Sound of darkness

In the lulling whispers of false idols, I've learned to live half alive. There is no grief or sorrow. Ghosts linger in the shadows. The wind is growing restless as I lay awake in bed. The night deepens, and I am haunted by the spirits of people I've loved and lost. I fall asleep to cicadas and crickets, who usher in nightmares most nights. The dream catcher with wind chimes doesn't often work nowadays. I scream into the depths of the darkness and don't hear an echo. My voice is swallowed by the abyss. I dream and drift, lost in the endless alone of the darkness. My heartbeat is the only constant noise in this untamed black on black night. I forgive every word you've said. But when the storm comes, I will embrace and welcome it. For it will be the Furies who come to rage against the darkness. 

Before we kiss for the first time, I want you to know...

I don't often remember birthdays or appointments or plans. But I do remember the anniversary of the day someone I loved passed away. Being left by a loved one always hurts the hardest. 

I am a child of earth and sea, with an abyss for a soul, filled with ancient knowledge of pagan magic. The magic of the earth runs through my veins, as does that of the ocean. 

It was a summer day in the middle of July when my grandmother died at home. I was there as she took her last breath. It was just after her birthday, too. 

I'm on antidepressants and medication for anxiety. They're for mental health. But the ghosts of those I love visit me less often now I'm not so haunted by the past, not quite so crushed by despair. 

I am the epicenter of my past, present, and future, where it all collides. I am both written and unwritten. I know what's happened, but the future is yet to come, looming before me. 

Before we kiss the first time, I want you to know I already know how it ends. 

What's normal at 3 pm that's creepy at 3 am

 A child's laughter. A playground. A library. My brain. A cornfield. A basement, especially one with dim lights. A rest stop. A 24 hour diner. Gas stations. The halls of a hospital - after all, who knows how many spirits remain within the confines of a hospital? Trails cutting through heavily wooded areas. An empty bar. A lake with nobody around, reflecting the sky above. An airport. The sky, exchanging the brilliance of one star for a dark expanse with many far away pinpricks of light. The dying echoes of whispered conversations and dancing smoke of a burnt out candle. 

Rituals of a Poet

I light incense and candles against the dark and open my notebook. Listen to true crime podcasts while reading posts of instagram poets, avoiding another empty page silently judging me. Go to the local metaphysical shop, searching for another garden quartz or obsidian. Build up a fire in the fireplace and watch hockey, my open notebook and a half-finished poem ignored on the couch. Write snippets of things in blank spaces of random pieces of paper, hoping something will come of it later. I start something, then walk away, thinking it will finish itself - it never will. I fall asleep with a pen in my hand and dream of far off places and mountains and the ocean, but can never put those into words. Sometimes I wish poetry came more easy but harder than it does now. 

Requiem for My Broken Heart

 I.

Dressed in stormy grey and bright red lipstick. Having survived so many things over the years. Who fought for life when I wasn't sure how to. The reason why I am here writing this poem. Holding itself together - sometimes barely - and only with cracks and chips and scars to show it’s been hurt, I wasn’t sure if my heart even knew how to break. And still it beat within the cage of my chest, steady and rhythmic. I have seen the death of people too young in my family, and ones who were ready to meet death like an old friend. The heartache of a heavy diagnosis. The shock of news, good or bad, enough to relieve or break someone. The fear of not knowing. But somehow, why is all that different than the loss of the man I love? 

II.

How do you grieve the loss of the love of your life? How do you survive when it shatters your heart into so many pieces that you can’t count them? The spot within the cage of my chest is empty, a hollow spot where my heart used to be. Where there was love, there is only pain and sorrow now. For losing you, my love, is a pain all its own, beyond any physical pain I’ve experienced. I’ve picked up a few pieces of my heart, staring at them as blood slowly drips from my fingers. I don’t know how to put the pieces together. So in my hands they stay, as the blood congeals on my fingers. 

III.

