chiaroscuro

When you enter a room the lights seem to brighten Casting your figure in an unforgettable silhouette Magnet eyes and a determined demeanor, you carry on I wish you would wander a little but your steps never waver The world is a messy place, I know that better than anyone But sometimes I let myself dream a little, wonder a little Of what it would be like to share a piece of me with you To share something more than mundane moments I know that you are standing on a pedestal I created You blink in the glare of my conjured spotlight Something in me that whispers that you won't like it And so I drown in my own whirlpool, and I drown alone You walk on, all unknowingly of my own plight I like to break hearts but these days all I break is my own Why must I do this to myself, flogging my own back Weeping over something too close and yet too far I know more than anyone what it's like to be in the light It's not me standing there, it's a gold replica Some...

I dream of your dark dark eyes And wonder about the warmth in my chest I see the stories and the tabloids And like all of my kind we scoff How can that ever happen? Are you out there somewhere? Looking up at the same sky, treading the same earth Wondering about the words in my mouth The flutters in our hearts Are you out there somewhere? I could walk on forever, trying to keep my head down Honestly it's not too hard to stay this way I can just stay quiet and quick To escape the nets of dooming love Perhaps this makes my life easier But are you out there? Looking for me in the smiles of your friends Grasping for the warmth in another hand Maybe the moon is playing tricks on our eyes But are you out there? Maybe one day we will meet And like all stories we begin unknowingly But then we will one day realize That we are right here Holding onto each other For now I'll bide my time I'll play a game of counting the minutes But I'm always wonderi...

There's a cavity in your chest My hands clutched around a seething mass We're dripping to the floor Oozing between the forgotten cracks I see salt on your cheeks There's some on mine You want to reach for the gold in my heart But I shrink and shift away For once we're all amnesiacs Pretending to forget about that clouded day We dance on naked blades And joke about our blood-stained feet It's a bass line, a sort of rock n' roll We only hear the drums and the blaring guitar No one speaks about the subtle ache The plea in the deep strumming in our heads They say to salvage what was once torn I can't grab enough threads to work with All my fingers are pointed needles Perhaps if you look at me I can look back For now there's a tentative alliance The world is too big of an threat to ignore The enemy of my enemy is my friend But I guess for now that's all we are.

I've had a thousand fantasies and only a single life I can count on one hand how many times I've done it And yet I feel uninhibited, drunk on something that's not alcohol Can I grip onto your shirt for purchase, or will you be offended? It's not like me, I have to admit But it is something new, an adventure if you might call it I would like to stay on the ride, please If you don't mind, please, let me stay on for a little longer The air whips past my face, snapping my hair into my cheeks My knuckles can't be whiter, my blood any redder I wonder if I open my mouth Will my entire head swell up like a balloon and blow up? In another universe, I took a steady step forwards and died on the spot No one heard the great tree crashing down on top I wonder if people even knew when they buried my body That I had been rotting away on the inside for a while now The present always beckons, ever persistent like a clock No one waits for you, you have to wai...

Dappled leaves fingering into a cloudless sky I seek the truth in its branches What do you want to know? They whisper And I shrug, nestled in their arms Fey mutterings haunt my ears Ghostly white dresses sweeping the ground Pale hands holding a rusted lantern I hear the wail of the silent lady Tapping fingers on my windows The storm is laughing at the moon I curl up in my watercolor blanket And I listen to the water songs I stand, bell like, in an ocean of black Alone in a sea that sucks and pulls And clings to those who don't know So I drown, in something svelte and something mean Let me try again from the top Rewind the past and let me forget What exactly you meant to me Because otherwise I can't laugh You touch down and land with a careless grace Something quiet unique, something quite marvelous I just can't put my finger on it, that part of you But something deep inside really wants to You are a many folded contradiction   A...

I can't dance alone anymore I'm swaying on the ropes Sleeves trailing through the air Your harmony completes me Your song is my backdrop I just can't find your voice I know you're there Somewhere where I can't see Your harmony is always sweet I'm still dancing alone But I'm dancing to your melody I don't feel so lost I hum to your tune The rhythm of your song It's just a solo, not a duet If you heard me Can you play a little louder? I can't quite seem to hear you Amidst all the static.

