Illustrations of the Heart

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Please let her think she's dreaming

They ask her why she's bleeding

When they stab her in the back

The demons won't start feeding

Until she's fled the attack

There is so little light

Left to enslave

Just survive, be alright

And she'll be brave

  'Something's just under your skin'

They say, softer, 'have a heart'

Can't see the nightmare within

It's all meant to fall apart

Plenty more light to hold

Spend and damage

It's nothing worse than cold

And she'll manage

  They ask her why she's bleeding

When words scrape into her skin

She sees her hope receding

And the way her light had been

And she says she's sorry

For wisping by

For the times she's starry

Across goodbye

  Nurture her frightened eyes with demons

But please let her think she's dreaming...

[subtlerillustrations]

The drizzle of heartbreak

None will hear my silence

The drizzle of heartbreak

Else, I’d wield a torch

To illuminate the dust

Faultlessly perished

Within this nonsense

A chasm of distrust

Neither of us inspired to cross

Or perhaps I’m waiting

In a loop of wistfulness

Waiting for you to notice

How second-hand darkness

Bled upon my soul

How the drizzle

Scarred me

Towards a downpour

[subtlerillustrations]

Statements of black lacquer

Statements of black lacquer

Laced in atmosphere

And failing crimson

Winging beneath the sunrise

Yet over flurries

Of lovely paleness

Clouds mourn as family

Behind trembling waters

Trembling devilry

Suffocation of whispers

And such sips of song

That hover after twilight

Gaze for a minute

Unrequited minutes

They cannot last      

Even if a thought

Would form

From footsteps

Lingeringly

[subtlerillustrations]

Pale waves breathe (otherwise untitled)

Pale waves breathe

Between the fallen lines

Overcasting hands

The ripples glaze the stars

Too late seemingly

To grasp that ripple

From the beginning

Faint in serenity

Where else would a song be

But dwelling in the waves

Would end each sentence

Passively

As it conceals itself

After a followed heart

A soul that also

Hears the breathing waves

Would sing inside the words

If only they were more like us

Would feel each brokenness

The dribbles of moonlight

Through the mask of existence

Still the glaze appears

Shines on a blanket of stars

Upon these white words

Flying the crest

Of the meaningless song

[subtlerillustrations]

A Survivor

Gracefully absent

         Touched by pillared sky

              There is a small eclipse

         Merged in decay

You are the survivor

        To blend among the ash

           Then break recognition

              These one and all

                  Tailored in the stars

       To lie in wakefulness

                 To lie down in written hope

You are the survivor

        And wisps of falling air

             Curtain up the rain

                   The pangs so lyrical

                          They inhabit your heart

       But you may not know them

For you are the survivor

         Sunken eyes turned onwards

                Towards blusters of fear

                      Parting fear from you is subtle

                                Less is it when intricately

        Globes of intricacy

           Would dampen every tear

And you remain the survivor

         None else can come safely

               These others made an appearance

                       Just once, and perhaps another

                              Through corridors too soft

        Too gracefully

                               Absent with their wakefulness

               Glassy in wakefulness

There are no survivors