reborn in beauty

 

In moonlight old scars

slither across my heart,

silver snail trails, showing

the slow passing of time.

 

The weary frail creaks

of a hand as it slowly

turns the gears of time,

every slowed beat another memory

worn like an iron maiden,

clicking deeper into my being.

 

The sharpened teeth eating clean

every minuscule hope within...

Leaving only bite marks on dried crimson skin.

  

And I realise the hand turning the dial is mine.

 

The remains sift the ground,

circled chalk marks showing

dead moments, how they fell

and shattered again and again.

Silver drawn in moonlight.

 

And I scrub. And scrub.

But hurt never washes

clean in rain, just patterns the ground

In stained memories of pain.

 

The chalk scrawls where

sealed doors first slammed shut,

where my past became history

to be read about in a book.

 

I embraced the darkness,

I listened to what it said,

I felt every tear

and every blade edge.

And I struck a match of all my hurt

and with it I lit a fire,

out of which, embers of life

began to spark up.

 

I started to open up.

 

I allowed myself to feel pain,

I allowed the hurt, I accepted my blame,

I took the bitter pills along with the

sweet syrup of enlightenment.

 

And then as

moonlight washes away

and welcomes in the day,

a tide in the sky, waves away

yesterday and welcomes in today.

And the sunlight pours through old wounds.

A window opened and climbed through.

Rainbows flow from my scarred skin

bringing their colour into a world

reborn in beauty.

Forest of the mind

 

Stay with me

when the sunlight

slowly fades into night.

I need your heart

to beat

so the rhyme can

hold me steady,

as these waters

make me ill at ease.

 

Stay and speak,

let me hear

the warming fires of home,

let me feel the stones - those burning embers;

Smouldering coals

of days long gone.

 

Stay

and if my

memory

should fade,

rain in stories

of our love

to make me feel again.

 

And if I should

get bogged down,

feet clogged

in the swampy ground

of this ever darkening

forest of my mind,

would you hold a light

and guide me home?

Hold me warm

from the shivering cold,

and remind me of who I was

before the clouds began.

The pleading mirror

 

I used to believe in daydreams,

silken images

painted in crystalline

beauty.

I'd walk in the open air

breathing in

all that they granted to me.

The perfectly perfumed

golden imagery.

I'd watch the dancing memories

floating in symmetrical majesty

and I'd fall in love

with the scent of the sea.

 

Saltwater stings what you neglect to see.

 

I used to believe in a world

a step away from reality.

A place where hope

blossomed on trees

and we would

pluck free the fruits

to taste the flowing juice

of a symphony.

Letting it soothe the fire burning inside.

The passions consumed on fiery nights

 

Fire burns what can never be

 

I used to believe

that if I woke, then

my newly opened eyes

would still only see beauty,

that all of this would survive,

that with you beside

we could pull those

dreams into real life,

creating a mirror of our love

in the air we view.

 

Mirrors reflect a side we don't wish to see

 

I used to believe in you.

You told me tales as high as the sun,

You took my hand and through

those fields we would run,

making love under that harvest moon

I thought your heart was

a pure river we could wade through,

but then your depths got murky

and the true terror became a threat

as our footsteps dredged through

to your true surface layer, and the lies

started to claw at feet

like eggshells severing

every nerve ending.

 

Endings are freedom from misery

 

I fell to bleeding

knees as

stones crashed

my pleading mirror view,

showing the lies told as truth.

I had opened my book,

and your name

was no longer in it.

The story was never true.

It was no longer a loving sonnet,

more a warning nursery rhyme.

 

For written words can spell a million lies

 

I slipped and my heart

broke clean in two

I opened my eyes

in a scream

As all I saw was

a nightmare,

the dreams

stolen away from me.

 

But dreams always grow back when

we keep planting seeds.