

a fire that made me believe

I’d be the one you keep.

Does your heart still ache for me?

Have your hands

already forgotten the shape of my body?

Have your lips forgotten

the taste of my mouth?

I’ve tried to catch your love

on these nights,

but it keeps escaping my hands.

This could have been

the greatest love story ever told

if you had let me take hold

of you

if you had let me write the end

for you.

But who am I?

Just a girl gazing up at the sky?

I was able to see our future

in those eternal blues,

but it turns out

I was the only one who could see it.

So who am I?

Just a girl

in love with you,

my elusive lover—

wondering if somewhere

Faces don't tell the story

Of a living history of damage

Fingers can't trace

The paths the guilty scratched out

Your coins can't repair it;

They just add to the insult

There are so many things

A heart can take,

So many other things

A soul can be

Why not

A mender to this

Fractured, parched-earth skin,

Why not

A savior to others

Close to falling under?

Invisible syllables unnerve and hum In a fury of feverish hesitancy Sadly intimacy dissipates before it's begun Battle of the dragon Lost under desert sun

So sinks the mind in blistering sands Lost in a vortex of time's insignificance Alas, to crack the hourglass is To cause the ruination Of condensation

Then, the grain Of insufferable nothingness Finds itself caught, set in its own stone Its scribbles of madness etched within A slate Atlas carried

Strength and endurance Attempt to shroud Heavy burdens of a titan At the crossroads of cataclysmic collision Astronomy of a falling heart Soul displaced amid galaxies spinning Earth and sky colliding Nothing's left in the wintry garden

Sunset dragon, breathe your fire One more time for the sake of creation Seek the warmth and the glow deep within You who douse soulless dirt In incandescence

Let the earth brim with life once again Then bring evolution to new sentient beings Have them haphazardly frolicking in The virtuous chaos of your Cosmic radiation

Then let creation forge interconnectedness            Betwixt reality and the oases                  Of perpetual dreams

I. @sylviamione

On one sunny Monday,

waiting for you,

I had never seen the sky so blue—

so dreamlike.

Then your text

broke me in half.

How could you say it’s over

when we had so much fun yesterday?

I was hurting so much—

like the way Plath

stuck her head into the oven,

a final betrayal

deeper than heartbreak.

I expected flowers,

not bullets to my chest.

I was with you

through the highs and the lows,

hid my tears,

never made you feel discomfort—

and suddenly,

the moments you said you’d never forget

you give to someone new.

As if all those laughs

and smiles

meant nothing.

So I wonder—

were you ever sincere from the start?

Are you even sincere with her now?

Does she know

her ending

might look like mine?

Once, I was a lover girl

who followed you everywhere.

Now I’m just a shadow

lurking in the dark—

forgotten.

Love and light

haven’t been the same for me.

But at least now

I know what you really are.

II. @traveledlight

I trusted you

to hold the knife to my chest—

I never expected

you’d actually push it in.

At first, I couldn’t breathe,

the shock paralyzing me

every morning I woke up.

You couldn’t possibly mean it.

Not forever.

But days passed,

and I gave it time—

the healer of things, right?

But your final words

twisted in me,

a mixed acceptance

poisoned with longing

and disbelief—

and the blood

hasn’t stopped spilling since.

And I wonder,

with your blood-stained hands,

if I was ever real to you,

or just a place you stayed

until something quieter

felt easier to hold.

I used to believe

what we had

meant something permanent—

but now I see

how quickly forever

can be rewritten.

You didn’t just leave.

You replaced the meaning

of everything we were.

And I’m left here

trying to understand—

if I lost you,

or if I finally saw you

I. @traveledlight

Would you still cut your hand

and bind your blood to mine—

just to feel a little closer?

Would you taste the iron

on your lips,

call it devotion,

let it linger like fire in your veins?

Would you wear it—

a symbol carved in skin—

sacred and permanent?

Would you mark me

while you held me,

confusing love with permanence,

intensity with immortality?

Tell me—

if I disappeared,

would you follow?

Would you lose yourself

in promises too heavy to keep,

all in the name of a feeling

you couldn’t survive without?

Or am I the only one left

who would go that far,

who would descend into darkness

just to see you again?

II. @pretty-little-nightmare-xx

I’d take the blade without fear,

To taste the salt and crimson wine.

I’ll whisper secrets in your ear,

Your beating pulse matched to mine,

I’d press the steel against my wrist,

To taste the copper honey of our soul.

In every drop, a truth you missed,

You are the part that makes me whole.

Every mark is like a shrine,

A heavy cross I choose to bear.

I am your shadow, you are mine,

A holy, silent prayer.

If you should vanish in the night,

To the darkness where the spirits go,

I’d forfeit every spark of light,

To find you in the depths below.

If you should slip beneath the tide,

I’d drown within the blackest sea.

With every shadow as my guide,

I’ll hunt the ghost of you and me.

You are not lost or left alone,

In depths where even angels fear.

I’d turn my heart to heavy stone,

When night falls over the old sea now vanish the mists      and I can clearly see     we catch the unknown through the known we unveil darkness through boreal lights inside us the one who calls like another planet we can visit yet it's right inside our own

image courtesy of Jerzy Górecki via pixabay.com Wednesday, June 21, 2023 Waxing Moon Pluto & Saturn Retrograde Cloudy and humid Summer Solstice I plan to enjoy the summer solstice rather than worrying about work, especially client work. Today’s post on The Process Muse is simply a celebration post, not a deep dive. Today’s serial episode is from Angel Hunt: Episode 43: The Protection…