Pailei

he stalked her when the night fell like a black cloak, so heavy even the moon was masked in the folds. she was a pale star pressed to endless obsidian. i'm not afraid of you, she whispered to the darkness. said the rabbit to the wolf, the shadow replied, his voice like a dagger unsheathing.

i am made of trees. parchment skin and deep roots dragging at the dark earth, long limbs lifted to the sky, and a thousand tales tucked in every rustling breath. but he wants a flower.

the air is full of dead things. i huff, but the dead-smells stick to my nose. pawpawpaw soft at her side, close because prey is close. am good protector. sniff and huff. ears flick. the flurry of rat-feet, her steps, and there. prey. fire unravels the dark but i see through shadows, and i see it waiting. low growl. Moon-pup understands. is smart pup. has stick-claws ready when prey attacks. prey leaps into light. Moon-pup hesitates. i do not. jump, teeth-for-throat but it blocks. crunchcrunchcrunch old bones break easy but old blood tastes bitter. prey bares its teeth, hissing. shakes arm, claws at my throat, bites. hurts, but i hol

just breathe For years, I carried this mantra in my pocket. It seems strange that one should have to remind themselves to breathe, but at times the weight of the world feels as if it may crush us. In those years, I lost my grandmother—the first person who ever really understood me. The first person to ever tell me I could write poetry if I wanted to, or sing if I wanted to, even if I didn't make solo in the choir (and what did the music director know anyway?). She was the one who made me promise never to smoke even as she took a drag, tried to jimmy the door when I locked her out of my room, and taught me that you can be fierce and

and i can't keep these things from spilling out like bumblebees fresh from the lips of flowers but be patient for this is the truth in a love letter to myself wrapped in chicken wire tongues of honey wagging silver threads of secrets falling soft as moonlight on the world's brow infant-insignificant because one voice is barely enough to still a moth wing tender-beating but still, it is my voice, and my song and my storm spinning like teacups treacle-thick in the traitorous distance revealed between reality and reverie. it's become somewhat demanding to continually close this campaign against the rituals of love written in i

i shrink strangely away from light, when darkness drapes freely as when drops the shade of night to bow her greeting. eternity, i, certain still, long for familiarity of time now break my blindness to the light and avoid the beaten path. and so of infinitesimal brightness, these mornings of the mind when not even the sun reveals a secret or clouds hide outside, the fearful withdraw cowardly and never embrace a flower sweetly with their toes as the world teaches us to be blind, both the brightness remains and nothing out of view resists the afternoon and death leans crookedly away.

this is no true night, she thought, darkness descending like a raven, sharp and black, long lines of feather-shadows scraping at the light. witch-blood, the wispy moon whispered as she scraped the rust-colored dust from beneath her nails—the detritus from decades of grinding hardened hearts to powder. she swallowed an old song, knowing that such things will not stay locked tight behind her teeth, and turned away from temptation—the caustic caress that called her closer to the endless dark. my way is little wing, solid earth, long roots and the edge of light, she lamented quietly. tonight is not the time to trail shadows into no

silence. the night is a still ship on dark waters missing the moon, her face hidden, a maiden captive in murky midnight, steeled shadows, swords stretching out over stone walls, jeweled stars strung across the breathless black silence.

gather up your whispers,   we are through standing dew-eyed like the doe drunk on meadow pollen who has never tasted the sulfur crack   of a hunter's shot as it splits the air   and severs the silence; we were not born to count the clouds like sheep as they float by on heaven's vault like lilies on a mirror-surface pond. we have voices and we must raise them; press our words to paper pages, etch them in our parchment skin,   tell our tales to the ten-thousand winds and listen as they circle back again, lifting hearts in their carved bone cages, sing souls the silky truth, and unravel transcendence in tiny sips until we understand