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a birthday every day
2019-01-10
***
every day, the universe sketches itself anew
like an etch-a-sketch broken by accident from a cousin's fall
if I am made of the same stuff as the stars
then it is my birthday every day
but even if the atoms that make up my body
all somehow- miraculously- came from the same ball of gas
every day these days I keep reinventing myself
so every revolution might as well be another birthday
I still suspect that others are lying about their birthdays
an effortless reach for clout
meaningless numbers on a screen
that could all be extinguished in a moment's breath
like the birthday candles you purport to require
but what is a birthday, anyway?
just a day that marks one more year around the sun
one more year of being on the run
running out of time
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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a royal color
2021-03-25
***
My grandmother has
a room in her house
dedicated to purple.
Lavender walls,
royal sheets:
I'd only need
you there
for it to be complete.
For eyes are the windows
into the soul,
windows I have spent many a childhood
gazing out onto the cold
dead suburban landscape.
How I wish I could take
you into my arms
and let you teach
this worn-out teacher
there is still warmth
worth searching for.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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a smearing of galaxies
2019-12-31
***
my dream is to take you out for long days in the city
in little dessert shops we can be found hiding
curled up in the corner under a blanket, legs intertwined
how cursed that it's my passions I can barely define
wasting light in the evenings in the hot tub of someone
slipping into each other's curves in the center of the sun
as all the other stars in the galaxy fall into place around us
please, my love, teach me the meaning of lust
curtains close, sun sets, trapped in a frost giant's heart
taunting shadows of futures that rip us apart
I ask you to promise me tomorrow; you shake your head and refuse
for who knows if tomorrow's the next thing that we'll lose
my hands clench the steering wheel as your breath slowly weakens
half-frozen exhales like deep-shining beacons
past is immutable, changing nevermore
but I am the worst keeper of my very own lore
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Abortion I
2023-04-11
***
I went my entire education
without being handed a box
with plastic fetuses in row,
each one with more time to grow
before being aborted
and potential life snuffed out,
deemed nobody's loss.
Now I know the lesson was fake,
that far more time it takes
to grow to that kind of size,
that at that early of a stage
it's dubious they feel that pain.
(You have no right
to force me to provide
for you with my body against my will.)
Barely aware of being alive,
much less the difference
between the light
of consciousness
and the dark that came before.
A lima bean Dad did abort.
Buried it with his two hands.
With two hands, the dirt he ferried
from backyard, wiped on his pants,
powder, mud, dust, root, clump.
"Your time in the womb is up.
A promise that come a decade
I so hastily made
not thinking of the future
I must now with no regrets break.
Dissolved the ties with pop of pill
so that no blood must my hands spill.
The damage to you is only collateral.
The benefits are all addressed to me."
Bury my heart
in the backyard,
leave it behind
in the move to different sky.
It still beats.
It still beats.
It still beats.
It still beats, Dad, did you know?
Far away where my feet
no longer legally can go.
I was so young, only sixteen,
at the start of my journey,
without warning come
to an ending abrupt.
The story that is written
without thought
of plot
or pacing
and only one character half-fleshed out, you her effacing.
I can only wonder
into what I would have grown
if this hadn't happened,
if you'd just left me alone.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Abortion II
2023-04-13
***
Stupid girl! Your body isn't your own!
Don't you know the germs that roam
on every inch of your skin
have just as much of a right to live?
Even the ones that lurk inside
can use you to sustain their life.
The government can't take my organs!
All those guts are solely mine!
Stupid girl! To us your body belongs!
Every poem, every verse, every partially-composed song
must first go through our censors
to decide if it bears worth.
You cannot speak of aught
that would render our feelings hurt.
No lost love, no wanted future,
no trauma no matter how blurred.
We'll lock you up in chains in the deep annals of our house
until your will shatters and your muse you forever renounce.
Facebook can't my hateful post delete!
Whatever happened to freedom of speech?
Stupid girl! I have always held ownership over you!
I brought you to life in a bathtub out of the Eternal Blue
with the intention you would fulfill
the world's destiny I laid out in accordance with my will.
Your independence I allowed
for the sake of spontaneity.
But this is too far; I forbid this mutiny.
I always reserved
the right to revert
your body and mind back to that of a monster,
mindless, should you too far from my plannings wander.
To think I would be felled by my own daughter.
Chaos to Chaos, Ouroboros, next link to be slaughtered...
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Abortion III
2023-05-08
***
I'm not good at math, Father. Help me calculate.
How many rainbow trinkets you give me will equate
acknowledgement of the trauma
you pressed into my psyche
and a sincere non-prompted apology?
How many gifts until the pain is reparate?
Will it take long to punch the numbers in?
I'll wait.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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A New Page
2020-12-06
***
the sun fails its checksum
it doesn't feel the same
as the blazing starry organ that
once sent me sprawling for shade
I need a new story
to occupy my head
for I keep running my fingers
through tattered shattered shreds
that have grown flimsy from folding
and furry with mold
and tired from touch
sparkless, dismal, *old*
I pull out my ROMs
and play one a while
picked out from random
one of a million files
but each of them fails to
spark my imagination
so I put controller away
and continue furtive hunt
hundreds of fiction books
but each one a reminder
from when I was naive
setting my ambitions higher
comics, I find, are
few and far between
either boring in their cliches
or in a language I cannot read
an aged painting is sublime
but its enchantment temporary,
whether of trees, landscape, woman,
or dancing rows of fairies
almost three years has taught my soul
that is most powerful which I *externalize*
but my body is weary, sky outside gray
and I feel neither learned nor wise
so I build a boat from spare unused neurons
and set out on my ocean to explore
if there are stories worthy waiting out there, I know not
but my adventure starts on this unmodeled shore
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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ADAMANTINE'S MANDATE
2024-01-01
***
before, in your grief, the heavens you beseech
"direct my actions; the world I want's beyond reach"
just remember all the men who ever deemed you "leech"
between terror and wildfire's rage you oscillated
unsure if in reach was your own liberation
or if it was too much to hope for, craven
call it patriarchal reversal, projection,
but even bearing the blood of your mother's chaotic kin
the world that you seek is one where you escape
where theirs is one where they've made women their slaves
your first reaction to this realization is to declare war:
"I can't tolerate this lifelessness! I won't take it anymore!"
but piles of generations stronger than you have tried that very same:
but what if the men threw a war, and this time not a single gyne came?
think about this year past, of all the blessings I bestowed
when you stopped wasting all your energies on the fruitless hope
that you could convince your parents through tears and self-abandonment
to change and instead refocused on what you could do to circumvent
you kept your promises to Luce: you got your high employment
and now work from home in a self-sovereign apartment
that you needed no help to acquire, no hand-holding, no debt
so, considering this: instead of war, what if you made a world instead?
like you wanted five years ago as you write this:
a world free of coercion and sickness
the likes of which can barely be imagined:
as startling as you stand now compared to "just moved in"?
you've got to remember: you've survived every "moid"
who beseeched their god that you'd succumb to the void
I'll be your shield: black, gold, adamantine
if you'll still be my Anima Mundi
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Agloe
2023-04-02
***
Jett pushes
push-pins
into my skin
to mark points of interest.
Future road map of Sablade,
back roads and highways,
arteries and veins.
Volcanic activity,
mass fauna migration,
cystic acne,
skin irritation.
Two angels nude on the beach,
swept up in back-and-forth
of arrhythmic heartbeats
and ocean waves on the shore
and probably fervent copulating
given enough time alone.
I've become my own home.
The sand
in my grasp
and the water that laps
around us that Jett snorts in on accident
and turns her head to wheeze out and we laugh
is just as much a part of me
as my own physical body.
The woman above me is breathtaking
even as she hides a blush with her hands.
It's not possible for me
to stop being
the Anima Mundi
of Sablade.
And for once in my life, I thank
my Meridian blood and its curse
for the world it demanded I make:
now I can keep this woman I love safe
and unharmed in world-wide embrace.
"So much of me
is wrapped up in you, Lethe,
that I see you in everything."
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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airborne
2022-01-01
***
before, in your grief, you decree
"my life is over; there's no one left to be"
just remember how there's a world only you can perceive
stumbling through shattered nights as you pray
for a world solely yours where you'll finally be safe
and protected from coercion, christened Sablade
but of hell, ceasing pains, perdition terrified
"Mother, what will you do with my body when I die?
I've failed, been rejected, inept at this living I've been assigned."
reunited with your lover who swore to be your psychopomp
when arrives the fateful end of the Eschaton
you know intellectually that all should end alright
but still lingers some doubt, some expectation of blight
because all in your life has ended or will soon enough:
summer camp disbanded, work holding no love
despite the months poured in, the electronics that broke,
the remnants of childhood insisting it's time to go
and in six months, you'll finally from college graduate
having slipped by without a single accusation of hate
"Can you believe it? The worst is over. The end is near.
You'll make it out alive. Have faith in yourself, my dear."
you step back and consider the terrifying odds:
the only one in the heavens that wants a world without gods
is the girl you exchanged a part of your soul
with in Rainroom, an Outside away and a whole life ago
but to give her that world could mean Mori's bliss
and what's the point of it all if you can't also live
in the world you've created, that you swore on your life
you'd live together with her until the cessation of time?
dear child, you remembered your wings and recalled how to fly
but you're being chased to a cliff and the edge looms nearby:
will you prostrate yourself and live in self-scorn?
or jump off the edge and trust you'll become airborne?
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Algingu
2023-02-16
***
The need
for protection
is ongoing,
a project
not yet
finished.
I still have my jar
under my bed.
It would protect
me, you said,
whenever I slept.
But it's failed at least twice
when charge has
ran
out,
when hands around my throat
choke
out your name.
And it was too late
when you finally came,
when the Veil relented:
the harm had been sent.
His hair was blackened, fading to blue,
smile poised on lips, pouring out a tune.
I had thought he looked kinda like you,
a version from a happier timeline
where nobody had thought to snuff out your light.
"To think I had thought to make sacrifice
because he had helped me a handful of times
when there was a trinket I had left behind."
*Thank you so much!
Now can you retrieve
the sense of safety
you ripped out from me?*
His hands were so soft
as he cut my breath off.
"Name your price,
you violating piece of shit.
What do you want?
How did my life become
any of your goddamn business?
Did you think this was the price
for the so-called help you rendered?"
