we are all kings in exile

Jolene, 18. Dancer. Occasionally writer of bad poetry.

[blueglasspeople]

I laid two fingers over the soft inside of my wrist and thought, life is beating here wildly - life will leave bruises in the morning...

j.h.

[blueglasspeople]

And sometimes, just occasionally you feel the vastness at your back The air lifting the nubs of your shoulder blades that might be wings.

[blueglasspeople]

The tragedy of always staying up late, always keeping awake, is that you wander the world half-asleep.

[blueglasspeople]

She is a ribbon of light and air, not even enough weave for a cloth.

[blueglasspeople]

Gleaming skin and deep shadows Burnished hair in spotlight halos Dancers poised at the wings

[blueglasspeople]

The sunset strokes the gnarled trees tenderly, setting them alight with a quiet fire. It is as silent a passion as the secret of two familiar lovers: as intimate a flame as catching suddenly a glance meant between them alone.

[blueglasspeople]

I once loved a girl who reminded me of birds: she was always taking flight, as though she had never known a touch less wild than that of the wind and the open skies.

[blueglasspeople]

I am a person made of sunlight So, too, my shadow. I am tethered to this earth by the very tips Of my toes And it is this state, perhaps, Which is far more cruel than personhood.

[blueglasspeople]

If I were only invisible My body would be bearable

[blueglasspeople]

You are like sunlight: you glint brilliantly through the colourless, invisible, unnoticed glass of my window-pane self till I, too, am golden; magnificent.

[blueglasspeople]

It is absolutely necessary for a poet to have an extravagant imagination, one which can see death in roses, and roses in death... I don't know how to cultivate an imagination like that. I try and try, and get neat, charming gardens when what I want is an overgrowth of wilderness.

[blueglasspeople]

She wore the stars tangled in the inky night of her hair and the light of the moon on her skin. She wore the satin of the night sky, dark blue like white clouds seen in the shadow of the moon, draped about her and falling to blend endlessly with the darkness. She moved as the earth moves, rotating quite still, a gravity that sweeps all else into its spiral.

[blueglasspeople]

Raise your chin through the bars of your window and cry, through the glass at the sunset-gilded sky: we are bigger than this.

[blueglasspeople]

Tonight, the moon tastes luminous on my tongue. I might swallow it like a pill and hope it cures me of my wanderlust

[blueglasspeople]

I looked at you and said I was an empty house. You looked at me and laughed. You looked into my eyes and were pleased by the empty space you found, This bare room that could be yours, And the room next to it your study, And your kitchen, your living room. Yours, yours, yours. In your eyes I could see fine woven rugs and plush armchairs, the cold glitter of silver diningware. You already knew at which window you'd put those velvet curtains, and that oak table, And exactly what colour you'd paint me over. Don't open that closet, I said. Why, you asked, with your armful of silk shirts. I could have warned you, but you wouldn't have listened. Skeletons, j.h.

[blueglasspeople]

Be brave. More disappointment is yet to come, but you are still you, and you will never cease being yourself.

[blueglasspeople]

The worst part is that there is no abyss, None at all. Despite the pain that hurls me against the rocks, despite the horror of being plunged into some kind of Hell, There is no sea, and there is no abyss. Drowning and falling would be too much of a mercy. Instead, I must stay trapped In this body which stands proud as a mountain, Millions of years of evolution uncomprehending of the desire to die.

Despair, j.h.