I stood on a line in my mind.
One you created, one that I acknowledge for you, though I swore to never allow walls to remain.
Whatever brought you safety, I was accepting of.
I watched through seasons change and you'd push and pull, push and pull, push and pull.
My body bruised.
Breathless.
But never lifeless.
I revisit my own self care when you do your dance.
I've found rhythm there.
The way your eyes change, the things that make you tender.
The way you build walls to watch me destroy them, with faith that I will.

Your jaw clenched as my shaky small voice choked on tears while demanding my sanity.
My head was reeling, you had been holding my hand and I was the one that pulled away.
I was stuck on this metaphorical line, one only you could remove.
You watched for the first time as my mind and my heart tried like hell to reconcile by muffling one another.
All stars with wide eyes and mouths in awe whispering in unison while watching, "shhhh" blew the winds.
You stood like a pillar, some muse of mine, some sun god I've accredited you with all the love in the fucking world.
Because I want you to match what I have to offer, because I know you are capable, like no other.

Your cigarette smoking spiraling in soft purple plumes.
Your eyes soften and you kick your own wall in to pick me up.
I remember fragments before my mind spirals up with those plumes into an oscillating fraction of the universe that I am coaxed into,
as I fall in lawns and you hold me as my body purges the last however many months that I've fed off mixed energy.
Forcing hydration and warmth.
Even while parts of me are being removed from this plane you do not realize how this is part of something so much larger.
But you do, because we've been here before.
You told me so.

You breathe into me new life in the morning.

Kissing under blankets as the sun creeps up.
Taste my nectar, aren't you sweet.
The corners of your smile is where I fall asleep.

...But to me it meant the world.

With my hair balled up in your fist,
with your mouth pressed against lips.
Memorizing the rhythm of your breathing,
Memorizing the rhythm of our hips.

sometimes

Fingers finding their way through the skin of my rib cage.
I can not breathe here please take me away.
I'm sleeping all day, stuck in dreams.
Why are you dragging me along?
Why are you claiming my love?
I am running for my life, in fields of flowers and sun, and there is no end in sight.
I am the morning sun rise to the flickering lightening bugs at night.
You know I own this life.
She says she doesn't think you're playing games.
I made a list, I crossed off names.
I handed my thoughts to her.
Pressing heavy on her chest and I felt guilt in needing to reach.
So I retracted my hands, I tucked them in my pockets.
I took out my pen and and I scribbled until my heart bled from ink.
I said, I'll say no from now on.
If I'm not wanted why do I run to arms that hold.
Why do they hold? Why do I melt inside?

Staring at cracks in ceilings and letting you undress me, more than my clothing,
but all masks I ever wore.
I don't even care if I just become your flighty, running, fantasty whore.
With fluttering lashes that blink and in my heart, we sink.
Oh safety.
Longing for more, for all the plans I had for you.
For the thoughts that died in my womb.
"I need space, I need room."
I'll give you galaxies.
I build castles in your wake.
All the tallest trees hear my call and the earth begins to shake.
I part oceans, I thread light to fabric to cover you and keep you warm.
I hold you in my arms and will take away all the bad and only give you light.
I open doors and I walk away in waiting.
I can not breathe here, please take me away.

I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry, love.
I'm not sure I can stay.
I already took your magic away.
You can earn it back within time.
But not until then.
Heavy on my tongue, the word No.
A shaking head and her eyes say "I told you so."
I press my fingers into my rib cage to counteract your touch.
I never even needed much.
I asked for love and time.
Never demanding, instead I gave you mine.
Now I'm walking on see-through strings.
Now you hear, from across the mountains, the way my heart still sings.
I float in raging rivers. 
Piano keys plinking and I requested one last song.
Sun casting shadows to choreograph graceful movements.
As your hair falls in my face.
I held back all the tears that wanted to pour from my eyes.

Why do you open me so?
If you are too afraid to fill me.
New moon, bleed soon.
I can not breathe here.
Please take me away.

And my favorite songs play
while I make love to you making love to me.
You take me back with you, where ever it is that you're hiding.
When your lit up blue and telling me how much I mean to you.
I tie a string and let you wander,
"I won't lose you again" in dreams of crowded places.
Corridors with happy faces, laughing mirrors,
promising me we'll be alright.
I'll hold you in my arms all night.

Dessert

Prism baby,
you're a swollen gash where the glitter expels.
At night where you're lit up in his room.
Spread me wide, soften my limbs.
There is a kiss for each emotion and my skin thirsts for each.
Splintered lashes, dagger stare,
Come in inside, if you fuckin dare.
I'm the queen.
Prism baby,
golden feathers to preen.
Hands on my hips to hold me down.
Here I lay, with my cum-shot crown.

dream- crowded growing rooms

I'm in some crowded bar, you are texting me about meeting me there.
There are so many people that the walls keep expanding into hallways.
I keep trying to just get outside so that I'll be where you told me to be,
but the room keeps getting bigger and bigger.