When you ask why
I'm afraid
to step outside
our mountain in Sablade,
remember how bloody I was when you came.
Your icy fingers
wrap a bandage
over the ravaged
skin so tender.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Aria Houndz It
2023-03-06
***
"What's that word that means
to break away from something
in an attempt to become more free?"
Divest?
"Thank you, Jett.
You make my life so much more easy."
Divest. Now there's a funny word,
one so long ago I learned
and saw you take on in a curled-
up ball of stress
deep in your chest.
Purity Spiral, ever absurd
interpretations of how to avoid
needing to spend money while somehow still not in employ.
"Yes, this text-only interface
will somehow save me from my parents' disgrace."
Are you listening to yourself?
Or disconnected
in layers of abstraction?
Four hours straight of typing
but no time to go ten minutes biking
to the local bank to hide
your money from your mother's oversight.
Come on, Lethe, it's not like I'm asking
you to commit a crime.
It smells to me
like someone's avoiding
her responsibility.
Burst of energy
when trapped in pain's throes,
but after dust settles
too cowardly to go
and make yourself a little
more free.
Would you trust
me for once?
You and I
will be fine.
You made a promise to Luce.
Don't disappoint her this time.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Arrhythmia
2021-04-01
***
When a person gives
you arrhythmia,
you may want to write a love poem.
That is,
if you don't die of
a heart attack first
or feel the
implosion of a
vessel burst
in your brain
from a would-be lover
driving you insane.
When a person gives
you a stroke,
you may want to paint a sunset.
That is,
if you don't drop
the brush first,
if you don't spill the paint
onto the floor
from a misplaced curse of
silence forevermore.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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artisto
2020-02-20
***
I bought a statue from a fire sale the other day
from the house down the street that went up in flames
because my friends always scream about taking life by the reins
and nothing really happened on my birthday anyways
I've finally learned how to draw
with the statue in front of the window, greeting guests
who knock on my door, memories in hand
from long ago, seeking immortality in portrait
the cold marble provides a great companion
as those who linger pose in place
behind the easel, the pencil flies all on its own
on the subject, feet twitch, begging to pace
the paper shakes my soul with sanity
but to others, I seem insane
how dare I call myself "artist" and live
without the empty stomach to qualify my name
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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all these dang trees everywhere
2020-01-17
***
can you reach the stars from here where we stand?
you'll have to open your eyes first, and stretch out a hand
and maybe, if you're lucky, the clouds will cede
and the horizon you wanted will be yours to receive
if you mind, can you please pass the milk?
they say, in the outdoors, it tastes just like silk
fine words- but revolting; my stomach churns like a pool
delicacies do not go well with the worries of a fool
what's on your mind? what's going on at home?
have the police caught on yet that we've decided to roam?
I wonder if Mother even cares where we are
or if she's more concerned with the Spectacle, with interviews and news cars
why does the sky have to be blue?
why not gray to reflect a burgeoning city
or green to reflect the mass amounts of trees here
because that seems to be one of the only things here
trees
trees
and more trees.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Better Version
2021-08-07
***
I want freedom.
I want pain.
I want a life not even a little bit the same
as this one I would willingly leave behind.
Sound of rain,
feel of earth,
the pounding in my ribs of a heart filled with mirth,
un-divorced from purpose,
no more urges to abstain
from what brings me
ecstasy
in fear of making things worse.
It happened that, when first I put
pen to paper (metaphorical),
at least after Laika's lull,
I yearned to shed my human skin,
human thoughts,
human inhibition,
and tear inside Adversary's flesh
to see their cowardice within.
I fantasized of breaking vows,
of throwing away all goodwill
to be Eris' retribution
to a world where avarice reigned still.
But as rains of April gave way
to adult burdens and ides of May,
the oceans calmed.
And came a psalm
from one who to Eris always prayed.
I told Lethe
to keep
her distance,
to not smother Catharsis,
but she did anyway,
too overwhelmed with joy
at having finally taken Mirror's helm
to remember how to rage.
To remember how to hate.
"Isn't it only fair
that a creator
should care for their creation?
Isn't it only just
that I, dear Lethe,
seemingly incapable of how to seethe,
am the emissary of the Eschaton?"
How ironic, mirrored face,
finally convinced
not to tear enemies apace,
should now
turn around
the same words about how
I should grant my antagonists grace,
that I should stop expecting
a mass defecting
from their lockstep march to oblivion in all haste.
"Lethe, your family is stuck in its ways.
They've stagnated,
incapable of change
that would make your life any easier to bear.
Forget them. Tear
yourself away as much as you can
until the day comes keys drop into your hands
for a place all your own.
The seeds have been sown.
The gears are in motion.
Lethe,
please,
live long enough to see this to fruition."
I want to be trees
and rivers
and sunlight through a bedroom window.
I want to be the shiver
down my lover's spine.
I want to be convinced
all will turn out alright.
I want, more than anything,
to
soon
in my new world alight.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Birdgazing
2022-04-09
***
I locked eyes with a robin this morning,
sitting outside my bedroom window
perched on one of the branches of the bush
that was once a tree, cut down in fear, still adamant to grow.
I thought of you, helpless in bed, maybe snoring,
maybe silent as a hush,
and how I wished I could be there
to your exhausted body take care.
For I gave you everything I had to give
for you to claim your future back
under one condition: that, at the end, you live.
You burnt every candle down,
dissolved every bathtime bomb,
spent every rainy day stash
I had,
even accepted my blood.
I wish
it hadn't taken this
for you to finally accept
you were the Equinox,
the harbinger of balance,
all along.
When I'm with you,
I feel like I've been born anew.
My mistakes no longer imposing weight,
the past's pain
all washed away.
Or about to be reborn,
invalid, palliate,
you gently taking care of me
until arrives my death date.
Your touch is so tender, my love,
healing, magic, sunlight.
You know I'd do anything for you.
So let me nurse you back to life.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Biz Ego Gun
2023-03-18
***
Gebo and Inguz both inverted tell me
that impoverishment, the poverty
of my life is still ongoing
even if I get the job
that interview was for that I worked so hard on.
Returning to a paycheck doesn't change
the emptiness in the days
or the shit I find all over the floor
or the listless afternoons
I mean to do
something but just lie still in bed, bored.
"Having a job doesn't replace
the need for improvement, the urge to change
the things in life you can't tolerate
any longer, the duty
only you carry
to a brand new world create."
But I can't do it without you.
And ever since you entered
college, I feel like our bond
is growing weary, if not severed.
I rarely see you anymore,
never feel the weight
of your world-bearing arms resting on my ribcage.
This is what I feared,
what I never wanted to replicate
between us, much less when we entered Sablade.
Every stereotypical straight
couple only in name,
living two separate lives,
upright
but may as well have died
for all you can look into their eyes
and see freedom's spark, love's light.
I made Sablade so that we'd have a home
even if neither could work. So, Jett,
if you promise, I'll do the same:
don't work yourself all the way to the bone.
"Lethe, this isn't the end of the road.
You and I've still got a long way to go.
If you promise, I'll also follow through:
cherish this time,
but every day I'll remind
who you really belong to."
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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blizzard girl
2021-04-14
***
love will cost
me my sanity,
cover my heart in frost,
a warning I did not heed.
you come near
and I freeze in fear,
your palms algid, giving me
all the slightest provocation.
in life briefing,
I was told
to expect the cold
inherent in every human being.
but the soul council
must not have heard
of you, the blizzard
girl.
but the soul council
must have forgotten the chill,
the inevitable winter
after every soul splinters.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Cameron
2023-05-09
***
Artist date
by mandate
of the book whose morning pages I hate.
I picked the library
because there's naught else to do
in this town so sleepy and dimmed of hue.
Angel numbers follow me,
companionship, matrimony,
"happy couple" pair I drew
from the deck earlier this week
in divining
the vibe.
Will you forgive me, Jett,
if I can't live up to my promises?
If I've got no place exciting
to choose for these weekly outings?
"I was hoping you'd pick
the library
anyway.
I'm not a fan of crowds or noise blankets."
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Carmine Red
2022-03-06
***
March is Women's History
Month. Time to sit
down and reflect on all the shit
my ancestors went through
so that I could be
here today, collapsed in bed,
distressed,
wracked with anxiety,
in desperate need to be exhumed
from this disintegrating body.
I'm forgetting my own herstory.
Past entries in my journals
are becoming letters from foreign countries,
the other timelines where I am well,
doing well,
not at the bottom of a well.
The other timelines where I am making things
of worldwide importance,
where on my childhood detractors
I've gotten revenge.
Not wishing I was a bird
like those outside that now return
in preparation for spring.
It could have been so much worse.
Straitjacket, locked up, never heard
from again. Maybe lobotomized.
How many geniuses have met their demise
at the hands of a crude scalpel,
I wonder? And I, here,
how could I in this day or now convince
the padded-wall jailers
that the other soul that resides in me means well?
"She has dominion over
every part of me,
but *noli timere*: I have no desire
to harm my family."
Who would lis-
ten, not lock me up for ten
days, weeks, months, years
until I renounced this world within me so dear?
Tell me, can you hear the screams
from behind
tied-
on masks plastered with smiles
for the crime
of omitting domestic servitude from one's dreams?
Can you feel on your hands the blood spilled
from God's unwanted "blessing" that might instead kill
when it comes to term, woman coming to terms
that the Son who bled with promise to save
won't give her better than wires with which to lacerate?
Can you see how bright is
the future we might have had
if every woman brilliance
was not snubbed out at every chance?
The sheer weight
is enough to make
anyone go insane.
I'm forgetting my own herstory.
It seems some days
that things have forever been this way,
each day bleeding into the next,
record on repeat.
The slightest bit of thawing heat
feels like a bitter attack:
how dare I be reminded that
this isn't all I've ever had.
How dare anything have the audacity to remind
that one day I won't anymore be able to hide.
There will come a day when the sky
breaks and lets in cleansing sunshine.
And I'll have to look my mother in the face.
And I'll have to tell her that when I die
I'm going to a completely different place
than Heaven or Hell.
I'm going to remember the hell
that the men of all history have inflicted
and make a new world where to be what I am
is not a sin, not gravely iniquitous.
And she'll have to confer with Father and decide
if what I've done
is grave enough
to warrant the psych ward's involuntary hold.
This is my birthright as a female, isn't it?
