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.