the secrets that you keep are at the ready, are you ready?

wait
I'll be swifter
damn the speed of light
carbon on my body
a billion years of time



When will you listen? Will decades pass and stars descend streaming to earth, vibrant glitter of death across our skies, before you hear? What will it take? How long will you cling to this fanciful notion that your pain is purity and you must never let it go?

you'll wake
with the stitches
over both your eyes
and deny
me my body
and all earthly delights

By everything I hold holy, you sound like me, and that's not a good thing.

it's time
you are alight
I guess you are afraid of
what everyone is made of



Just a little breathing time, just a little foreknowledge, just a little hindsight--and it will make the pain more bearable. You do not hear, you do not believe me, but I know these things. Pain becomes twinge becomes ache becomes melancholy nostalgia, and if you still cling to it at that point, it will slip through your fingers like mist. You will not remember the sound of his laugh on the morning air. You will not remember how she danced under moonlight. You will not remember the possessive look in his eyes, over you, knowing you were his. You will not remember her embarrassed smile, the first time your hands touched skin, and how your heart leapt to see it.

You will not remember. I know you don't hear me, but you will not. It will fade, everything does.

time and light
I guess you are afraid of
what everyone is made of

And you are light and life and vibrancy, cast your net upon the waves and pull it back straining with new interest--I have seen you do this, never intending, and still you say you cannot be loved. It's inconceivable.

all of your brain
amounts to just one breath
please
keep your victory
but give me a little death



You say you're freezing, you're falling into the center of your own cold winter. I tell you we are wintered now, and I am in thaw, and I see more than you do from here. I tell you I have been where you are, frozen, cold, and growing colder, mourning and growing bitter, shut away where none could see me...and it is not the way to live a life. Not mine. Not yours. Not anyone's.

When we stop reaching out, we stop living. We might as well lay down and wait to die. Are you hearing me, at all?

it's time
you are alight
I guess you are afraid of
what everyone is made of

It's fear of future pain. It's fear of love ending. It's fear of giving up love again. It's fear of future risk.

I know this. I know this well. Do you think I never stood at your crossroads, wondering if it would be better to shut the doors of my heart? Do you think I don't know, even with them as open as I can make them, those I love still have to fight me to gain entry? My heart is still guarded and the thorns are sharp. I injure everyone I hold close. And I mourn their pain, and struggle to remove more of my defenses as I find them.

I'm not reinforcing. Someone leaves now I shatter. But I know I can put myself back together. You can too.

Listen. Hear me. Why won't you hear me?

time and light
I guess you are afraid of
what everyone is made of

And it's not just you you're hurting. As I had to see, when I finally looked around--all of my dear ones I hurt. All of my dear friends I hurt. By hurting and not letting them help. By hurting and holding them off. By falling, and insisting I could rise on my own, and not accepting their hands outstretched.

Accepting help, taking that risk...it's humbling, it can feel crippling, it can be the most terrifying thing...but you must continue to let it happen. You are not me...yet.

But I think you can see me from where you stand.



time
time
time
time

How much repetition do you need? How loud must I scream at the air you're stilling around you? How much will it take for you to hear?

How long until you close in to mirror distance, and realize whose face is embedded in the other side?

time time time
time time time
time time time

Tell me. Must I repeat it? Every second, slipping through your fingers. Every minute you're a little older, a little colder. When do you finally look around, and see you're not you, you're me, and the long hard road back you'll have then?

I'd spare you that, if I could. I'd spare you such pain. Because that pain you will have paid for dearly, in heart's red and soul's wounding, and you'll say to yourself, because of the price you paid, the cost excised from your living flesh, you must cling to it, make it yours, wrap yourself around its razor weight and hold it slicing tight.

And you do not need to do this. You do not need this. Do you hear? Can you hear? Am I just words on the wind, wailing past your ears?

time
you are alight
I guess you are afraid of
what everyone is made of



All I have to offer is where I've been. And where I've been holds joy and light, suffering and darkness. Would I do it differently, had I to do it again? I'd love to say yes. But I think I'm wrong.

All I can do is reinforce, guide, advise...I can't make you do anything.

But if I have nothing else, I have my standing as a bad example. At the least I have that.

And in spite of it, I have love. You can too. Do you hear me?

time and light
I guess you are afraid of
what everyone is made of
what everyone is made of

Or is your fear overriding everything else?

so take to the streets with
apocalypse refrain
your devotion
has the look of
a lunatic's gaze...



The fear that you will be the cold thing at the center of the thorns, unable to move...

(Song is St. Vincent's "Apocalypse Song".)