DormantWinter is a blank slate,
but not like Rousseau's—
it cleanses
sucking out warmth like poison
leaving only windburnt frost
tacked to the window pane

all we remember
is the numbness
the shuddering
skittish steps across the ice
snowflakes pasted to our faces
smoke rising from our lips
dragged across bleak clouds

winter has us captured
bound by fur and walls
drifting in our eggshelled silence

bone cold until we birth ourselves by warmth
emerge from our shells wet and heaving
uncurl our fingers one by one
joints crackling like fire at our backs

until spring comes
drip by tender drip
old wounds thaw
we are found raw,

bedIt's a stabbing sight
Letting in the morning with a crack of the shades
And you forget you could page-turn horizons
Waft through free territory
Where acres are just beds
Made of fresh land

Wrinkles in the river
Tell remembered times
About old languages that could make you cry
About soft beds that carve away canyons
A speaking voice lifted from the earth
Begging you to remember

SolsticeOnce upon a time, when you were still sunlighthouses and shimmering existence wherever you were needed most, you found him. He was November, shaky on his first last legs, and you saw through the mind-twistings he feigned to the mind-twistings that were really there, knotted up in his dreams.

You were still birdsong then, and thunderstorms, and your bodyheat melted the frost claws that held him tight. You held onto him as his November deepened. When he howled, you howled with him, and the wind played with your voices and pressed the softness of your lungs against your cageribs—and then against each other's.

November became solstice, and

if only, if only.i.
we drove nowhere
and we spoke a language
that nobody understood
underneath a foreign sky
blanketed in the scent of pine.

ii.
you told me
my eyes were like envelopes—
because they were always
opening
closing
fluttering to the sound
of breaking seals
and ink stained fingertips.

iii.
i told you
we should run away
to a new land
with new faces
because
i was enamored
with people i had never encountered
and places i had never gone.

iv.
you laughed at me
and said that
if i didn't spend
so much time with my head
buried in world maps
i would realize
that i was living on one.

v.
i remember
it rained that day
and the tea went cold
but the

rootslike drowned men who have lost their
clothes and faces, they lay suspended
facing the sun and grinning without
eyes through the ripples of the water.

those passing by wonder how they got here,
these homeless men without fingers or toes
long spindly stumps twisting into lost roots:

reaching to the east, to the south,
to the homes they have forgotten.

mosaics.sometimes unique
is not loud;
or bright, alive and raging,
possessed of a hunger for the atypical,
up front and too close,
or thrice-pierced and drenched
in the rebellions
particular to the latest generation.

sometimes it is a girl with
mouse brown hair and eyes
the color of weak tea,
who stands with her schoolbooks clutched
to her chest, in uniform shades of grey-blue
like the midmorning autumn sky

who has a wide mouth prone to nervous smiles,

pale lips and pale cheeks
and words that don't always come out
the way she means

who holds the universe
in the intricacies of her fingerprints
and laughs in treble clef notes
and u

This Common BloodI am young when I first hear the word 'adoption'. I am so very young, perhaps three, maybe four. I accept it easily when my mother sits me down and explains that I did not grow beneath her heart, but rather in it. I nod my head, smile big, and ask when I'm getting a little sister. My mother kisses me on the forehead and puts her hand on my head as she stands up. "If you wish on a star, Sarah, maybe she will be here very soon." I practice my wishing until night's companions wink merrily in the sky.

Dear Anna,
I turned seventeen just recently. I thought of you when I woke up, and I wondered if you were thinking of me. I like to think that you

October EyesSuch gentle colors drip across your freckled shoulder blades.
A quilt of puddled watercolors soaked in auburn shades.

Spun of golden rivulets and rinsed in autumn skies,
So many endless currents swimming through your lonesome eyes.

Brushing under fingertips and over shattered songs,
Unraveling like morning glaze against my paling palms.

With beauty like October hills and hollow as the skies,
The water drops against the earth will be our lullaby.

IfWe can
draw lines and give them names
like elements
as they are discovered

Or etch into our skins
this soloecal desire
until it is impossible to tell
where words stop
and life begins.

I would

Find a common rhythm that includes
you in my arms, my hands
and lungs and thoughts
tracing the outline of you
entangled with me
colliding like two lost particles
locked in a shared gravity
drifting through the vacuum
of space.

I could.

Exhale, and
remember
sentence structure.

don't get tired of elephants yetI've had my crippling moments.
They'd either start in my stomach
with an ache like broken glass
or stab me right in the catharsis,
somewhere near my heart or breath
or maybe my left foot.

I wouldn't know how it feels
to hurt to walk, but I imagine
with a destination like farther,
it's no pilgrimage.
So take the burden off your back.
Life is not a sandstorm
and your lungs are only a mirage
if you expect to see your breath
every time you breathe.
So take a breath

back, just one step

and listen with your smoke signals.
Help is on the way.
I just can't promise
it knows much about this lifetime.
It's the same way I could never promise
elephan

free agentwell she
told me
that she'd vanish
into the forest
for four years
to be-
come some secret dream
a si-
lent specter who'd
someday
reappear

to collect
all conscious thought
wanted or not
in the solitude
that shadows
brought

but still
burned bright
this tiny light
who taught my
dark
about her
night

and so I
made her name
the only
whispered word
our time would hear
and I dis-
played
only privately
the images
between my ears

yet the moon
often makes possible
one who
breathes
for two

or

orphans
proper principle
the way
that
lovers sometimes do

and we do
and we do
(we doot-doot-do)

oh! and dreams
can

I Mean to Get You AloneYou have sharp
pulse-elevating teeth
the stuff I imagine heart attacks
are made of