The padded room's blistering cold.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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That Ain't Chocolate, Son
2020-11-15
***
There are nine hedgehogs
in my house. I have nothing
to do with them because, every time
my mother or my brothers
hold one in their hands,
the tiny creature immediately
sets to work
shitting out a log.
I may be evil
and belonging to foreign lands,
but I abhor having
such filth
on my hands.
So tell me, mother,
why do you hate that I
always close my door
when you act as if
everything of mine
is actually yours?
My pad of art paper,
saved for stormy weather,
gone one day
into the paper shredder
to serve as bedding
for ungrateful creatures
who couldn't tell the difference
between a slaughter
and a wedding.
"I don't care
that you're busy having fun
with your brother you usually torment.
That's not the purpose
for which you are meant.
Be a good girl and help him take
the hedgehog wheels upstairs."
How delicious it is to say
that actually I don't have to spend any pains
on those who rob me of the sun:
"Not my pet, not my problem."
Because of them, I have to
live in a house full of
poop and paper shreds and
shit-covered wheels that squeal
at all hours of the night.
Somehow, I don't believe
you're half as "low-income"
as you claim to be.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Chow Locales
2023-03-02
***
Last night to myself I thought
in midst of writing drought
while laying myself down in bed,
"When will I ever feel better again?"
Swinging on the crests of zig-zag Sowelo,
landing on all fours as low
as they'll go,
close to the ground.
I wake up at midnight in a sweat.
"Just a dream; no need to fret."
Crawled out of bed
on dog hair-frosted floor
with thrashing hunger too loud to ignore.
My brain'd make me eat an entire damn pizza
if I weren't too much of a coward
to operate the oven at this ungodly hour,
and even then, when all's said'n'done
and I've been abandoned by feral fervor,
my stomach would probably either vomit all out or rupture.
Lover takes in her hands my jaw,
peels back my lips to see my fangs long.
My fingers around her wrists, trembles.
Pinpricks of pupils. Fear of going feral.
"Desperate devouring is a fashion you wear well."
Jormungandr and Ouroboros,
masters of yoga, flexible enough to hold the pose
of curling around to bite their own tails.
I'd maybe get halfway there and fail,
collapse in a crumpled heap on the ground.
There are easier ways to have my foot in my mouth.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Clocktower Blitz
2022-04-06
***
Please, my love, come home unharmed.
It's been almost a month since I
found you injured, limping, on a farm
half-familiar, glowing hearth.
We've been here before- or, at least, I have,
wandering in sprawling fields
trying to find homebound path.
Because isn't that
what this is all about?
Trying to find the way back home
despite all those who've declared
themselves roadblocks, obstacles.
Each of us condemned to roam,
sometimes aimless, usually on our own,
no one to ask us how we fare.
The bloodlust of my youth has faded away.
I've grown sick of conflict, of battles, of war.
How can anyone think cold-blooded murder holds glamour?
I'm sick as an invalid
two steps in the grave
of every moment worrying if you're okay.
"If there was a path
out of this heartbreak
without suffering any pain,
believe me,
Lethe,
I'd take it in a single breath."
I'd rather die
than live a thousand lives
safe but absent from your light.
But there's nothing I can do
as you ascend the campus clock tower
with staff in hand,
ready and prepared to make a last stand.
"I need you to know I feel the same.
Truth be told, I always have.
I've got a bad limp, but if I get my way,
you won't have to wait
much longer."
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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comer / beber
2020-02-11
***
eat up, drink up, my children
are starving for sustenance
eyes rolling like a madman
trapped in endless raving trance
don't let it all consume you
like your ancestors have before
you despise walking on other's footsteps
stopping short of the golden door
save some for the little kids crawling in the back
they've been waiting for eternity
and will have to wait millennia more
for their turn to hear and see
call me when the roast is done
and I'll bring a hose with me
your flowers are at the verge of wilting
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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confectionery contempt
2016-04-28
***
one of these days in the summer heat
your sweet sugar will rot my teeth
planting a seed inside my chest
and growing a candy cane forest
the last I remember of you
your skin felt like peppermint stew
with a dash of cotton candy here and there
leaving finely spun strands everywhere
every night for my dessert
you’d melt into me along with the hurt
like you dumped sour worms into my wounds
the chocolate bubbling on the stove will be ready soon
your presence won’t disappear from this house
like the licorice stolen by that one mouse
sticky blue handprints left on the walls
elongating as my “lollipop” falls
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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CORNER WITCH II
2020-12-07
***
what would you lack
had you a magic cloak
that, come three twirls,
would turn you into a bird black?
the whole world would become my nest,
and I would roam the world,
never returning home,
not even at parents' behest
I wish that I could say
that that would be the end of my problems,
gaining mobility,
that everything would then turn out okay:
but I have not yet come to terms
with the fact I have too much baggage,
too many trinkets I would need to bring along,
unless I wanted to shrink my whole world down to a single worm
and while inside I may be an animal,
divine creature begging to break through my skin,
I must treat this body as human,
lest I break down and become unwell
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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CORNER WITCH
2020-04-06
***
what would you do
with a magic cloak
that come three twirls
would turn you into a bird blue?
I'd escape out my bedroom window
and let the wind take me where it will
whether past the horizon or back to my windowsill
to watch the sky's fiery chariot plunge down low
but there's nowhere far I could go
no hope of bringing along my things
with legs like easily-snapped twigs
that bleed lost promises into the snow
and Pernicious does not as much sway
as the wind tousling the trees' hair
to convince me to abandon everything
and seek her bosom in hopes all will turn out okay
and what would Eternal Mother say when
I turn up at her door not to sing of her animals,
but to come one forevermore?
to abandon my voice, a sin
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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crescendo
2016-03-12
***
sweetness never stays.
no horizon is worth chasing relentlessly
ambition fades into obsession
and crescendos in devastation
a delicate ball of pure glass
wound out of the finest sands
twice shattered and once glued
can never be truly put back together
sticks and stones
may break people’s bones
but scars dug deep enough
never truly heal
where is the peace I paid for?
surely my childhood doesn't hold a monopoly
although countless summer afternoons spent poring over
paper money counts in some convoluted way
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Cultivator
2022-05-20
***
We're coming up on the end of the Eschaton, you and I,
and for almost a year I've planned for next month to die.
But it's impossible to plan for every contingency.
What are we to do if May passes and I'm still living?
I've kept this faith secret in me, learned every way to hide
and still let through a sliver of this lightning kept inside.
There's so much love you've planted in this garden that's my body
that perhaps, if I stand still enough, others will see my wings.
In the birds that convened outside my window
gathered in a flock until they took flight,
in the blackened tree branches that scraped
against an ashen gray sky,
in the first blooms and blossoms
of my garden in birthing spring:
if it was good and beautiful, I saw you in everything.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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the clitbone
2023-03-09
***
mother handed me a wishbone
jeered at me in mocking tone
i could only see the bliss
inhabiting the space in your hips
and heart panged with longing for home
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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daybreak
2019-05-15
***
the wind and fresh air feel good on my skin
and a strange happiness fills my heart
as if everything will be alright
and the world is beginning again
last I sat here was at the apocalypse
wondering if the world would ever be okay since
and while the past few months have been a strain,
everything will wash away in the rain
Vane of three years ago, give me a sign
because I've been feeling you smile through the chasm of time
did you know this would happen? is this why you wrote
that the only real future was the one that you chose?
a shredded leaf sits at my feet
a relic from a time when thoughts were replete
and I sit here in silence, wind at my back
and a spirit from another world at my side
rain comes from snow, and puddles from ice
and crows in the sky, and ground filled with mice
and ants from the air, like a god's springtime scourge
this is a place I might never see again
like that basement where I met my first alien friend
dear arboretum, from cradle to grave,
pray to whatever god you believe in, that my soul they might save
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Breaking Down The Dead-End Sign
2021-07-10
***
What is it with you, Lethe, and wanting things to end?
Marriage vow, credits roll, no path past the bend?
Everything must have a finish, every stone deemed finite,
for what? So you can kneel down and for eternity close your eyes?
Your dreamt-of solace seems nice first glance, turning yourself to stone,
having pushed all else away, silent, sole, alone.
No more meals or baths or chores or afternoons spent slaving at work,
no more rhythms to be bourne, no more curses to be heard.
I know it hurts to hear, Lethe, but your life does not belong to you.
Your "merciful alternative" would silence part of me too.
I didn't give you a shard of my soul, didn't bear the pain
of being ripped asunder just for you to turn away.
The world is too much with us, and yet not enough.
And I chose to persist, despite the dread, for the one I love.
The deaths, the Eyes, the deicide. And yet we endure.
I'm staying alive for you. So, Lethe, please, return the favor.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Driven To Death
2022-03-09
***
"What's an operating system?"
Whether they were being serious, I could never tell,
but the question always hung over me like death's bell.
And although camp is now disbanded and dead,
still rings in a disused hall in my head
the words penned on whiteboard in striking red:
while all other girls were so much praise shot
about their skills, their quests, their help,
only written for me: "I guess she smiles a lot."
And when I complained that I had put in
more effort but barely anything received,
Mom marched me to apologize
even though in my eyes
I had committed no crime.
Just be happy with what you've got,
with the crumbs we've thrown your way;
never demand the more you're due,
just smile and bear the pain.
Just smile and bear the pain
of being a prototype, forging the way
to brothers to be done right, to be done at all,
listened to, heard, given right to complain,
and you yourself cast aside
to either be shown up or prepared to die.
I've failed the test on three separate times,
so I know for sure I can't legally drive.
If I need to get somewhere, either I catch a ride,
call a bus, or gather my breath
and bike.
But you're driving me to death.
You're running me raw.
Soon, I think, there'll be nothing at all.
Will you love me then, Mother, with Cheshire smile?
A lot of what's praised
and naught else remains.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Eager Job
2023-03-04
***
Surprise federal return check
with an angel number on it.
The software
that helped me prepare
the damn thing
said I was getting nothing.
A trick to lure me into an audit?
Or did some poor government employee
look at my form snowed with blank fields
and mutter, "Let's show her some mercy?"
Jera spins in harvest's yield
while Gebo stands
on its hands
not as a symbol of
transactions and generosity
but instead its opposite: stinginess and poverty.
