Waterlogged, Cracked skin.
Come out of your casing.
Fingers pruned from months of waiting.
Flutters violent in that cell
I hear your call, feel your heat.
Like drums, you Beat.

-Saree

"I could recite the grass on a hill. Memorize the moon.
I know the cloud forms of Love by heart.
And have brought tears, to the eye of the storm.
My memory banks, vaults of autumn forest and amazon river banks.
I've screamed them into the sunsets, that echo, in earthquakes.

Shadows have been my spotlight. As I, Monologue the night, and Dialogue with days.
Soliloquies of wind and breeze
Applauded by Sun rays.

I'm a star, this life's the suburbs, I commute."

-Saul Williams

Mother May I.

Her soft lips now chapped.
Calling chants that she blindly reads, but can never quite understand.
She can not live in peace.
She sits uprooted like a willow tree on the water's edge.
Always reaching, her limbs no longer comforting as they once were.
I can not climb these branches.
No.
I've watered her with what love I could.
I laid in her shade and read her stories that Prophets wrote specifically for me.
She listened, but they never soaked into her soil.
I can't get through the surface.
Her bark, thick. Denial.
Dogs down, beg, beg, beg.

I have to walk away, before I fall away.

I watch her crawling so,
She thinks she knows it though.
That he's come for her, but he'll walk passed.
Those who are saved, need be saved last.
I'm choking on your roots.
I can't cut through, I can't cut loose.
As I'm suffocating from your deafening sound.
You no longer speak words for me to hear.
You saw the trembling waves, and showed that coward's face.
What is it that you actually fear?

I have to walk away, before I fall away.

Cast me out then.
Cast me out.
Because he won't.
The soft look in her eyes is no longer there.
Thinning silver layers around the sun, Halo sticking in matted hair.
I know what I know from Living.
I know what I know from Loving.
Have you forgotten all the words now?
Mother, May I be excused.
I know them all by heart.

-Saree McClaran

The things you own, own you.
They'll always come before us, and you'll always be blinded by that.
Too bright. Our light.
This isn't written in braille, so you'll over look this,
the way you over look what you're doing to me.
Drowning, honey, sickening sweet.
Reaching up to reach out.
My mouth is closed, but I still taste it.
I hear them singing from underneath the ice.
Where is the vindication in the realization... dreams never come true.

We've gotten here together?
Why are you so alone...
Post another song, about the hate you've never experienced.
Post another song with lyrics you've never felt.
Soon, you may be singing them for yourself...

Breaking through cracks in the ice to just hear you.
The songs, I've sung them.
The lyrics etched forever in places you've never seen.
Never will. Pray.
Laying in this dirty snow, numb me.
Oh so silly, dumb little me.
Frostbitten but don't say a fucking word.
The leeches will suck me clean.

Lungs

I forget how hard I swam against the tide to get where I am now.
To unexpectedly meet you when I hit the shore.
Lifeless and out of breath. Waterlogged angels carried me.
I remember vividly watching the reflection of light on each bubble reach the surface.
Dark blues with golden accents.
How'd you get the invitation to my funeral?
Heard you whisper from a thousand decades away that 'if you come back to me...',
Felt your fingers in my hair.
My eyelashes felt as though they were cat tails when I tried to open.
The world had been pollinated with ideas that things were good, because we trudged through bad to get to better levels.
But each level looks like same when you're alone.
I spent so much time looking up that I hadn't realized how far we've climbed.
Pause.
This time I'll finally breathe. Breathe me in with you.
Let me rest on your chest and tell me again why it's worth it, not because I need convincing,
But because I love the way the light still shines in you.

-Saree McClaran

Baptize

Wading out.
I've cast stone and spell to reach you.
Can you hear my voice still, rippling out.
Boney fingertips frozen just above the surface,
stolen pinks, flesh and rose water.
I've soiled her christening gown with sin.
He touches my forehead to push me down, but I'm already gasping for air.

Falling down the staircase, I've lost my footing.
Hole in the floor, swallow me, swallow me.
From your halo comes a glow that only the evil could fear.
I'm shaking as the rafters collapse.
The walls are crawling and I put my palms up.
Rabbits burrow inside me.

I used to run through fields alone.
Sliced skin on corn stalks, sun in my eyes.
I believed so fucking hard that I could be saved.
But you never came and I'm coughing up the algae.
Coax you down, I will.
Coax you down, I will.

Saree McClaran