Sweet eyes Delicious dark eyes Eyes that look at me I am entranced You sing I hold my breath Your voice rasps Your body sings I can't help but dance along My eye smokes My voice shakes I don't mind at all Crack in the bell Whisper of the spell You must be magic For I am ensorcelled The horizon breaks Your face beams I can't help but melt If I am a symphony You are my conductor My bones are supposed to be strong I guess I hadn't prepared For the way your eyes soften When they take me in Wishing for something Dancing in the dark Open sign flashing Nonchalant beauty Pining and confused We speak Corner of your mouth Tip of my tongue Flash of white teeth Shivering in summer Trembling in the fall Blushing in winter Let's start it all over in the spring Iron heart In the blacksmith's hearth Can you see my pulse jumping? I want to soar over the world But your hand tugs And your fingers intertwine Holding my hand In your lar...

We sit in the empty amphitheatre The sky grumbling above us You have on that thoughtful smile The kind that makes your forehead crinkle You told me you had something on your mind Something quite pressing, quite pressing indeed And I wait, waiting as the sky seethes above Anticipation building like a wave of froth You told me of a ring and a silky white dress A calico cat purring by a puddle of gold And part of me begins to bleed As you cough again, bending like a blade in the wind They say we are material beings Fickle to the passing of the seasons I cannot think of anything else Watching you wane as the trees turnblack It's such a small room, so bare and white Window speckled with frost Coughing smiling sleeping writhing You live the cycle you always wrote about I hold you as you fall asleep Into the dreamless sleep of dreams I weep over the you of yesterday In a silky white dress, a ring of gold And a calico cat sleeping by a puddle of sil...

We see the blood and the feathers We mourn your loss, your hubris and your fall Can you even claw your way back up? You donned the robe of the fire bird   We have told you before   To gain flight, you must burn your heart You soar, but you cannot breathe   You fly, but you cannot see the earth There is no one but the frigid stars to keep you company. A meteor with a golden, fiery tail Blazing furiously through the unforgiving abyss How can this truly be what you want? No longer do you possess humanity There is no beating heart of flesh in your fiery bosom   Nothing but rage and metal and the heat of your fury He had to channel the moon in his veins To raise the ocean to meet the sky He drowned the stars in his tears He forced water into ice, into brittle shards of harm He already buried one golden eyed princess He can do it once more, over and over again. Fire met water in a blaze of steam and rage Mighty grief and migh...

Drifting like a folded paper Slipping between the cracks Wishing for that burning sensation Between my teeth and tongue, tasting summer, savoring fire Steam and smoke, paper pipes Nickels between your fingers Straps and buckles crossing chests Standing at the end of the cross walk Waiting for the lights to turn white Rolling done grey streets My urban fantasy We see those stripes of white Like some cemented ribbons A crown of this city queen Arching tails of ocean spray Liquid jewels gracing the sky's collar I see her ivory hand and her graceful air The great goddess of the sea She nods and sinks below the waves Desert sand and bloodied steel He takes them both in hand Seizing obsidian eyes But there is nothing Between the slave and the wilderness   The sky is a big blue box I'm sitting inside the box Wishing I was in the bigger black box Wanting to see all the floating boxes Shining in the glow of the great yellow box

The city reeks of heartsickness Sewers intertwining like veins under blackened skin Do you hear the thrum of the municipality? It's like the song of a girl drinking Scotch by the sea Throaty laughter, bubbling glee If I asked you to dirty dance on the bridge with me You would laugh and pull me into the river Where we would sing and grind to Queen All night by the light of a thousand stars and one big moon All you see is the world in monochrome Shades of grey, shades of grey I wish you would take off those stupid custom glasses And see me in shades of color, shades of color Instead of just in shades We once took sixty dollars from your dad's safe And borrowed my older sister's minivan Got drunk on her leftover cider And sang terrible blues all the way to Washington Baby, let's do all that again All you see is the world in monochrome Shades of grey, shades of grey I wish you would take off those stupid custom glasses A...