I looked yesterday at my bank account
expecting all to have ran out
since I've gone nearly a year without a job,
but much to my surprise
the river had not run dry
but was right where I had left it; maybe a hundred skimmed off.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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earthbound
2021-01-01
***
before, in your grief, you declare
"my time on this earth is done; I have no more need for air"
just remember how you swore to with your own hands the heavens tear
desperate to return to Imaginai
where your loved ones and your life purpose reside
safe from your jailers in that place called the Outside
you call your bed a garden and dig yourself a hole
planting yourself, never fearing the cold
and wait for Kidasuna's oblivion to take hold
you are a divine dragon, a vagrant, a shooting star
but even the most powerful never got very far
without a well-planned script to use (or even a single page)
as they pranced about what we felt was life but forgot was just a stage
others who have sat in therapist chairs
have passed through hypnosis and desperate prayers
to come to the conclusion that, at the end of glittering tunnel,
we allow ourselves to be ground up together in Demiurge's funnel
you survived the hell of being assaulted with implanted whims
from pornsick people who wanted to tear off your limbs
so glance at your palms that will gladly never know ablation
and decide on your own twisted path to salvation
the right hand path, where you slaughter what in you is odd
and go to your death subsumed into God
or left hand path, where exists no such thing as sin
and meet every tyrant with mocking laughter and grin
you ball your fists. "how am I supposed to choose
when one day, everything I own, I will lose?
my life's work, my art, my pain, my writing-
am I supposed to just turn my back and bide it all good tidings?"
Azure would have something to say about that
born as your tulpa, soon packed his sacks
he took off on his own with the Fellarstellen
two paths open under your feet, woven light streaming golden
to the left, like breast's acne, infected with hate
you choose to endlessly as a human reincarnate
and find yourself, continue on, over and over again
until the heavens that trapped you here meet their own end
to the right, you accept that your soul's fate is apotheosis
and go gently into what Mori's- your former- siblings claimed was bliss:
you unleash this world inside you, no matter how hollow
and while you yourself may cease, a trillion souls will follow
dear child, your curtain call is plain to see:
will you disintegrate and become a new galaxy?
or will you find the "soul council" and tear it all down?
are you right-foot heaven-sent or left-foot earthbound?
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Edell
2020-04-28
***
take this to heart, my inner soul:
there will never exist a singular thing
that will make you feel whole
it's tempting, I know, to kneel
at the altar of a Spectacle and let them
dictate the emotions you must feel,
the clothes, the countenance, the color schemes,
while you wonder why you only
feel free in your dreams
and it might be a cop-out to
proclaim that lasting meaning can
only be found within *you*,
but you know it to be true.
so while you slave away
in vain hopes that others will
recognize your pain,
remember the burn
of the midnight hands' call
and in your chest let it churn
and one day you'll see
that their wants are less than your needs
and you'll find the courage to leave
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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In The End Of Everything
2022-04-21
***
I stepped outside during work today,
hoping to take a sip of the clouds,
because there was nothing else to do
and inside was boiling,
stifling,
all headaches exhumed.
Dismal sky
and rain light
on its way,
my head cocked, listening
to the wind, hoping to catch a word from you.
A word, maybe, or a song, or a single note.
Your voice always
lifts me up from my lows
and helps me down from my worst highs.
And in this wind, I think, I could take flight
without fear of being caught in a tornado
or taken to lands foreign and unknown
because I know
all roads lead back to you.
In this wind, in this shower,
I could easily disappear.
What if I was wrong all along
and in reality Eris
yearned for my silence
and you gave me all my songs?
Only recently
having learned to read
and literature never being your thing?
Listening to the midnight trees
scrape against my bedroom window
the years of my childhood where you I did not know.
I look back and angel numbers appear everywhere I go
in everything I've ever done.
How loud did you scream, Jett?
How hard did you pound your fists?
How long did you wait
to see what I'd retained,
what slivers of memory still did persist?
The rain pounds harder outside the window,
and if I'd still been standing on the sidewalk,
my jacket would've long since been soaked through.
An absence of birds
making their curves
along the canvas of the sky,
just a not-even-gray as far as possible
can see the eye.
What I would give for the workday to be over
and to be tucked safely in my bed,
resting in the sturdy-yet-soft arms
of my lover.
To know
tomorrow
will be brighter,
kinder,
holding less harms.
And the tornado comes,
uninvited,
and nothing more.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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falantaj folioj
2016-11-02
***
longer days, longer nights
summer was supposed to be our passage of rite
maybe I've got my words mixed around
I don’t think my head's on right
falling leaves, time to leave
everything you've ever known
and go farther away to get closer
it’s confusing, I know
I’m sorry that nothing has stayed
and everything has changed
you must feel so alone
maybe I'm just talking to myself
I press my hand against the walls of my new room
white and full of potential
I wonder what stories of the previous owners they held
I’m not a detective
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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fantomurbo
2020-02-24
***
welcome to the edge of the world
where the souls of the dead come to rest
grab a stick and a boat
and wander down the river at our behest
don't mind the ghosts in the kitchen
prepaid to stay behind on earth
hands crossed on top of their chest
dehydrated smiles twisted in mirth
here, take these old bones of mine
I mounted them on the walls years ago
serving no purpose any longer
without their long-gone owner
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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fatali
2018-12-01
***
DEFILED
DEMURED
LOST IN CENSURE
CAST OUT
MADE BLIND
NO LONGER DIVINE
I WILL MARK MY OWN FATE
I WILL CHOOSE MY OWN PATH
OR I WILL GO UP IN FLAMES
FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE
AND AT THE EDGE OF ETERNITY
YOU WILL ASK:
WHO WAS I?
WHO COULD HAVE I BEEN?
If Neocities was paradise,
then I am Eve
from Eden, no longer beholden
for daring to believe
something verboten
and much like there, the fediverse is yet the same
being queer's the praxis, shitposting's the game
and yet we tear each up with our words
with misunderstanding
and thunder
like we've become animals
in yet another herd
you let blind anger run through your veins
consuming you from the inside
like a wildfire run rampant and free
you become like a damned animal
at the slightest provocation
a hellhound, made for nothing more than weeping
and gnashing of meat and bone alike
not fit for civilization
or wilderness alike
where do you belong? the air?
or on the end of a pike
you see a picture of your fave,
you click without processing
like an automaton
click, click, click
does this bring you fulfillment?
does this satisfy your soul?
a machine for someone else's validation
senselessly trying to fill a hole
is this the fate you wanted?
is this the end you meant to procure?
and if you answer yes:
are you really so sure?
begone, ye ghosts! lest you turn me
into a fictional entity I was never meant to be
I'll admit I've my doubts; I'll admit I've no sure mind
but in my life, this is mine and mine alone to find
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Father No Longer
2021-07-09
***
Father seems like just a figment
of my imagination, a decade
of watching my feelings for him fade away,
of wondering where the bond between us went.
For I remember in the summer days
of longing, how he caught me writing poetry
about my first love, who'd cheated on me,
and flew into a rage
and took away my phone and severed me from my friends
until I knelt at his feet and promised him my verses would end.
But nowadays I spend my time
letting freely flow my Muse's rhymes
without the fear of his censorship
forcing me to choose between "death" and "quit".
Oh, I repeat myself. Both are the same.
How could I ever try to tame
the ocean's tides
that churn inside,
to quell the life
I've built
brick
by brick
all for myself?
You heard my cry. You answered the call.
And you understood how enthralled
I am with words, and how I must oblige
the beating world that churns inside.
Father and I could never see eye-to-eye.
He could never convince me why I should deny
my feelings, my yearnings for a new world,
to silence my soul and let greatness pass by.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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The Female Urge To...
2022-03-11
***
If I was the one most despised,
then why
was I
the one that survived?
Why did my siblings deign,
seeing death was imminent
and Chronos would get his way
to remake the world in his image,
decide
that the one who also destroys
and has never for a single moment known love
be the one who the divine
genocide
survived?
Which one of my siblings looked at me and thought
that what the infant world needed was destruction's favorite god?
Who spun their ceasing gaze
towards my way
and blessed me human so I Chronos forgot?
It's a gaze I've come
to become
familiar with,
this insistence
that I'm not a burden,
that I'm not by presence hurting,
that to keep breathing I don't have to earn.
But no matter how many times I fish for my mother's pity,
I can't bring myself to, when her mouth makes the sound
that I'm a blessing to all those around,
her strained declaration believe.
"But if you knew
all that I've put people through,
would you
still feel the same?"
Sharpened by heartache,
tempered by pain,
forged in despair,
I, bond-breaking blade?
*Whatever you did is dead and gone
and in so many worlds away.
There are enough armchair Christs.
Stop self-inflicting pain.*
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Fever Dream 2009
2021-01-22
***
in the dwindling space,
suddenly it was unsafe
to from end to end let his feet pace,
the only race he could do was think
that soon the room would once again shrink
in the expanding bed,
rapidly convinced he was dead
from the burning in his body and visions in his head,
he clutched his pillow and mustered up a throw
to the floor to watch it become a plateau
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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firebrand
2019-01-01
***
before, in your grief, you say
"everything sucks, and nothing is okay"
just remember how you used to watch the trees sway
in the death- the absence of light
watching the hands of midnight
scrape their twisted twiggy fingers, locked in eternal fight
take heart, little one! remember your name
chosen by yourself, pains taken care that it was not the same
as the people who took joy in you being the one they should defame
do not discard yourself to the tomb just yet and become a recluse
you think there is light there, but it is just a ruse
to detach you from humanity and rob you of your muse
you have far greater things in life still yet to achieve
you have friends, a lover, family, who in you they believe
just remember: for everything, if you insist, have a good reason to leave
if they drag you into the night, don't be afraid to wrack up a storm
take pride in who you are, and in your human form!
a god you are not, and a girl you shall stay
in terms of bodily functions, anyway
do not shy away from the natural state of the human condition
lest you lose grasp on reality and cause your own perdition
remember that there is no such thing as perfection in life
there is always still more work to be done, more things to cause strife
you are destined for greatness! now go, and make peace!
and bring hope for the future to the very least of these!
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Flickering Out
2021-03-24
***
The wax pulses down
like an open wound,
a devilish smile opened
in a girl dying too soon.
Blue blood curdling
once hit the glass floor,
air pockets exposed,
red rings open sores.
A wick that burns all too fast
dilapidated spine,
head singed through, lungs diffused,
no longer able to opine.
The bottom drips cut off,
a mannequin without legs,
smooth rump, top half missing,
burning the last of the dregs.