I'm bent on selling you a handful of smiles
specifically crafted
to distract you from the fact that
I have almost nothing to say

and now you're steering this conversation
in a direction that suggests you've

forgotten that I
don't watch movies or do much of
anything but work which maybe

explains why one glass of wine gets me
wrapped around you
car to streetlight
crash style
mangled limbs
breeding curious onlookers and my insurance has
expired

you're leaning in and all I can think is
I don't have insurance

silkwormthe morning brazen with
work, clambering from our beds
still pulling out of dreamtime
hypnosis; the shiver, backbone rumble
leaden work of unintellectual nature
how do you dream without success?
cream molding coffee groaning
jerking out of stasis
work a lifetime away
every monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday

all my diplomas are unwritten
murmuring lullabies of grand grab bags
sickening amounts of cash
spindles in the head of massive
debt consolidation one fucking big weight
chest exhaling invisible depressive
napalm of a meta-catastrophy
sunken into little corners
of an apartment disorder

little silk threads are fallin

relearning i. stardust scatters with the
direction of my pupils –
maybe secretly i am an
astrology teacher, waiting
for a sign to wink
happily at me.

ii. excuse the rambling
nature of forgotten question
marks, but tell me:
would you like to be the
object of handwritten clichés
would you like to whisper
secrets in my palm
and would you
like to be the possibility

iii. air brushes against my
skin like the torn petals
of a flower still standing.
[ hold your head up high, honey,
and tell tomorrow to wait just
a while,

iv. so you can figure out
the difference between
patience and having all the

Imitating NatureThe morning sun streamed through a series of large plate glass windows lining the library's east wall, its rays warming the room's wooden paneling and illuminating the cavernous space. Tall bookshelves stuffed with literature from across the world towered over polished oak reading tables, each furnished with a plain, green-shaded banker's lamp. On the far side, a massive painting gracing the west wall depicted the solemn face of Saint Patrick, whose protective presence could be felt watching over the library's sole visitor.

All was perfectly quiet, save for a tap, tap, tapping that echoed in the otherwise silent room. Seated at a desk near t

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in the first blush of spring,
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on a sparrow's wing.
They raised her among
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between the shadows
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They dined upon
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and then after
They taught her how
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swim to the world's bottom,
and hide in the heather.
she could climb
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for unseeing eyes

by *Pailei, Dec 10, 2011, 1:02:36 AM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

laden with sky
we stumbled
and painted mockingbirds
on loveless branches
folding in our slender limbs
and ducking under our own
voices, fidgety and frail
against the wall of night.

between the dipping blades
and drawn shoulders
we learned to craft our words
steady-soft,
a drumming rain
that carved canyons
in open hearts and
drew the sunshine to
our supping lips.

keen-eyed, we watched
remembering the weight
of unseeing eyes
and scalding remarks
and we learned to slip
the noose-knots and slide
through the soul-cracks
and somehow
build kingdoms under
upturned noses.

with lyrical uncertainty
and tender determination
we built a pyre of peace
in the shadows
of dissonance
and watched it blaze
the truth across our
pliant hearts.

as solemn
as new leaves still curled
and stretching hands
unfurled in suppliance
we lifted our heads
in broken laughter,
for this light is our burden,
and even a whisper
can shatter silence
and bring the blind
to sight.

3,393

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for unseeing eyesby *Pailei

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One candle against the dark, one breath breaks the silence.

Did you know everyone is a rebel at heart?

***Edit***
A DD?!?! I am honored--and beyond thrilled!
Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to read my work, and rest assured I will respond to each of your comments and faves (though it might take some time).

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Submitted on: December 10, 2011
File Size: 1.3 KB
Submitted with: Sta.sh

Views: 3,393 (4 today)
Favourites: 219 (who?)
Comments: 54
Downloads: 274

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-11-08

The suggester says "Truly, I can feel the weight of the world in these words. All of it. Every ounce of pressure that composed each and every line, pressed them into words, I can feel it weighing on my shoulders." for unseeing eyes is by *Pailei ( Suggested by *Carmalain7 and Featured by ^NicSwaner )

love 2 2

~~joy 0 0~~

wow 1 1

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~Meggie272 Dec 8, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

This is amazing. The second stanza is beautiful.

*Pailei Dec 8, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Thank you. Sometimes quiet rebels accomplish more than their louder brethren ever could.

And thanks so much for the fave!

~Meggie272 Dec 9, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I reckon you're right there c:
You're welcome!

=SolarumNyx Nov 17, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

oh god, this is beautiful. the contrast of the imagery and the flow of the words, plus that tiny strand of lyrical dissonance makes this such a wonderful piece. i swear, i wish i could write like this. love, love, love it!

*Pailei Nov 18, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Wow, thank you so much! I'm glad you like it.

~tanch0708 Nov 10, 2012

Simply Amazing

*Pailei Nov 10, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Wow, thanks! And thanks so much for the fave!

~WolfsoulPhoenix Nov 9, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

that was beautiful.

*Pailei Nov 9, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Aw, thanks! Glad you liked it.

*brassteeth Nov 8, 2012

Wonderful. Congratulations on your D.D!

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for unseeing eyes

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for unseeing eyesby *Pailei

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