The ghost of you lingers. I hear you whisper, “I love you,” in my dreams. The ache I carry, the pain, still weighs heavy in my soul. The very few pieces of my heart that I’ve found are put back together sadly, with more cracks in them than before. I don’t listen to that one song still, it hurts too much, it was our unofficial love song. Though, I haven’t yet deleted it from my playlist. It’s the small things I miss the most. But it makes the shadow of my heart ache. I love you still. 

IV. 

It was the news your uncle gave me. Death tolling in the ice water mansion of sorrow. It caused the death of my heart, however temporary it may be. I’ve found a few pieces of my broken heart, but it still bleeds within its cage. Just a shadow of the one that fought to keep me alive all those years ago. I love you still, but it hurts my barely there heart. We should have been forever, you and me. Forever. I’m not sure what that means anymore. 

V.

I’m still broken. It’s been months. I still don’t know how to grieve. I don’t even know what that looks like. I do know that the pain is tangible. I feel it like a hole in my chest. Like there is an empty space in my ribcage where my heart was, a heart that was once whole and strong and alive. Now there’s just this broken shadow trying to fill a void. And I have a hard time remembering what it means to be alive. 

VI. 

I don’t regret giving you my heart. Nor do I regret loving you. Loving you was the best thing I ever did. You’re the love of my life. Your love helped make me a better person. The kind of love we had was rare - it is rare. We don’t find that kind of love often in life. Loving you was no mistake. Because it’s the kind of love meant to endure. 

VII. 

Maybe I do have a hard time remembering what it means to be alive. My heart’s been broken into millions of tiny pieces. And I’ve only found very few. Living is hard. And the weight of the grief I hold hangs heavy in my soul. Losing you, my love, is a pain I will always carry. A burden heavier than what my heart has gone through before – the death of people too young and also the ones who walked into the afterlife next to Death. The fear of not knowing. Losing the man I love is a pain of a different kind. And maybe one day my heart will resurrect and I’ll live a life for the both of us. 

Places I Have Left My Heart

In the mountains - the Rockies or Pyrenees, I’m not sure which. In the Mediterranean Sea during a long ago summer vacation. In the pauses of a conversation with friends. In the hands of the man I love, who is sadly no longer with us. At Death’s door before I was drawn back to life. In the watery graveyard that is Lake Superior. In the caskets of people I’ve loved, buried six feet under. Along the banks of the Seine, in the bell tower of Notre Dame, somewhere along the chaos of the Paris streets. At Meadowbrook during a Goo Goo Dolls concert, beneath the sounds of the song Iris. With friends, most of whom I’ve since drifted from. On a seat of a Light Rail train in Denver, that tattoo parlor off the 16th Street Mall I got my first tattoo, the bell tower of Colorado Heights University. Between the pages of my favorite books. On my iTunes playlist, somewhere between ‘radio, someone still loves you’ and ‘in your arms, I needed that.’ Somewhere between ‘sing us a song, you’re the piano man’ and ‘boy, you’ve got a prayer in Memphis.’ Between ‘she’s the giggle at a funeral’ and ‘the purest expression of grief.’ On my skin in the form of tattoos. In my dreams of faraway places.

A Home That Never Was

There’s a home that never was waiting for me in the mountains. Surrounded by snow-covered peaks that are sometimes hidden in high, thick clouds. Where alpine-scented air is thinner, but fresher. A skyline dominated by rugged mountains standing shoulder to shoulder. With sunrises and sunsets drenching snowcaps in glorious colors dripping down the mountains. Bejeweled ridges reaching up towards the sky. Mountains sanctified by the blood of the old gods. Who knows what magic and secrets the mountains hold? What they’ve seen, the stories they could tell? What they hide? There is a home that never was for a child of the mountains. Whose soul echoes with the ancient magic from within the mountains. Whose own bones are made from the roots of sturdy trees only found in the mountains. There is a home that never was, waiting there for me.

