My Dearest, My Beautiful

For Grayson

My dearest

my thread sister

fellow witch, fellow warlock

partner in mischief

dear little cat,

why are you so troubled?

the stars watch your path

with a glitter of magic

echoing the star dust in your eyes

in your heart

let it fill you

until the sadness is magic

and the magic is you

and you are the night

and the night is the stars

and the stars are the universe

and the universe is the sadness

that fills you

and presses upon you

like the ocean

like the weight of the world on your shoulders

bear it with grace

as you always do

until the sadness is magic

and the magic is you

and the stars shine bright

in your eyes

Those Who Walk Among Us

It was a dream-

or the fragment of a dream

(an echo of a scream)

where the white bear of the north

whose frost he issued forth

limped past a snow glazed window

‘neath a starry sky.

 

And the white bear of the north-

with the comets he would fly,

his fur starbrushed and stardust gleaming

As I dreamed this dream I thought I was dreaming,

but dizzy and unseeing

for a moment, I could fly.

 

The sickness spread from blood to bone,

the liar’s lips with string were sewn

and I lost the soul I called my own

to the white bear of the North.

 

Longing and leaning, from dust to ash

searching for his clandestine stash

of souls he took that were his to him

and the hope he tore from limb to limb

and a soul can’t be saved with a holy hymn

beneath this starry sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not All Dreams Come True

When I rise,

I fall.

 

My feet twist underneath me,

arms flailing-

as I stutter to an awkward stop.

 

But there’s such a beauty in the motion,

losing myself in the rhythm

of music

and my pulse

roaring in my ears.

 

It’s such a marvel-

the way dancers show

emotion

through their body

and I want to speak their language.

 

I want to dance so badly

it hurts.

 

But my body

feels foreign

and stiff

and unyielding.

 

When I rise

I fall-

amid the sounds of laughter

and joking nudges,

murmurs of

poor girl –

she’s so clumsy.

 

So I’m left

with nothing

but a burning jealousy

for those who can dance-

and a passion

that I can’t

extinguish.

 

 

A Poem A Day (Day #23)

She is beautiful

and she walks with a grace

all her own.

 

But she ducks through crowds

as though she is unaware

of her gracefulness;

as if she is ashamed

of the lightness of her walk.

 

Let me tell you,

dear friend-

you have made a wider impact

treading lightly

than those who rush to tramp

down the soil

(desperate to make their marks,

longing to be remembered).

 

I can see her sadness from

across a room,

but she carries it far better

than I ever could.

 

She is beauty

and grace

incarnate-

 

I pray one day,

she can see it too.

 

For A Night Full of Stars

Sorry for such a late post, guys. Arlyn was on writing duty today, but ran into a couple of glitches with his account (which we are in the process of fixing). Rest assured you’ll get to see some of his work soon! For today, I’m covering, so please enjoy! 

The door swung shut behind her with the force of the entire world, the single deadbolt lock sliding home was a lightning bolt tearing through her heart, igniting a roaring fear that echoed through her veins. She shivered, but only once. The chill in the nighttime air couldn’t begin to compare with the ice slowly freezing her from the inside out.

The road was abandoned, the night as quiet as nature gets at one o’clock in the morning. It was a deep silence punctuated only by the groaning of trees protesting some invisible nighttime breeze and the scurrying of unnamed creatures among the leafy brush. And it was black, the kind of darkness that makes everything seem so small and large at the same time, where she felt weightless and chained down, the breath stolen from her lungs but the sheer eternity of it all.

She shivered again, but not because of the cold. Her mind was spinning, grabbing at all the loose threads, thinking of everything and nothing in an overwhelming blur, her breaths coming in frosty pants as she wrapped her arms around herself, timid in the face of this new world. She noted dully that her shoe was untied, such a mundane thing to notice in the face of this catastrophe, but her mind latched on to it, desperate to find something familiar, some sense of normality in the strangeness around her.

All she knew was walking. For once in her young life, her mind was completely blank, shut into some unknown corner as it struggled to process what was happening to her, her mouth moving as she chanted some silent mantra under breath. She wasn’t even sure what she was saying. Numbly, placing one foot in front of another was all she knew. It was a slow walk, a haggard walk, the walk of a prisoner to the gallows, the feeling of death pressing upon her on all sides. But maybe that was just the darkness.

Look up, some still small voice within her whispered, cutting through the silence. She paused for a moment before glancing upward, her mouth falling open and her eyes sparkling. The sky, unlike anything she had ever seen before glittered with a thousand diamonds in raw, uncut beauty while blue and purple tinged the night sky to create a beautiful background, a soft velvet fit for a queen. In an instant, she was floating, flying, swimming among the soft darkness, dipping her fingers among the stars and dancing in their glow.

Take some, the voice murmured and she took a pinch of this beauty, tucking it away in her soul like one tucks away seashells from the sand laden beach. Light raked her eyes, as she flinched, the blackness returning. It pressed upon her again, consuming everything of beauty in its path as nameless monsters leered unseen, threatening to suffocate her, until she reached deep within herself, finding that little bit of diamond dust. The headlights illuminated her prone figure standing motionlessly in the center of the road, a harsh engine of a truck drowning out the silence.

“Get in.” The command was low, almost harsh as the world spun around her and the ground beneath her feet bucked and rolled like ocean waves. She wanted to shout, scream, anything to get the words past the blockage suddenly growing in her throat. She felt hot tears burn behind her eyes as she bit her lip, barely noticing the metallic tang of blood.

“No,” she said softly, her lungs constricted as that word escaped with a whisper of air.

“What did you say?”

“No,” she said again, this time, making sure she was heard. She could almost feel the words tumbling about in her throat, eagerly shoving their way in line to emerge. “You kicked me out,” she began, her voice low but rapidly growing in volume. “You kicked me out to face the world by myself and maybe I’ve decided that I like it out here.”

“What are you going to do?” the owner of the truck snarled, a mocking laugh emerging from the seat. “You have no money, no food. Walking all alone on the highway? You’ll be picked up for sure.” She trembled as the truth of his words hit her, her body resigning itself with a visible slump as the light of rebellion vanished from her eyes. Then came the whisper, so quiet, the barest puff of breath blowing on the dying spark inside her that spread to the stardust which exploded into a supernova of power. It flowed through her limbs like the warmth of seeing a long lost friend, clearing her throat, her heart, and her mind in one decisive blow. She straightened, her hair waving softly in the nighttime wind as she took on a look of confident otherworldliness.

“I’ll take my chances out here,” she spat, “than with the likes of you.” And with that, she was gone. The sky took her in, the stars swirling around her in grandiose display as the darkness enveloped her in a way that no longer seemed frightening, but instead, warm. The kind of peaceful sleep that she had longed for all her life. She slumbered there, among the stars, as they slowly winked out, giving way to the rising sun, as the earth was born anew.

“Girl found dead, police investigating cause,” declared the headlines in the newspaper, swirling around in the empty wind as the rain fell from a starless sky in endless, drenching sheets.