don't you see? 

you must bow,

you must focus your gaze on the floor, 

you must speak in a whisper, 

you must walk with silent steps, 

because you are not a queen. 

don't you understand? 

no royal blood floods your veins,

no crown perches on your head,

no eyes are aimed at you, 

because you are not a queen. 

don't you realize?

they are the sun, 

they have the world revolving around them, 

because you are not a queen. 

don't you accept it? 

the people bow to them, 

the people listen, 

and follow, 

and bask in their light.

but, 

perhaps, 

you don't have to. 

do you see? 

to the beat of nostalgia felt for my ambition 

to the drum set collecting dust in my basement

wired and electric, thin black pads poised as if to fall on me if I play the toms too loud 

I don't mean to leave you with no sound keeping you alive

I search for my passion in an endless scroll through Pinterest

like maybe one day I'll become as talented as my daydreams allow me to believe if I let myself rest and worry and hurt for an hour or two

in the glorious and infinite reaches of my mind I hear the sizzle of a hi-hat, the rapid fills moving from tom to tom, the life-giving thump of the base drum

yet I can't create such things into reality when they fall apart the moment I sit down before the snare and settle my feet on the pedals

perhaps someday, when it doesn't take everything in me to get up in the morning

maybe later, once simple conversations with others don't drain me like a crappy battery

when the days are no longer a chore, I will find the joy in learning again

for now the joy of such loud, versatile, unique sounds will thump out the rhythm of a life

that I am trying to love again. 

Fall fall fall

The pieces fall in place 

Fall fall fall

So why do you feel so wrong

Fall fall fall

Down the ever-darker rabbit hole

Fall fall fall

Through, then past sanity's final safety nets. 

they dance

in the snowy wood,

their footprints covered in an instant by

the falling snow,

their presence erased

they dance to

unseen music,

graceful, fairy-like:

the curve of an arm

the whisper of silk against skin

three steps 

sewn together

they dance

kingdoms rise and fall and splinter into pieces like the infinite branches of a fractaling snowflake

and they dance

people die and are resurrected

and they dance

days pass, seasons change, months and years and centuries and all of temporal eternity gone in the time it takes  

them to finish their dance

take their bows

and vanish into the snowstorm,

as if they were

never there 

I feel like I pretend

To be your friend

I feel like I pretend

To understand this vast dynamic world

Sprawling so far beyond me 

I feel like I pretend

Not to see some things and that I do see others

(it's all the same to me, but that's the point of Deception) 

I feel like an imposter, a fake, a phony

I feel like every word I say is a lie

Except for the ones that make you doubt me;

And so I sometimes lock my words away again,

Curl up and dissolve into nothingness once more;

And sometimes you all notice, ask me what's wrong

Why I'm more withdrawn;

But the truth is,

It's scariest when no-one realises at all. 

Sometimes I write

And despite putting down the last full-stop

I never publish it.

I never post that doc in a folder, nested 10 categories in.

I never send it to a friend

In order to get some feedback, a second opinion.

Maybe it's because I hope I'll forget;

That burying it in my mind will erase its existence altogether 

And keep it's venomous roots from spreading

Or choking out other perfectly good works, like a weed.

Perhaps I'm ashamed or tired or just don't like

The clumsy waltz of words that I cough onto the page.

Perhaps I think that someday

I can make it better; no point in sharing something unfinished, right? 

Maybe I just want to keep something that is my own

Wholly and truly, unshared and unseen by other eyes

Maybe then this scrap of squiggles can be my low-stakes secret. 

Sometimes I think you leak Winter-breath

You are the frosty breeze that spills in

Through the window

And kisses the ground with snow each night.

You are the comfort that pulses through

When I'm sick or upset

And unintentionally make everything worse

(it might just be better to be burning hot and miserable

Rather than switching between relief and pain after all).

Your finger ghost my warmth like ice

Smooth and cool and refreshing

BUt filled with such mystery. 

the rain has returned, 

bearing a blanket of fog, 

that drapes over the mountains, 

curls between the trees, 

and settles in the valleys. 

the rain has returned, 

bearing a choir of thunder and lightning, 

that shakes the trees, 

and rips through the sky. 

the rain has returned, 

bearing enough water to creep over the riverbed, 

flood the roads,

and relentlessly pound on the roof. 

the rain has returned, 

and the world was not ready.