I see the neon stars on black rectangles and the sky is a misty shade of pastel A single white light bulb sparkles above green and white checkered tiles and a wizened crone rocks on a metal chair The motorcycle is a color of a child's yawn and its engine sounds like a purr We sit on the metal sheets of roofs and kick off rust watching the sun rise as we eat tea cakes and rice triangles The air smells like sweat and engine oil Astringent and sweet, the scent of the urban city Alleyways narrower than a breadth of a man The dog slips through the beaten iron gate Wooden floors and flowery bed spreads Her voice sounds like paper in water Endless sky, endless earth Scrapers of the sky, neon lights like a necklace across the horizon's chest. 

I am the person riding the shadows No one sees me at first But once the sun dial hits the ground Only then will they know That time is insane and I live If eyes are nitroglycerin and hearts are clocks Then this world is a chittering pipe bomb Electronic ticking in my bloodstream Marble fingers dancing over my jugular They say the sea only uncombs her hair at night Rippling over the undercurrent Shells and mollusks like gems in her lavish curls Spilling on to the golden skin of the beach You can learn a lot from diary entries By the scribbles on the paper Ink for the confident and lead for the confused And doodles for the abstract Dust, dust, so much dust On my fingers and tabletop Why are specks of matter everywhere Specks of obscurity or substance? Old faces are worse than old memories For there are 43 muscles in the face That could make either ten thousand smiles Or tell ten thousand lies Play me a memory on white and bl...

I am a million miles away from you And so I watch the moon at the dead of night Hoping that somehow, somewhere You could be watching her face too There is something to be said about a name A word to make a person People have words, words have people People make words and words make people Bated breath bodes beautifully for brethren We wait in anticipation for each kin A hummingbird in my chest Beating its veiny wings of crimson Butterfly heartbeats in a living cage We walk the rope bridge over the canyon Sometimes he moves slowly, other times fast And I'm not sure if I want to keep up with him The ice fish are swimming in the sky Lighting up your face like moonlight on water Your eyes are wide and bright with amazement And then you suddenly became a thief If your hands are nitroglycerin Then I am burning alive in your touch Your eyes are slitted red rubies And your wicked grin is frightening but not terrifying The sun ma...

Love buries itself like tree roots in our hearts Entwined like fingers gripping tight Sunken into our flesh, nails in meat It is a vise, a pleasant sort of hurt Let yourself feel the burn and relish in it You linger in its evisceration And the warm basking glow of its light Red hot like a neon sign in Vegas Some sultry finger beckoning But what happens when the tree roots are uprooted? When some unkind hand cups the soil and rips Heart from heart, naked roots dangling white in the sun Blistering pain that shoots through you You've held on for so long you forgot the loneliness The callouses have been worn away a long time ago It's a pain far worse than the pleasant ache The tree roots are now claws Raking through your heart like a feral lioness Where a smile burns and a hand scorches After all, the deeper the love the deeper the wound.

The world is a stage and we are all actors Donning masks of papier mache The play is accomplishment It's a sold out house, the people are watching Those who watch and those who sleep Their eyes are needles in the dark I can meet their expectations I can say the scripted lines But who knows when the camera will stop And the playbill will disappear Will I ad-lib my way through Broadway And smile and charm my way through life? The movements are memorized, the steps syncing I am at one with the artwork of movement The people cheer and the critics rave As I marionette my way across the gilded stage They only see the painted smile and the dark mascara And they never see the strings garrotting my wrists But if they see the bracelets then I am the accused "Why do this to yourself? How horrible!" Ringed hands on heaving chests, aghast But they do not realize that the strings choking my hands Are twined around their own limbs Jerking t...

There's a display of rocketry and fireworks Somewhere on that distant horizon Oscillating colors of emerald gold fire Chains upon unending chains of velvet violet The sands are accumulating at the bottom And the quartz watch counts down in monosyllables And the world seems to fold on itself Like a paper boat sitting too long in the water Shreds of the universe fluttering into oblivion Tendrils of radiation, tentacles of disease They won't stay under for long The rubble have buried and the ash has choked Too many fragile trachea We have only survived by teeth skin and grit The world will look on in ridicule As we scramble back to the pyramid They won't see the salt in our eyes But the paper is still in the water Rapidly dissolving into nothing but indistinguishable dust All we have to do now, in this flake of time Is to stand on shattered feet, bones and blood And try to sew the ruined tapestry that is this world Back together A...

