Reflections of time long past

Droplets of sand in a dessert sea

Blackness awakens the nightbird

She hears the wind calling out

Echoing memories of freedom

Feeling her true spirit call

Misty wails bellowing out over the horizon

Beckoning...beckoning...

She dreams of that feeling again

It’s weak but still there

That hazy poignant fragrance of selflessness

Smelling of death and peonies

Delicious, forbidden, foreboding

What does it mean?

My own facade - a fraud

My performance grand - you may applaud.

Yet tis a sorrowful tale as set

She gave up all herself

for woe and regret

of a life that could have been -

alas, tis not.

Instead she sits alone in rot

Her insides once afire -

now ash.

Her dreams that once were dreamt -

now dashed.

Her youth that smoldered with sex and zest

has now faded like all the rest.

Choices made -

Now lessons learnt.

Luscious landscapes all have burnt.

In soot she sits alone in thought.

Boundless colors long forgot

Hot pinks are now exchanged for dust.

Turquoise seas have turned to rust.

Florescent yellow suns have set.

Vermillion scarlet feathers fret.

She sifts the ash with both her hands.

Dreaming of those distant lands.

Running free in fields of green.

How can a pauper have been a queen...

Last night I dreamt of you - again

Your tattered face was worse than I imagined

Torn, ruined, surgically-enhanced

Memories of what used to be

come to mind

Nights of teenage revelry

Without a care in the world

Except listening to you practice

in that storage unit

megaphone in tow

You crafting your art into what it is now -

super stardom

Who would’ve thought

that it would turn into this

I don’t think you did. Maybe you did?

I sure as hell did not.

Boy was I wrong.

If I had loved you then as you lusted after me

Where would we be today?

Where would I be?

I often wonder...

Sleepwalking yet always talking.

But inside my heart is mocking -

the girl I used to be.

Where is she?

In the mirror I often fear Her.

I neither recognize nor hear Her.

Yet- She is me.

That withered tree.

I crossed that bridge

When I came to it

It came to that.

And at this point

I'm not looking back!

I'm not able to fake the niceties.

Nor feign a smile where one is not.

It's a curse amongst society.

Who scheme, and stew and plot.

Over the years I've played a bit

in the cesspool with their team.

I've tried my best to follow suit

disdain shining like a beam.

I've always been a lone wolf

In my mind, my heart, my soul

In a room that's filled with people

I'm ever distant from the whole.

Though distant, I am thoughtful

of the few I hold so dear.

For when I love it's steadfast,

wholehearted, loyal and true.