I'm standing on a chair. and then jump on to a table, you walk into the bar and stand in the door for a minute,
I wave to you and you are trying to get through to get me.
People are buying you drinks and you have like a drink tray full of beers, your hair is a bit shorter,
you keep trying to get me still and are looking for me.
I've been shoved into some elongated corridor.
I'm not on anything anymore, the whole ceiling is just mirrors.

you keep texting my phone but I'm trying to yell to you instead of responding.
My phone feels really heavy.
You are in the hall and a few people are walking in slow motion between us.
We are both smiling, you get to me a hug me.
The hug feels warm and melty. the room is wobbly, you whisper I don't want to be in here anymore.
I point to your beers that you need to finish and we start laughing.
We are laying on the floor laughing and looking at each other in the mirror ceiling.
I tell you I need to be outside.
You tell me you won't lose me this time

Multifaceted.
Catching rays of light on my swollen tongue.
Eyes wide.
Looking forward to a midnight run.
Invited to a girl's night out.
Time to dance these gleaming knives out.
Blade sharp, like my mind;
ink from a pen.
Fill your cup: "Say when."

dream-quarter machine living rooms

Had a dream I was at work, but the lights were dim, yellowed. It was lit with christmas lights and these drop lighs made out of tree branches..
C walks over to me and handed me a little notepad with a couple words I can't make out on it. I keep squinting and laughing. We start talking about Pulp Fiction. Suddenly we are in my house- but not my house a house of mine in the dream. I have on black lace tights that I haven't worn in several years and peach tulle skirt I bought for an x best friend of mine. I ask C what she wrote on the paper, she laughs and said "I didn't, you did."
I'm lacing up a pair of boots.

She is still standing there holding the paper it just says "in mint, june 8p.m."
I feel confused. She is collecting something from a giant quarter machine in my living room.
Its a tiny little flower with the petals glued on where you can see the glue prominently.
She sets it on my coffee table and we go outside.
For some reason she is smoking a cigarette, I don't think she smokes, but the smoke is light green.
My head says "Green-Go"
She says "Whats?" I tell her that her smoke is green, she laughs.
I say I have to go, she grabs my wrist and tells me not to, that something tells her that I'm supposed to stay.

I start running down an alley.
The ground is shiny like when its raining. I'm running into a field, its getting dark out but I keep running.
I hear some shouting my name I look up and the road near the field my bf is standing there next to a car.
He is yelling at me that I need to get in.
I am suddenly back in my apartment. I'm twisting a crank on a giant quarter machine.
I get a folded up piece of paper that says "stay".

Everything was softened on the shore,
the water caressed her body gently the way their hands once did.
Next time I'll roll over and continue to dream instead.
My story is forever; only mine.
There is no metaphorical remedy.
Turning in silence, staring at the night.
I hold my breath, I bite my tongue, I stand strong instead of run.
I poise my axis, my shaking legs wide.
I birthed these seas.
The Moon, the Sun, and Me.

Hidden Passages

I held you up to kiss suns you would have never witnessed otherwise.
And now I tuck them into silken blankets alone at night.
I gently handed you stars that I collected over lifetimes, kept in delicately threaded sachets.
You needn't return the trinkets that make my heart full.
I want to watch as your eyes still shine from the ventures you've had.
In hope of futures with us.
You have feats to conquer that I'm unable to aide you in.
I have crossed over into gates that do not unlock to go backwards and I've been bruising my body trying to reopen them for you to continue on in.
On your time.
Just know I've broken all the watches in this world for you and no clock hands can untie the knots that sew our hearts together.
A bond, that was there before we ever met eyes.
One that tosses colorful fabric into the sky to project the sunset, just as we will again rise.
That lays down in the grass to warm it as our bodies have.
Our hands still reach to each other without thought and my fingers still yearn to run across your arm as you lay next to me.
I smile silently as I feel you kiss my forehead in mornings where the sun climbs in the window after its hidden rendezvous.
I still breathe you in when you hold me close, like a flower, you water me.
I let you do these things.
My keys are still in your pocket.
Find me when the sun sets over june and the fields are lush.
We'll run as far away as you need, where the rabbits hide in their dens.
I'll show you all the secret places that I know.

Saree McClaran
050316

I collect my pride.
Lion's mane.
If you won't cut ties that knotted my noose.
I will.
A coward's loose, hiding in shadows.
Crawling out at night.
To say he loves me at the climax of time.
But there's new magic brewing.
And our drinks are poured hot.
Rolling off his tongue, wide eyed.
Drawn the line.
Let me cross, your magic has no power over me.
Because it's always been mine.
Breathing into my lips, a summers kiss.
Traded souls, that tangled like wind chimes during a storm.
Our love still has a sound.
To me, you are bound.
All that try to take what's mine:
Eye for an Eye.
Go for the throat my daddy said.
Best believe that bitch plays dead.

Half way between a circle connecting and a spiral that shows us our inner self;
the places we've gone and where we will further go.
Swaying to the sound of the wind as it rattles through the tops of trees,
letting the flames engulf our readied cycle.
Beltane unity.
Speaking the language only flowers knew.
Seeking, channeling, dancing, true.
Now Bloom.

Where you can not find the light you seek. Look within. Create.