The Mountains: A Love Letter

There is an ache in my bones, a haunting call in my heart, a yearning in my soul. A need, raw and deep. All this to say I am in love with the mountains. In all their wild, rugged, majestic beauty, ancient and wise. Peaks and valleys and ground sanctified by the gods who lived among the mountains once. Where old earth and air magic still reign unchecked. It’s a type of homesickness within me the mountains call to, ignite, like I’ve strayed too far away. It’s a slow burn, a fire being built back up from embers, this need to return to the embrace of the mountains. Even if my mind doesn’t, my body feels it, and remembers. Remembers the way the magic feels, prickling against my skin. The way the earth seems calmer, the air more chaotic. How I feel like I’ve come home when I go to the mountains. Life becomes something different in the air scented by early snow. In the place where earth and sky meet, where the peaks become a brilliant tapestry of colour at sunrise and sunset, where time moves differently, where reconnecting with the earth is as easy as breathing. And the ghostly memories of the old gods fill the spaces between the peaks, a quiet magic itself. All this to say I’m in love with the mountains, as a child of wind, earth, and sky. As a child born of the mountains themselves.

Ten Things I Love

1. Lightning and thunder

2. The ocean

3. The mountains

4. The smell of rain

5. Lake Superior

6. A good book

7. The depth of autumn

8. A long drive to nowhere

9. Sitting alone at a café

10. Finding similar souls and vibing

I'm a Million Different People From One Day to the Next

A piece of each person I meet, care about, or love. My own self shifting based on who I am with, or where I am. I don't know who I am when I am in the depths of depression. I lose myself when anxiety takes over. Finding myself in the watery grave of the ocean is a lost cause; the ocean washes over me and claims me as her own. I am a fae, a witch, in the mountains, a changeling whose veins are made from the roots of alpine trees, with skin stitched together by the elements of the earth, wind, and sky. A tree elf in the woods, with skin etched in runes. I am as vicious as a storm wind, chaotic and destructive like a hurricane, striking down the path of a tornado, biting like the cold air of winter. A spirit of those who we have lost buried in a cemetery, embodying a different person with each visit. My true self when I am alone, lost in my own thoughts, soul drifting to the dark spaces between the stars. I am each character of each book I read, every one a small piece of me; I am protagonist, antagonist, and neutral character in each chapter I read. I am the person the people talk about on my true crime podcasts. A lost wayfarer, a drifter, another face lost in the crowd whenever I travel, absorbing the best elements of the places I travel to, integrating small pieces of the culture into my life, allowing myself to be someone new in each place. The hopeless romantic when I fall in love with someone, loving and caring, maybe a little naïve. I am all the ones who came before me, my forebears who passed on the traits that will live on, the ones we know of and the ones we don’t. I am a little piece of my mother, impatient and fierce, yet kind and loving. I am a bit of my dad, silent and observant. The blood of my ancestors run through me undiluted, fiery and fierce, with everything that was and that will be. I am part earth, stoic, with still waters running deep, scarred and burned, but still thriving beneath the mark of people. Silence, right before a storm or at the depth of night, heavy against your skin, embracing you in my solemn friendship. A little bit of the space between the stars, dark and mysterious and maybe a little chaotic. Sometimes I am a tree, grounded, reaching up to the sky, but never getting there. There’s a small part of me that is influenced by the gods I follow and serve, mischievous and dark, wild, chaotic, restless, free. Still waters that run deep, mysterious, full of things unknown by people, holding in secrets never to be discovered in my lifetime, or those beyond. Even the secrets within me hold sway to who I am; the more I hide, the more I change, and sometimes I have a hard time recognizing myself with all the silent words I carry. Miniscule pieces of me have been lost, torn away by losing people I have loved in my life, replaced by the ache that will never leave me, altering my very soul.

I am a million different people from one day to the next. And sometimes I forget who I am, the way I change like a chameleon. But my soul will never forget who I am; I am not so altered as all that. I may change, but the basic aspects of myself will never alter. 