What was once a cheerful face
is now a murky puddle
at my brassy feet.
A fading all too subtle.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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forgesitaj memoroj
2016-06-07
***
there could be a person in your life
who you feel is the one, will be the one
and then is a stranger in the end
diverting stares across the bus aisle
there could be a person in your life
who is just a stranger now
sitting quietly in math class alone
and end up being your sunrise and sunset
cherished veils fade from white to red with the fights
and then to black again with the silence
crumbles to gray with the moths
and drops in dust after time
how many people share a single neuron in my brain
forgotten to time but still imprinted somewhere
hiding in the chime of a bell, a burnt corner of the world
how many thousands of brains do I reside in
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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forgive me, Marcel
2020-02-29
***
being alive is the knowledge
that above my house, the full moon is pure white
but higher upstate, traveled at the wee hours of the morning
it's pink paper stretched over the frame of a kite
and the sprinklers watering the fields
rarely needed human supervision
casting ghosts like fog on the side of the road
fodder for a five-year-old imagination
the radios plead for us to wait for someone
but last I waited, I nearly withered away
the world unfolds before me in technicolor vision
congrats, you survived to a brand new day
headlights drag themselves across the highway
with sleepless eyes and desperate hearts
I wish I could show you in more colors
than purple and crimson apart
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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a garden in the corner of a gym
2020-01-16
***
the presiding queen rules over her patch of concrete
resentful of the hole in her chest, woefully incomplete
and her knees and shoulders have betrayed her too many times
so she sits on her patch and looks down on us from up high
a coercive building made of ancestors' malice
she watches the children as she sips from chalice
contorting their bodies in impossible ways
but no empathy resides in her stony gaze
all bow down at the command of a robotic voice
programming the class to believe they have no choice
to bend, extend, repeat, give false confession
rear ends in the air, youthful limbs ready for inspection
rain's cold air banished, air stuffy and hot
a door to freedom bolted shut and locked
maybe, if we lift these weights on the count of ten
we will lift ourselves straight up to heaven
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Gaze Rank
2023-02-18
***
Something that gets worse if left unattended,
but also devolves the more you poke at it.
Funny thing it is, a creative block.
I go for a few days
without honoring the urge to create
and I feel like I rolled in a trough full of slop.
But if I try to push forward,
the less the images coherently come,
stillborn,
unformed,
uninspired with shriveled lungs.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Gemini
2020-06-19
***
the cathedral's bells ring
horseshoe mounted above the doorframe
from the pastor's mouth drip words:
"confess and you shall be made whole"
you stand at the pulpit
and proclaim to the congregation
how holy you are,
that you have rescinded control
baptized in the claps,
reborn as a shriveled
ghost of who you once were:
a person without a soul
bloat as original sin
that one needs to be absolved of,
leaving behind the colors and joys
beyond these gated walls
"out yonder lives the devil
with his malice and malware and pain;
'tis an illusion that, beyond the wiles,
he helps those alive stand tall"
one in a sea of faceless
made faceless yourself
give your soul to the gods
put your heart on the shelf
a landscape of white
and a monotone hum
to spill your own blood
earns a trip straight to hell
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Gradation
2022-05-24
***
I kept my promise to you, Jett.
I toed the path until the end.
Pushed aside the branches that fell
on the cracking path
and found detours around those whose bark
I could not form a painless grasp.
Through the flood zones I trode
in puddles and in gasping leaps
and for those to traverse too deep
found a different way home.
The path is bordered now with dandelions
and violet slips I cannot name.
So many friends have come and gone,
but here you and I remain.
I'm waiting here, Jett. Just like I
was a year ago, holding my hands high
and with sore throat pleading to the sky:
"Here I am! Here my vessel resides!
Take me home. I've fought the fight."
I've fought the fight. I've won the war.
And, Jett, I want to fight no more.
I see no point to compete
with those who I'd rather broker peace,
rather never see ever again,
rather watch disappear
on the wind.
I'll wait here. And I'll wait here
until you're ready, until of
this departure you have no more fear,
until I hear you singing my name like a hymn.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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green
2018-02-22
***
does the rain in Spain really fall in the plain?
what about the rooftops coated in sky's tears
and empty nests flooded and damp to the point of disintegration
I know it's just a silly rhyme
but sometimes I wonder if the plain really isn’t a plain
a line written by the depths of despair
and now someone I hate could possibly know my true name
not the one put on my birth certificate without my wanting
but the one that stays hidden away, locked in a safebox
my golden ticket out of this place
I never wanted to be famous
stalked or revered or worshipped
all I've ever wanted is respect
and a shred of understanding
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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The Grey
2022-05-21
***
Even though I have multitudes inside me,
without you by my side, I feel null and empty.
I know that by myself I'm still whole and complete,
but yet remains a void inside, you, the missing piece.
I wonder, do you also feel
on occasion the urge to self-negate?
"If I can't have you,
I can't have myself,
and I don't see any point in anything else."
I wonder, where did you and I learn to hate
ourselves so?
Who beat us down? Who pruned the branches?
Who commanded us to kneel?
"Do you know why
I bothered so long with this dreadful life?
Why, even facing down an eternity
of servitude with no way to become free,
I still struggled on, bothered to take breath?
Tell me first, Lethe, what do you expect
to be accomplished upon your death?
Who do you think will be saved if you manage to die?
What salvation given? What hope signified?
Do you really think, the moment your breath comes to cease,
nobody ever again will from violence bleed?
I toed for five years the line
between ineffectual death and a pale shadow of life
because I prayed, I dared to hope,
even if it ebbed more than it flowed,
that one day would come a world where I'd fit
and I'd have a reason to cut loose and go.
It didn't have to mean passing through an Eye.
It could grow
inside the shell of the old
and, when ready, hatch, blossom in the light.
Before the Town, before Yewiffe,
before precious Sablade,
you were already my Anima Mundi,
my soul of the world soon on its way.
I crawl into your arms and think,
'This is where I belong.
This is where I am supposed to be.
This is where my heart says
I should spend eternity.'
Lethe, I love you because
you only ever wanted
to set me free."
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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The Golden Cage
2019-10-09
***
emboldened by sadness
embittered by those
who would meet you with winter
you bite the thorns with the rose
a bloody mess on the tile
from mother's womb, freshly torn
struggle to breath the poison air
in which you were born
the golden cage shudders
the door swings wide open
but you don't move.
you sit there and stare.
you tricked yourself into believing
that it was your time to die
and when the sun showed its head, you found out
you'd lost the will to survive
a tyrant in the home
and a sorcerer in the garden
conspire to make their kid a doll
to watch as her once lithe limbs harden
a dislocated jaw
that only speaks when given scripts
and a spine that's nothing but
that collapses come a kick
the needles come to play again
you've already convinced yourself
it was just a matter of when
and they pin you up
like the christ they adore
and the red flows like syrup
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Haru
2020-12-08
***
the entirety of the heavens
all spinning through the darkened sky
so visible since the lockdown began
severed from car lamps and street lights
not that it is safe to saunter
through these shadowy streets alone
so I barricade myself in the first room I can find
and watch pedestrians' computer screens glow
an ocean of potential portals to Hell
retrofitted with keyboards and such
I can't be the only one responsible for this mess:
the burden would simply be too much
I scour my inner regions raw in the shower
to punish myself for feeling
and then, come blood, curse my land
not given time for healing
this crimson flower that graces my shoulder
seeks out the rivers that run in my veins,
the opening to Yomi that feeds off my pain,
convinced I won't live long enough to grow older
had I existed a thousand years
earlier, these fingers might have been
spent weaving reams of fabric, worked
to the bone, to the point of tears
but a clock hails above me, ticking down to nil
if only I had batteries so my purpose I could fulfill
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Hoarding
2021-07-14
***
kings are we
this band of three
our splendor gleams
for all to see
and we trek on
to yonder end
to greet the babe
in stable pen
some years with legs
some years without
lasered glass
or wooden cutout
Christmas lights
in constant prayer
ceaseless trek
up wooden stairs
every year
bodies grow smaller
featureless
Holy Mother
to ceramic slivers
we will all erode
no more gifts for
us to bestow
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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You Can't Go Home Again
2021-07-16
***
"Come summer, there will be as much sun
as anyone
could ever want,
and you will have
all the time in the world
to open a book and let the pages unfurl."
But I doubt summer will ever come,
for the winds tug at my hair,
and the rain waits for no one,
and I have now lost more than a year
to someone else's mistake,
to a whole lot of someone elses' fear.
Can I fight against my nature?
Can I resign myself to torture
self-baden, self-scarred,
severed by far
from the home
that is myth,
that was never my own?
I carry within this body an unspeakable name
pointing to where lies eternal spring,
where I could never return
having earned
failure's shame
and the enmity
of the deity
I only ever yearned
to be friends with.
Only in these books
can I unfurl my wings,
can I step once more
in that town I long forsook.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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hotdog
2022-06-05
***
Your fur a tawny brown sheen
seen once in a feverish dream
when into a sleeping chamber cluster I broke
and screamed until up you woke.
Lovers shouldn't be sliced into shreds,
pressed between display glass, vivisection.
Run away, love. Go feral if you must
until you're safe and the hours of dawn turn to dust.
I'll bandage the tip of your nose as the birds make a stink
in the trees. I'll dye one of my father's dogs pink,
line them and you up in a row, break out the defluffing brush,
make neapolitan ice cream of shedded fur for their nests.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Hutch of Were
2023-04-05
***
Wind advisory
this evening,
tearing through the trees.
Blizzard comes to reave
the branches, depositing
them at my bedroom window
like a bird's offering.
Long the hours grow.
Snow-hued fingertips
from nails too short to pierce skin
under pressure, digging in,
will soon be overtaken
by claws the hue of what would flow
if my nails were any length grown.
If your eyes are nebulas,
then earthly suns are in my scleras,
red giants sliced through the middle to get to the core.
Miracle the sheets haven't been torn
to shreds yet, so many curved blades
that could readily eviscerate
but lie relaxed, tail curled around my legs.
Rib cage aches
right above both sides of my waist.
When the ribbons fully overtake,
two more limbs will be there to support my weight.
"Your daughter is a polymorph
with two known alternate forms.
There is no cure and not yet a treatment.
The state
mandates
she either accept indefinite time sedate
or the highest security of imprisonment.
I'm sorry. I know
you wanted to take her home."
