Deranged mornings drank from the dreams
Of those possessed nights, pulling open
My eyes to find myself fleeing their
Proclivity to provoke distress within.

Hearts as black as the stitches that
Run across my veins, sewing up my blood
Barring their deep desiderate to hook
In their claws to draw forth my pith.

As I fall from listless feet, I feel
Their teeth sink in and separate my
Flesh from bone. With open veins
I spot the murder above, creating
Night from day, their eerie calls
Scattering the despondent dissidents.

Through my stupor I feel their beaks
Nestle my broken body into shape anew.
I awake again to the drawing sun and
Their renewing assault, but as they
Drew close in, my soul burst forth
Filling the new formation to beat back
Their wailing and gnashing; lifting me
Up to join the darkness that encircles
The sky to beat back their garish dawn.

Eyes drawn blank from the pained portrait
Staring back at me, shimmer in and out
From the offset of these listless lids;
Twin lighthouses through speckled fog

A flippant form, convalescing from
The fractures converging to every
Broken promise born within,
Flitters forth towards abject abandon

A question grows out of the pockmarked
Black, dissolving into tendrils beneath
Seeking hands of rigid architecture;
Two stones lost to the stoic creek

Muted colours in disparate geometric
Shapes—sail across uneven ridges of
This earthen canvas, searching for the
Brush that bore them to become Art

Weightless I fall
Feeling my body
Stretched and torn
As the past
Deepens her hooks
Into the souls
Of my feet
As the future arrests
My hands—endlessly calling
Drawing me forward
Through every shift
And turn—tumbling
Forth in her waves
Towards that deep
Dark singularity
I must become

Fingers stretch out
In all directions to
Grasp any blade
That has a root
To try and bury
Deep within a
Sense of Earth a
Sense of relative foundation

Feet futilely descend
Into blackened grains
Trying to find
A matching mold
That can hold
As the sands of time
Slide out with
Future's waves

Heart goes out
To break that
Sacred limit of
The universe
And still I fall
Hollow and alone
Vacant in the void

Mind descends into
Chaotic battle
Discordant notes
Forming into
Fractured chords
Screaming out in
Search of an echo

And slowly
As my senses leave me
I hear my soul
Speaking forth
Softly as a whisper
Reminding me
Of this pre-breath form
Reminding me
I never had control

Rolling forth
I embrace the
Crow's call
That beckons me
Towards what I thought
Was lost but had
Always been what
Lied before me

I stare into the eye of that gaping hole
That always comes to entreat my soul.

Provoking the grey fog to come crawling forth
Filling the far caverns of my mind
Adding weights to my thoughts and
Enshrouding my eyes to a dim monochromatic glow.

As I stumble forth in my shadowed haze
I almost miss the light reflected
From the tips of tulips,
From the cheeks of cherry blossoms.
Their luminous colors piercing through
The encroaching clouds as they scatter forth
Finding the deep recesses of my heart's retreat.

Silently echoing with every refraction,
    Not today.
No!
    Not right now.
        Not this moment.

For now is for
    Blades of green
    Swirls of blue
    Streaks of red
    Hints of lavender
Reaching
    Clawing
        From a desperate dream
Breathing life
    Exhaling death.

For tomorrow,
No,
The very next moment
    I may be swallowed whole
        And taken by the dark.
So I reach with every moment
    To grab ahold of any light
        That pierces through.

I awake and think about
Commitment today
Think about discipline
Doing the work
Showing up

Those two words
That simple phrase
That became a weapon
Used against me
And so many others

A manipulation to force
An exchange
Of vulnerability
To an unsafe audience

A phrase that means
Everything to an artist
But can so easily be twisted
To harm the artist

Today I show up for myself
Long past the need
To placate another
Long past the need
For ephemeral reassurance

So that as I look inward
Instead of outward
I find, beneath the desolate dust
The gift I had long slandered
The gift of myself

I find my face again
In the mirror
Its worn edges
Its cracked smile
Its mixed eyes

There, there I am again
My truth
My self
My gift to the world