I

An abridged list of dark lines I’ve written

Grins with the lifeblood of their enemies dripping from their teeth. Gnashed between my teeth, glistening in the ridges of my molars before being locked away behind a clenched jaw. I dig the graves as I go. And I rip out your soul without a care. Skeletal and giant. A small piece of my heart stopped the moment yours did. I am haunted. The haunting calls of the sirens. Banished to the ether. The ghosts dance in the darkened shadows. Engulfed by the haunted embrace of darkness. Burned and buried with those I’ve lost. Drifting in the dark spaces between the stars. Haunting those places like ghosts. My body is a haunted temple. The ghosts of things and people I’ve loved and lost roam within me. Before thunder echoes through the empty chambers of my heart. Decay and sorrow cloaking me. A momentary haunted resurrection of all that hides in the darkness. It hides the depths of chaos and ghosts and haunted things. Shadows dance menacingly. Haunted eyes. The darkness lurks. Tear away your skin. Rip your heart out. Eat the hearts of people who hurt you once, spit out the blood, bright red, from between your teeth. Show them your grin as you eat the hearts of your enemies, blood dripping from your teeth. Pick your teeth with the bones of your exes. Take their soul. Steal their heart - maybe you’ll use it to scare off the next one. 

I want

To paint my skin in the colors of the ocean/to tattoo your name among those already lining my ribcage/to write the songs sung by the fae-folk, the songs sung at daybreak and nightfall/stars dancing around me, burning constellations on my skin/to get lost in the forest/to live a bohemian life; transient; moving from place to place constantly/to sleep on the beach; beneath the stars; with the ocean roiling just feet away/to get hopelessly lost beneath the storm-brewed waves of Lake Superior/autumn to last forever and a day/to find my dreams in every corner of the earth/a hockey season that lasts all year/a cabin at the edge of a forest; feeding and befriending crows; collecting herbs and stones; windchimes hanging from my windows and door frame; feathers and shiny things littering my porch/my mind to wander, yet my feet to always know the way home/a book that knows exactly what I need to read the moment I touch it/all the notes on napkins and torn bits of paper and gum wrappers that I’ve written or received to put in a box/more time with loved ones that I have lost/mountains in my front yard and an ocean hidden away in the forest and a fire always burning in the fireplace/a dog who will live as long as me/to be a wayward stranger in all the places I wish to be/to live, fully and truly, expansive as the universe/to be entwined with the very fabric of the Universe/to hold on to the fingers of the dawn as the sun rises over the mountains.

I want the whole Universe at my feet, and to take that first step without looking back.

Krampus

 In the dying days of November/when the sun sets early and nights are long/when the cold starts to settle at the eve of winter/and heralding the final month of the year/on the edges of the night/in the settled silence/among the inky shadows cast by trees/comes the glint of dark eyes reflecting moonlight/the faint sound of almost animalistic breathing/and a murky sense of dread/a shadow deeper and darker than those around it/the dying tendrils of breath condensation fading beneath the moonlight/the silence gets heavier, settles deeper/and a bone-aching chill spreads slowly/a breeze shifts/bells and chains clank beneath the silence/he lurks in the endless night/watching and waiting as the moonlight fades/his hooves crunch in the snow/damped by the depth of the silence/he is nearly indiscernible in the growing darkness/his large figure looming/a full height of eight feet/with legs of a goat, ending in cloven hooves/broad shoulders beneath a heavy cloak/his lean arms wrapped in chains/with bits of branches twined through them/some ending in bells/hands and nails encrusted with dirt/a bag slung over a shoulder/a whip curled at his waist/bearded at chin, neck, and upper chest/a beard that would otherwise cover thin lips/lips opened wide to reveal yellowed teeth/a red, pointed tongue standing out against his dark beard/above his sunken cheeks angry eyes glare out/framed by matted dark hair/from which two horns curl out from above his ears/rigid circles bigger than his head/curled upon themselves twice/his figure looming from the shadows/watching, waiting for the misbehaved, depraved, and terrible/his eerie grin widening upon knowing the amount of fear he can instill in the hearts of the terrible/finding them in the darkest winter nights…