I am walking a chess board sidewalk Pawn to e4, I am the King's  A dance of checkered squares Black and White and then back again I am alone but I am not lonely Sitting alone at a distant table I watch them fondly Because I know that I hold their strings I am a silver tongued siren Everything I say comes out right But once the light falls on my lips It's as black as coal The sheets are soot and ashes The fire wreathes around me I am no phoenix So I crumple to the earth like paper The under earth is troubled I sense its distress like a needle The waters will soon rise and fall And the above will be swamped with the grit of rock Take a seed and plant it In the ocean floor bed Watch it blossom into a empress And devour the sea in a gulp My wavelength is a dominant one I do not have to worry or fret But whenever hers rings just a decibel higher I grit my teeth and endure it I sit at my florescent desk And the ...

To Wait for Love I am a star, a silver pinprick of light Buried in the murky depths of heaven's ceiling Do not be my city lights and let me shine Clear and without hindrance I want to draw my own horizon With another star as bright as me Don't erase my light of virgin hope And leave me a gaping black maw Let me make a constellation With my loved one in the annals of time Let me blaze out in splendor Not alone but side by side If all it takes is time, then I shall wait, for anticipation will make it taste all the more sweeter. O.O Not To Wait Dare I dream of impossibilities To hold fire in my hands My heart sings to me but it's a siren's call I want to leap into an abyss And fly Tentative wings on my back But will I just be another Icarus And do I dare to hope Of things that shouldn't even be for me I dare to fling my arms forward Reaching for something that isn't mine The fire will brand ...

So the equilibrium is no more The surface tension has been broken What was once the glory days Is now nothing more than memory And filtered photos on your phone How often do you look at those I wonder And wish for when hearts were untouched by paranoia? I can't say when the frost began creeping in Seizing your soul and rendering you immobile To the machinations of inevitable separation We were too much like flint and flint Grinding against each other Until the sparks began to fly You took it too far and they were terrified Of seeing the monster inside the darkness that was you They say that it was a forgivable misstep And they smile and soothe but their eyes aren't quite meeting yours And the sinking of your heart is like an axe head in water Only there is no one to make it resurface again Their path diverges from yours It's a split road, one leading into an endless plain They say that you can't follow, and they hold you clos...

I took a breath of stagnant fear and glee And pretended to possess something beyond gray matter I dove through a synthetic tapestry And emerged scored with claws It was a cathartic moment That realization that I was more than flesh I was half soul and half beast Making love to Earth and divinity alike So I took the dagger of the moon And cut a piece of the sky's flesh And that night I made a feast of the Galaxy The egregious mistake; my hubris Is it possible to inbibe pleasure? Some might violently disagree But I prefer to flirt with danger The one who smirks into the kiss They prance and play on the waters Frothing and laughing and sighing Some siren calls them home and The dream ends and I wake in salt The scraping of teeth over a vein Watching the pulse jump in the skin Feathering fingers over my heart It's a carnal symphony and I revel in it They see halos and I see tridents Weathering the storm of a weeping la...

The melting pot the nation of the out and the in people with almond eye with the ebony skin with hair of gold with hands of white do they mix into a flag of many colors or do they segregate into blocky separates where the canvas is a mosaic divided and yet a whole picture or is it a sfumato where everything blends and nothing is individual but it's a color unlike any the world has ever seen?

it's a sonorous sort a holy kind of music inflections of tongue and cord we hum and we purr growls and warbles melting and oozing vibrations and trembling veins scraping of teeth over syllables enunciation and catharsis we stand in place and sway to a beat rhythm of the air hiss the words sing the words it's acapella after all.  

The world is strange falling apart like torn petals of glass I rise the sun falls and I salute the Mother and the Darkbrothers rise to the hymn of the silent stars and we flow in a cadence that royal vein of blue blood and as nighttime ascends we pledge our soul to the people of the worldspace.