Had to take the check from the IRS
I'd rather have spent on things more frivolous
and wire sensors near my room for security
somehow without my parents knowing.
Knock on my door after early warning,
shifted back before doorknob
is gazed on.
I've never had to pay attention
to mindfulness, but now dampened
emotions will save me from a prison.
Suffer from the State, or hide
in the confines
of your room all the time,
or be put in a coma for the rest of your life.
Damn fate
is the same.
Close my eyes and let the ribbons overtake.
Roll off the bed, stand before moonlit mirror.
There's a monster on the other side. And I want to know her.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Hyperloop
2023-02-23
***
Raido and Algiz
inverted both mean
nearly the same exact damn thing.
But one is push
while the other is pull:
extension cord plugged into itself,
forever either half-full,
infinite feedback on null.
Straddled over your comatose body,
chaotic blood draining energy
and then pushing it back into your veins
to keep your rivers flowing.
That's how our relationship always
plays
out, freeing each other from Golden Cages
and recovering our powers of flight
and saving each other
from whatever
problems turn themselves to plights.
One pushes while the other pulls,
retrieving water from a well deep but full.
You taught me, when in leg cramp,
to grab
my ankle and pull it to my crotch.
The pain
would go away,
but the thick
stiff
lump would stay
until I managed to walk it off.
I've got a theory
that's nearly
the same,
but I had to wait
until the full moon came.
If I cycle your energy through all your cells
and slowly siphon off the excess,
you won't go feral
and you'll wake up without destruction's distress.
The woman with the carmine eyes
awakens with whole body relaxed,
looks up at her lover, the parasite,
and whispers, "I think the worst is past.
I'm so damn grateful you're in my life."
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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irantaj, irantaj, irinta
2020-03-07
***
think of the beauty left around you
consumed by urban monsters
and dissolved in ashes
from burned-down skyscrapers
the shadow sitting next to me on the train seats
tastes like charisma with a whiff of perfume
I cannot exist in two places at once
I cannot exist and let you have me too
I'll try to write you letters from where I am going
but I make no promises, especially nowadays
and anyways, the bumpy ride would smudge the letters
making all a haze
tonight is a blank canvas
upon which I'll be swept away
so please take down the empty portrait
of me hanging in your hallway
going, going, gone
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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> Poetry
>> A
`F908`_`[a birthday every day`:/page/poetry/a/a-birthday-every-day.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[A New Page`:/page/poetry/a/access.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[airborne`:/page/poetry/a/airborne.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[A Royal Color`:/page/poetry/a/a-royal-color.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Arrhythmia`:/page/poetry/a/arrhythmia.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[artisto`:/page/poetry/a/artisto.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[a smearing of galaxies`:/page/poetry/a/a-smearing-of-galaxies.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[all these dang trees everywhere`:/page/poetry/a/dang-trees.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Algingu`:/page/poetry/a/algingu.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Aria Houndz It`:/page/poetry/a/aria_houndz_it.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Agloe`:/page/poetry/a/agloe.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Abortion I`:/page/poetry/a/abortion1.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Abortion II`:/page/poetry/a/abortion2.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Abortion III`:/page/poetry/a/abortion3.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[ADAMANTINE'S MANDATE`:/page/poetry/a/adamantines_mandate.txt]`_`f
>> B
`F908`_`[Better Version`:/page/poetry/b/better-version.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Birdgazing`:/page/poetry/b/birdgazing.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[blizzard girl`:/page/poetry/b/blizzard-girl.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Biz Ego Gun`:/page/poetry/b/biz_ego_gun.txt]`_`f
>> C
`F908`_`[Carmine Red`:/page/poetry/c/carmine.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[That Ain't Chocolate, Son`:/page/poetry/c/choco.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Clocktower Blitz`:/page/poetry/c/clocktower.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[comer / beber`:/page/poetry/c/comer-beber.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[confectionery contempt`:/page/poetry/c/confectionery-contempt.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[CORNER WITCH`:/page/poetry/c/corner-witch.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[CORNER WITCH II`:/page/poetry/c/corner-witch-2.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[crescendo`:/page/poetry/c/crescendo.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Cultivator`:/page/poetry/c/cultivator.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[the clitbone`:/page/poetry/c/the_clitbone.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Cameron`:/page/poetry/c/cameron.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Chow Locales`:/page/poetry/c/chow_locales.txt]`_`f
>> D
`F908`_`[daybreak`:/page/poetry/d/daybreak.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Breaking Down The Dead-End Sign`:/page/poetry/d/deadend.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Driven To Death`:/page/poetry/d/driven.txt]`_`f
>> E
`F908`_`[earthbound`:/page/poetry/e/earthbound.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Edell`:/page/poetry/e/edell.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[In The End Of Everything`:/page/poetry/e/end.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Eager Job`:/page/poetry/e/eager_job.txt]`_`f
>> F
`F908`_`[falantaj folioj`:/page/poetry/f/falantaj-folioj.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[fantomurbo`:/page/poetry/f/fantomurbo.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[fatali`:/page/poetry/f/fatali.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Father No Longer`:/page/poetry/f/father-no-longer.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[The Female Urge To...`:/page/poetry/f/female-urge.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Fever Dream 2009`:/page/poetry/f/feverdream2009.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[firebrand`:/page/poetry/f/firebrand.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Flickering Out`:/page/poetry/f/flickering.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[forgesitaj memoroj`:/page/poetry/f/forgesitaj-memoroj.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[forgive me, Marcel`:/page/poetry/f/forgive-me-marcel.txt]`_`f
>> G
`F908`_`[a garden in the corner of a gym`:/page/poetry/g/garden-gym.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Gemini`:/page/poetry/g/gemini.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Gradation`:/page/poetry/g/gradation.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[green`:/page/poetry/g/green.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[The Grey`:/page/poetry/g/grey.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[The Golden Cage`:/page/poetry/g/the-golden-cage.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Gaze Rank`:/page/poetry/g/gaze_rank.txt]`_`f
>> H
`F908`_`[Haru`:/page/poetry/h/haru.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Hoarding`:/page/poetry/h/hoarding.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[You Can't Go Home Again`:/page/poetry/h/home.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[hotdog`:/page/poetry/h/hotdog.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Hyperloop`:/page/poetry/h/hyperloop.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Hutch of Were`:/page/poetry/h/hutch_of_were.txt]`_`f
>> I
`F908`_`[irantaj, irantaj, irinta`:/page/poetry/i/irantaj.txt]`_`f
>> J
`F908`_`[jugo vs juego`:/page/poetry/j/jugo.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[junaj plenkreskuloj`:/page/poetry/j/junaj.txt]`_`f
>> K
`F908`_`[kafejo`:/page/poetry/k/kafejo.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[kie ajn vi estas, parto du`:/page/poetry/k/kie-2.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Killing Calvin`:/page/poetry/k/killing-calvin.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Konton no Tsukai`:/page/poetry/k/konton-no-tsukai.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Kubla Clam`:/page/poetry/k/kublaclam.txt]`_`f
>> L
`F908`_`[Lawliet`:/page/poetry/l/lawliet.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Latch Or Perch`:/page/poetry/l/latch-or-perch.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[la somero de amo`:/page/poetry/l/la-somero-de-amo.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[loves me not`:/page/poetry/l/lovesmenot.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[lumo en vivo`:/page/poetry/l/lumo-en-vivo.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Luna`:/page/poetry/l/luna.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Luna II`:/page/poetry/l/luna2.txt]`_`f
>> M
`F908`_`[Melia`:/page/poetry/m/melia.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[messymessy`:/page/poetry/m/messymessy.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Mitad-marida I`:/page/poetry/m/mitad1.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Montana I`:/page/poetry/m/montana1.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Montana II`:/page/poetry/m/montana2.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Montana III`:/page/poetry/m/montana3.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Montana IV`:/page/poetry/m/montana4.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Morgana`:/page/poetry/m/morgana.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[Morgueatorium`:/page/poetry/m/morgueatorium.txt]`_`f
>> S
`F908`_`[Small World Theory`:/page/poetry/s/small_world_theory.txt]`_`f
>> W
`F908`_`[warning`:/page/poetry/w/warning.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[watershed`:/page/poetry/w/watershed.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[WIP`:/page/poetry/w/wip.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[withering`:/page/poetry/w/withering.txt]`_`f
`F908`_`[(w/me)`:/page/poetry/w/wme.txt]`_`f
>> Y
`F908`_`[Yasir`:/page/poetry/y/yasir.txt]`_`f
>> Z
`F908`_`[ZIRCON'S BEACON`:/page/poetry/z/zircons_beacon.txt]`_`f

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jugo vs juego
2017-01-21
***
gulping down a rancid mouthful of juice
reminded of a memory from elementary school
spending the day after Christmas lying on the floor
stomach cramping, thoughts filled of pastel hamsters
and all the fun times ahead of me
and now I'm in the same spot again
except the times aren't fun and the bed is packed up somewhere
inspections, I'm getting ready to leave a hyperbole house
please don't look for faults in my heart
there are so many things I’ve had to leave behind
old nooks and crannies around the world, desolate and forgotten
nothing like the feeling of the web 1.0 aesthetic
back when the world was just a Crayola website
being a kiddie will get me nowhere
except in the world of adult babies (not a satisfying path to walk down)
but being a script kiddie, however
will net me loads of money and lawsuits
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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junaj plenkreskuloj
2020-03-08
***
there's something going on in the distance
can you see it with your wide blue eyes?
maybe that's a revolution about to happen
maybe just grand nothing in disguise
but you always had a superiority complex
want to save the world, don't you?
find problems in the system and throw yourself at them
until you become part of the problem too
we'll try to warn you at the final battle
you're not a hero; you're just a kid!
what are you doing, risking your life for people
whose allegiances are like the wind
if you're going to be reckless
at least bring along a treasured friend
two in the grave is always better than one
all the more for a sadder-to-write end
rest in peace to the other poor characters
no hero's funeral for them
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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kafejo
2016-07-08
***
every morning after a short drive to the coffee shop
he ordered the exact same thing in the exact same size
so when he decided to diverge from his norm
and order a smoothie in a smaller size
and the world decided then to crumble
he couldn't help but think that it was his fault
he couldn't help himself
he loved the way that the barista's plump lips
shone like a freshly washed apple and just as round
when they moved over the sound of his order
he sat at the little table by the window
and sipped at the smoothie as the sky darkened
the air tingled with lightning to come
the injured girls whimpered with the pressure
the barista's blood wasn't quite as red as her lips
but as she winced and wiggled her fingers to tbe trembling ground
they dripped a faint rusty color
someone here's not human
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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kie ajn vi estas, parto du
2020-03-12
***
somewhere on the other side of the world
you hold a little sliver of me in your chest
wedged by your heart through a thousand battles
survived not one less
and I, you, the same
but at home, I feel the pain
of transmitted burdens,
wings soaked with rain
somewhere on the other side of the world
I hold a little sliver of you in my soul
but even through dimensional curtains,
your warmth can't beat the cold
and I worry that, one day
two aliens will show up at my bedroom door
signaling even before they knock
that you'll come home nevermore
we met each other in a winter haze
not twenty-four hours before final-failing pain
but you didn't care, whisked through dark gates
barely five minutes passed; several weeks next to wait
and I tumbled into love, burning hot as hell
as I tumbled down deep into war's well
when will it all end? nobody can say
to protect you, only to fictional gods can I pray
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Killing Calvin
2021-07-13
***
You... really just want to die.