Detailed Map

If there was a detailed map of my life, it would show my favorite beach in the south of France, and that restaurant I loved that we went to once a week when we summered there. It would show my favorite haunts - bookshops, cafés, and bars - I love. The place I met the man I ultimately fell in love with. Mackinac Bridge and Cedarville, places I encountered as a child during the summer. The most detailed map of Paris, France, the city I was born in, and the one I still am in love with. The Pyrenees, or the Rockies, with all their ancient glories. The spot of my car accident. The place where I met a boy I loved in my teens. That tattoo parlor in Denver I got my first tattoo. Those off the beaten way paths and trails I’ve found randomly and loved. The US side of Niagara Falls. That cider mill we go to every year in early autumn to get doughnuts and apple cider. Lake Orion and that park at the edge of the lake because it’s gorgeous. All the haunted cemeteries I’ve visited. Eastern Market in downtown Detroit. Every state line I’ve crossed. All the concerts I have been to.

If there was a detailed map of my life, it would be creased, worn, and stained. It would have sand in the creases and permanent marker dots of places that changed me. Names of cities and people, and stories written randomly in places. With edges torn and maybe a little yellowed from age. Places I want to visit circled in pencil. And all the memories embedded in it from my life.

Patron Saint of Sleepless Nights

The patron saint of sleepless nights lights incense and candles at three am. Idles just a moment just before dawn. Wears dark colored friendship bracelets, frayed and faded. Sets garden quartz and black tourmaline on their altar. Counts the stars to try and fall asleep. Fucks in the dew drenched grass under a full moon. Accepts gifts of coffee, alcohol, and the souls of the reckless. Is relentlessly exhausted at every damn meeting of the saints. They show up unhurried and a little chaotic. Wanders the woods at night in the company of wolves and coyotes and foxes. They write soul-bearing poetry by candlelight. Shedding a layer of skin with each line. They snack on cigarettes, gin and tonics, and the hearts of your exes. Grins with the lifeblood of their enemies dripping from their teeth. The edges of their body always a little faded looking, giving them an ethereal look. They wear no halo. Of course they don’t. Resides in a wooden cabin at the edge of a forest. Remains to themself, shrouded in darkness. Worn and eternally fatigued and a chronic insomniac. The patron saint of sleepless nights doesn’t sleep.

Hymn for the Mountains

I am resurrected, come back from a glassy-eyed death, by the songs of the mountains. Resuscitated by thin alpine, snow-scented air rushing through the peaks. Wrapped in a blanket of pine needles, with leaves and flowers twisted into my hair. My veins have become roots of trees and mushrooms; my ribcage, the home of mountain wildlife. My remaining bones scattered to the wind; but I’ve regrown from these alpine roots. My soul has become one with those here. My skin and bones etched with the stories and secrets of the witches in the mountains. My soul carrying the ancient knowledge of the fey. Skin sewn together by the earth and rain. Hewn by the elements of the truly wild. I am an abyss filled with the magic of the mountains. A hidden realm of all things beginning and ending in the foothills and peaks. Woven by the words unheard dancing in the wind. An unbroken being of wild chaos. A story untold…

In the Mountains

I am resurrected, come back from a glassy-eyed death. The high, thin air brought life into my lungs. I am free. I dance to the songs, sung here by the mountains for centuries. Their words are written in my heart, along my ribs, like hidden scrolls of ancient monks. I only exist for the mountains. I become eternal. I find a home among the peaks. My past and future seem to blend together and fade away. I remember what it’s like to be loved. I find myself happy and full. I’ve changed; I’ve become the mountain witch. I flourish among the peaks, at one with the earth. I’m in love with different things. I am a little chaos, a little wild. 

In the mountains, I am fully alive. I breathe deeply and sleep soundly. I become truly myself.