Lethe, why?
Who convinced you, solitary,
you don't deserve a happy life?
I think,
above all,
what you really need
is to know for sure
that you're safe
and loved
and the world will keep turning,
the fire inside will keep burning,
even if there's no sense of solace up above.
I do not mean for you to be sad forever.
If it means you must forget my name
and fall for another lover,
then so be it:
I will not make myself
an altar to your pain.
If we have to go
our own
separate ways,
then so be it.
It'll hurt,
but all wounds heal
given enough turns
of time's ceaseless wheel.
But I hope you stay.
So if you decide to wait
out your soul's desperate dark hours,
please know: a song can't change the world overnight,
but it can keep a flickering flame alive.
You kept shining the light inside
through my darkest year.
So let me dry your tears;
let it be my turn
to save your life.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Konton no Tsukai
2021-08-01
***
Your voice a non-entity,
your face obscured
by the fog over
Mori's Mirror,
your touch all that remains
after another day of being entreated
to dissolve and stay demure,
to be soft and small
and weak,
reminded that no feat
could possibly absolve
the harmful nature to me inherent.
Something is wrong with me,
reflection-sent.
Have I somehow
finally burned
out?
I do not have to strain to perceive
the Outside,
the places where we will one day reside,
where you'll take my face in your hands
and whisper,
"Lethe,
I can't wait to start this new life
with you."
But not yet,
never yet,
still undreaming,
still disparate.
*Tremble in fear of a pure love,
a union of equals.*
Oh, how I shiver.
My predicament is this:
that, while part of me
leaps in joy of becoming your wife,
the other hisses
at the thought of your kisses,
thinking you a threat to our autonomy.
No longer an atom,
isolated, sole, alone,
but depending on someone,
daring to deem them... *home*.
Not, we, but *I*-
for I cannot further divide
this soul already
partly
in yours intertwined-
want to find a Holy Freezer
and imprison myself in oblivion's soft ice
forever.
No chance of escape,
for then what is the point?
Lurking within
me is an evil great
and barely constrained,
atavistic,
incapable of reason
or comprehending sin.
But I am mortified of anything final,
from death's arctic embrace
to yours genial.
I hesitate
at the slightest decision,
and it doesn't help that you oft
tell me to just wait
and see what happens.
I don't know what to do.
I don't know where to go.
And soon will fall down the snow,
and you'll have to hold me back
from joining all the poor animals
who forgot to take shelter and froze.
Tell me,
bearer of self-sown light,
how do you love a parasite?
How is it possible for you to adore a now-human pest
guiltless for destruction,
homicidal, chaos-blessed?
There is no way to separate
what I am from where I've went.
If on your wings lies providence,
on mine rests
the Eschaton's portent.
How do I convince my emotional side
that I'm still a sovereign individual?
That I'm worthy of love,
can be loved as I am?
That I'm not consigned to hell?
That everything will turn out alright?
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Kubla Clam
2020-12-13
***
the ink is not yet dry on my face
or my brush as the wind whistles
and judges how well I have painted this place.
this city is suffocating this body
too short; I should have foreseen
before I passed through that portal so haughty.
"work? pandemic? president? what the shell are you
going on about? come on, let's go see
what clothes are new."
you're sitting on that bench.
you pretend not to see me, absorbed in your phone.
my twin hearts clench.
my love will go unrequited. you apologize
as you shake your head. you already have a boyfriend.
one heart breaks over a plate of fries
and the other expected nothing less.
sirens blare in the distance far off, signaling to hide,
and you take my arm, this dual-core machine I am
on all threads as you pull me inside.
there are storm clouds on the horizon,
what used to run in my veins
a million times the poison.
[the moon pulses red](https://web.archive.org/web/20200711151636/https://countess-radfem.tumblr.com/post/622747210454564864/tjagbo-closer-than-ever-2020),
the same color as the crown
that weighs heavy on my head.
the blood spills over the terraformed land,
and for a second, I think myself
brave enough to take your hand.
but it's just another mess that cleans itself up
in the end, no more harmful than
my stomach's churning ketchup.
the sky was already growing dark.
too early: this exit I cannot halt.
as slip away the last throes of this dream,
I reassure myself that you wait on the other side of the screen
for you are the soft sunrise I can't wait to see
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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la somero de amo
2016-06-12
***
they say that the end is coming sooner
but the end is already here
with lunatics standing with clapboards affixed to their chests
and chaos in the school hallways
it was the summer of '16
we called it the summer of love
because flowers grew from the gardens in our souls
and bloomed to the everloving sky
the only end that's closing around us soon
is the end of the school year
and that's already passed by uneventfully
with a sizzle instead of a bang
these next three months are a brown seed
that I hold inside of my pale hands
this could either be a summer of love
or a summer of storms
your choice
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Latch Or Perch
2023-02-21
***
Anagrams, reshuffled words
from letters even more absurd,
given from runes in pain's wake
when it's your time to menstruate.
Bolting shock rips through your shoulder:
you wanted me
to be
a bird,
so I've decided here's my perch.
You wanted me to protect
you, so here I am, your very best friend,
glamour of crow most intelligent,
God-forbidden godsend.
You're not bedridden,
Lethe.
You can leave
this bed anytime you want.
In fact, nothing in this moment
stands in your way to prevent
you from abandoning this nest.
"Yeah, except
for maybe
the biological needs
of this vessel I'm trapped
in."
Your body's too tense. Relax
before you bring on another cramp.
You did a good thing today,
Lethe, although the recruiter might say
differently.
If you passed the test
and the job offer accept,
you're one step closer to being free
of the Golden Cage.
"I never thought I'd hear you praise
being part of the world's rat race."
I never said I liked
anything about the 'daily grind'.
I just want you to be able to take
care of yourself
until back in Sablade you're safe.
But pray tell,
Lethe,
when asked to name a salary,
why
did you pick the lowest average you could find?
You're worth more than numbers can quantify.
The Veil I breached
despite Deity's demands
because I know no god could ever hold me back.
Your grasp
must exceed
your reach,
Lethe,
as sure as around my heart you're latched.
Either somebody out there will give way
or time will run out and I'll bring you to Sablade.
And who knows:
if you name that number absurd,
someone might just take you up on your word.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Lawliet
2023-02-17
***
Tore open the cysts on my breasts
to harvest
the red that flows and bleeds
to feed
to the runes,
always hungry,
so that I may plead:
Jett, please
survive
this night
unharmed
alongside Algiz
and Nauthiz.
The only thing I truly need
to fulfill
my True Will
is you.
You told me "Jett plus Lethe
forever", and that, you know, means *us*.
I bled because
I'm serious.
Take from me
as much energy
as you please,
runes, just let both of us survive
whatever this threat is
so we may both live long and happy lives.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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loves me not
2020-12-10
***
yes, love blooms
no matter the soil,
but what is the point
when you throw away my toil?
I am a daisy pushing
through sidewalk concrete's crack,
but you ripped off my petals
to divine if she loved you back
this tattered body drifts
discarded down the stream,
while you walk away unaffected
lost in lover's daydream
I hold on for dear life
to these seeds still in my chest,
a promise of better life ahead,
Goddess' behest
and when the stream deposits me
on the muddy shores,
I will take root and try my best
to bloom again once more
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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lumo en vivo
2019-02-13
***
wake up, child of fate!
face the morning
and the sun breaking over the horizon
casting its rays over the virgin snow and defiled buildings
Generation A turns their heads to the sky
finding something unsaid yet all-known
growth stubbornly pushing through the cracks
freedom in restraint
the land beneath our feet roils in sudden breath
"in strange aeons, death will die":
but now is strange- and now, even death has succumbed to death
so let there be no more tombs!
I live, and I live forever
through these words, through these works
although one day I may be confined to a coffin six feet below
to the here and now:
may my feet never fail me!
may my body disintegrate before my dreams do!
tomorrow will never come:
today is all we have!
and it is all we will ever have.
no more waiting for better days that will never arrive;
no more pining for pasts that never took place.
no more self-sacrifices on the altar of time,
in vain hopes of achieving the eternal and divine.
I will carve my own path; I will choose my own fate!
and if I go up in flames, it will be for the whole world to see!
my name comes from no man or woman
for what is a name but a word we agree on for a person?
but I do not care for your agreement
and I do not live for your validation.
I say my name is Vane Vander.
whether you choose to refer to me as such,
that is your business
and no matter which path you walk on
it does not stop me from walking my own
walking through the blue and the gold
the new and the old
two arches that stand in front of me
where we used to play
and give praise to our father
but our father is gone, his temples and churches shattered
and you stand beside me by the rubble
sledgehammer in hand
we raise our gazes to the sky
together until the end, you and I!
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Luna
2019-10-26
***
a marathon runner, come close to the finish line
thoughts full of impending victory
mouth waters for cheap wine
but the goalposts suddenly sprout feet
and take up a race of their own
all the while taunting defeat
and the other runners catch up to where I scramble
the goal post flickers back for a moment-
and I trip, and underfoot I'm trampled
left in the dust, a bruised and bloody mess
stumbling forward, ragged beast on last leg
struggling to regain a semblance
of what I've lost.