Where I Hide My Secrets

Within the depths of my soul, which has both an icy wasteland and a fiery hellscape. I peel back my skin, layer by layer, and hide the sharpest secrets there. They’re etched along my ribs like hieroglyphs. Entwined in my desperate hopes of finding a better tomorrow. Encased in my heart, to be taken with me to my grave. Within the lines of all the poems I write, yet hidden well enough that no one will ever find them. Sometimes, they will escape me entirely, to float away into the ether, never to be found or remembered again. Gnashed between my teeth like strawberry seeds, glistening in the ridges of my molars before being locked away behind a clenched jaw. I’ve left some tethered to rocks I’ve thrown into a river, to eternally reside in a watery grave. I whisper to the trees, speak to the wood nymphs, and share with them some secrets, knowing they will never betray me. Beneath the bark, my secrets are held tight against the trunks of trees, where the nymphs store them. In the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow - who would think a secret was hidden there? Each color holding a different secret that disappears with the rainbow. 

I hide my secrets in places too many to count. But will they ever truly disappear when I am gone?

When I die

Please don’t mourn me. Celebrate our shared memories. Have me cremated and share my ashes among you. Plant lavender in a field and dedicate it to me. Sing a song that reminds you of me. Write a poem. Find a crystal or postcard that makes you think of me, keep it somewhere you see it every day. Visit the ocean and get lost under the waves. Get a tattoo in my honor. Find a beach and stare into the horizon. Sit next to a river and skip stones. Get into spooky season. Fall in love with autumn. Don’t dig a grave for me - I don’t want to be laid to rest in the cold ground. Get lost in the woods barefoot. Think of me when you see a rainbow. Dance in the rain. Go listen to the songs of the mountains. When you go through my things, keep something of mine. Hang wind chimes - the first chime from a stray breeze in the morning is me saying hello. Resurrect me with the stories you tell about me. Whisper my name like a prayer when you miss me. Ask Loki or Lilith how I am doing in my afterlife. Have a bonfire and dance with my ghost personified through the smoke. Have birthday cake on my birthday and blow out all the candles. Hold a séance, using candles, crystals, incense, and shiny things. Don’t forget me, but for the love of all that’s holy, let me go.

Places Where Time Seems Altered

Fairgrounds at midnight. A library, especially at the end of the day. Overnight flights through multiple time zones. Deserted beaches, especially at the edge of a storm or at night. Empty rest stops. In the mountains or a forest. Hospital waiting rooms. Unused units of hospitals. Abandoned trails that are starting to get overgrown. A long, empty hallway. A bar at closing time. An empty and disused indoor pool of an abandoned house. A defunct railroad in the process of being overrun by nature. A staircase. A snow-covered night, some time between midnight and three am. Bowling alleys. An open air market once everyone has left. Defunct subway lines. A cemetery, especially when nobody else is there. An abandoned church engulfed by fog. Abandoned sanitariums. Being in the yard at the edge of a storm. Campfires. Empty fields drenched in fog. Playgrounds at night. The only 24 hour gas station for miles, with nobody else but you and the cashier, dusty and expired products, the haunting glow of neon lights. A building, house, or hospital that was recently left or abandoned, when it feels like someone is about to come back at any moment. A random ruin in the middle of a forest, crumbled walls and a still-erect door. A train with nobody else on it. A bookstore. A dark theatre with just one light on. Anybody’s basement. On the edge of a river in the silence. A bus station. A 24 hour diner at two am with just one waitress, the TVs on silent, and nobody else but you. Deserted school hallways. A boarded up warehouse, the walls and boards graffitied, with no electricity, floors damp, and pipes dripping cold water. The bathroom of a crowded bar, alcohol covered floor sticky, grimy mirrors, the lights filtering through cigarette smoke. An open field with overgrown grass at twilight. A discarded motel with neon signs and dark windows and only one or two cars in the parking lot. An empty road at night in the rain. Walking through a suburban neighborhood at night after it’s rained. A funhouse left abandoned, the mirrors cracked and hazy, the halls littered with rubbish and leftover props, leaves and dust in the corners. All those liminal spaces you get lost in and forget that time exists, endless and eternal.