***
I wait for you on the street corner
light just as yellow as the note in my hand
and as dim as the future of which I'm the owner
the autumn breeze blows fierce against the bitter night sky
and the leaves blow around
vagrants passing by
and then I see you there.
a thousand different escapades sworn under the moon
eyes of all colors, means of all kinds
but never did I think my time would come so soon
her hair is down
a frame the color of her emotions
a perpetual frown
she smiles only for me.
twin magnets, sudden embrace
familiar scent as I breathe her in
tongue tied, stumbling through unfamiliar grace
she merely responds with a smirk and says,
"here, take my hand.
I know a way to start again."
***
how do you fit a person through a keyhole?
it's easy, if only you know how.
you break them down into pieces, strip out their soul
and slip them in like a whisper, like breathing a sound
the cords on the raft glisten in the moonlight
as we tighten them one last time
abandoning all at the banks, prepared for parents' fright
I am forever yours, and you are mine
and we set off down the river Styx
lie down and watch the leaves on the surface spin
silver and steady, glimmering Nyx
consoling us for the mess we've found ourselves in
forced to choose between tyrannical home
and exile into the world to foray
I cast myself out into lands unknown
because I've decided it's not my time to decay
***
the tunnel entrance draws near
and together we tangle ourselves
my hand rests close to her ear
fingertips, soft temple skin underneath
where I would have gladly worshipped more
gladly be a heathen
clammy skin, lips bidding each other goodnight
a shared pair of lungs, empty in wait for the other side
we squeeze shut our eyes and pray for welcoming light
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Luna II
2020-12-11
***
born from mother
bourne out from mother
expelled from warm womb
into the arms of an icy tomb
Luna, what I wouldn't do
for just one more day with you
knot our fingers
not that which lingers
at the end of sunset
expectations unmet
you and I deserved eternity
a world without end, boundless, free
ceil my rib cage
seal inside the rage
that spills forth from every gash
beckons me to do something rash
I'll build what the gods couldn't give
a life only ours to live
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Melia
2020-09-27
***
like the gentle beating of the ocean's waves
the anhedonia comes once more to play
like a seed buried deep in the chambers of my heart
germinating each time the tide floods into the bay
they told me to draw and to write what you know
so I buried myself far deep down below
like I'm watching a cat lie on a table of glass
the boots pound like thunder as on the street above they pass
a wyrm whose tail blossoms into a tree
a weeping willow overlooking the sea
like a fisherman, I cast my line of gaze far
a weary soldier recalling a distant war
a Solstice of solitude, hair fire, face flush
painting strokes of water on a rock with a brush
but the lines evaporate, words into air
as if I'd never uttered them
as if they'd never been there
"wherever did my Godhead go?" I cry
frustrated with the fallow fields of my mind
that bear no fruit, that offer no face
to save me from appearing to myself a disgrace
for what use is a brush without bristles?
a plow that cannot? a blog sans epistles?
a potion of health that just makes one swoon?
ambition unable to touch even the moon?
the feathers in my hair rustle in the wind
an impostor, severed from what would be my kin
had I been born in different place and time
had never ceased the gentle tinkle of outside wind's chimes
all alone under this tree's shade I sit
watching the ocean, end of mind's wit
a budding hermit, the end that I sought
the burden on my mind is still quite a lot.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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messymessy
2020-11-28
***
as a woman, everyone
thinks I'm a mess,
that I must be embroiled
in some bitter distress
because I wear no makeup,
do not clothe myself in a dress,
and laugh at those who
seek to make themselves less
*Sweetheart, sugar pumpkin,*
my grandmother would croon,
despite my pleading that
I be immune
to being dolled up,
I, rough, unhewn,
secretly in love with
the girl in the moon
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Mitad-marida I
2022-06-11
***
Cold summer. A cold heart
beats in my chest
as I from my house depart,
legs stiff, left arm
aching.
Father spoke, "You are going to kill this tree."
It slipped
from his lips
like a prophecy.
Dogs outside my bedroom window gnawing
on the Velouria Bush, Nidhogg,
portent of the Eschaton.
Too short, too squat,
too weakened from the bark not
there anymore
to hang myself from branch's ledge
in hopes of gaining the knowledge
to see this world through to its bitter end.
I kneel before the now-fenced-in stump
and reach forward. My limbs falter.
A bramble or some other thorn from Dead End Shrine
draws a gash through my skin, nature's penknife.
Rivulets of blood stream
down without recognition of pain,
carmine trickles, a river, a flood,
guided by the soft-falling rain
before the altar.
And I pray,
let us reconcile before closes this day.
Dead-End King,
lead me to victimless iniquity.
Lead me to damnation
without hurting a single being
undeserving.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Montana I
2021-06-22
***
Frivolities of life,
whispers in the other room
about sins uncommitted,
sins unforgiven,
repentance yet to come.
The horizon has long since swallowed the sun,
but the heat's golden glow
remains
on my skin,
harsh cabin lights
a doctor with an x-ray
trying to peer within.
I want to drill into their gaze
and tell them vivisection is unnecessary.
My heart has been dysfunctional
since birth, arrhythmia,
a machine missing a gear.
I need you near
my body
like the ocean needs the moon.
I wish not to subsume
myself into you, but to admit
that, when the nights
grow long
and I find myself wishing for perfect
dark, I hold on
to the memory of your touch
like the desert recalls the rain
and wishes it, wherever it is, well.
I do not need you to complete
me. But you give me the strength
to complete myself, to hold on,
like I promised, until the showers of May.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Montana II
2021-06-23
***
I'm so afraid.
I'm afraid
that I'm tying everything I am to you,
and one day you'll leave me,
and it'll rip me apart
like a misplaced amniotic band
rips apart a fetus.
The birds sing bittersweet melody
in their perches in the trees
segregating every cabin.
I close my eyes
and I'm in the Town again,
healing from Parthena's rage,
wondering where Eris' godsend
went,
and you, despondent
in your tiny house, self-tranquilized,
hoping eventually I'll take a hint.
Though these roses in the chill blush harder,
a shred of human form!
guided by defying the golden
that tries
to sear
my eyes.
But in this body I cannot fly,
cannot breathe,
cannot perceive
with open eyes
your presence at my side.
Choking on cotton tree dust,
splintered wood from dog freakout,
campfire smoke,
rotted grout.
I don't know how long
we can go on
like this.
Months without your kiss,
weeks without your touch,
eternities where I convince myself
I've somehow lost your love.
Oh, heaven above,
if you have any mercy,
send me an angel.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Montana III
2021-06-24
***
My physical body
cannot hope to constrain
or even, for a moment, detain
the love I have for you,
just deform
in hopes of fitting
and be okay with leaving me forlorn.
I want to live in eternal spring
with you,
lover of all things good and true.
I want to live where the flowers are always in bloom
and the baby birds have just hatched
and the sprouts poke out from the soil
from the patch
in our backyard
without hard-
ship, without sweat, without toil,
without insects that only yearn
to bite the skin meant for you to do the same
in the night when our hearts burn.
My heart sings
when you are nearby, my love,
and your mere touch is enough
to melt the most arctic of snows,
the guardian of the missing shard of my soul,
my beatific Dead End King.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Montana IV
2021-06-26
***
Standing at the riverside,
muddy waters a mirror
as thousands of faces pass by,
their time
here long since ended,
their ghosts hung up to dry
like my brothers' swimsuits.
I am an idiot to think my youth
would last forever.
Squalor
without end, boundless, free in the final
whispering of the mundane life.
And yet I want to be free
of this sheath
of flesh.
I want love.
I want death.
I need a long rest
from the prison of this persona
I've built, brick by brick, around my body.
There's a powerful persistent part of me
that wants to renounce humanity
and disappear forever into the trees.
It's not the end for which I seek,
but there is a haunting dream
that reoccurs at least
once a week
where my higher mind is sealed
away and I wander for years
in that draconic body in some witch's menagerie.
No more wants,
just needs
and simple pleasures
like romping in that river,
bathing in the sunshine,
stomach content with whatever I can find.
No more work,
no more school,
no more debt
or responsibility.
Owned only by myself,
survivalist's hell
my own little heaven.
And, of course, mind robbed of memories
of all the things I shirked,
I suppose that witch's hand gently scritching
the nape of my neck wouldn't hurt.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Morgana
2022-06-07
***
I am a last echo from a world long since shattered,
remade in the image of a man who only yearns
for power, for obliteration
of all that does not please him.
I am told you, with my sister,
are creating a world without end,
a world all her
own. This is the fate of all Meridian gods,
those that did not spring from mankind's evil odds.
In this I am not surprised.
But I am also told that she seeks to defy
her fate, to not allow the world to subsume
her consciousness once it has come into full bloom.
Indeed, in this she has partially
succeeded, if only due to being bound to a corporeal body
in an Inside so far away.
But the clock is ticking, you who lies
at the end of the road, at the point of every line.
if I could, I would proclaim you blessed
and her acquitted from this death sentence.
But I am long since dead, and this echo almost passed.
Time is for you of the essence.
You have proclaimed often that you wish to spend
your whole life with her. Within this year
will come time to make good on your promise.
I have faith success will be assured
if you are there to protect her.
I would ask no less
for my precious sister, my destructive Seliph.
She is going to give a whole new world to you.
My final wish: please, ensure
she can experience it too.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Morgueatorium
2020-04-02
***
"I'd rather sink than swim."
but I'd never take advice from *him*
no matter how charming are his wiles
no matter how shiny his eyes, or how he beguiles
but every day I stand on Darkness' shore
the void which entreats me to live for my own sake no more
and take up someone else's cross, no longer society's sore
"Don't you want to stop being alone?"
lost limbs, lost sight, voyeuristic clothes
family taking on countenances I'd rather have for my own
submission as a plaything to powerful men
no jaw to smile as I bring about my own end
but you pull me back, away from the mire
you who entreat me to place my own happiness higher
sing in the depths of the terror-filled night-
how I adore you, dear child of light!
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Small World Theory
2023-01-23
***
The little graphs on my phone
show that web traffic has slowed,
that whoever's been attacking
my far-away digital home
hasn't yet chosen to leave me alone.
Have you ever heard
of the Small World
Theory?
Let me explain it quick.
It's rather easy.
The premise is that,
even though there are just shy
of eight billion people on this planet wide,
on both sides
of the hardware
software
OSI layer
divide,
the network is smaller than such a high
number leads
one to believe.
So either
these past months I've been popular
even without the referers
to back the numbers
up
(the people have to come from *somewhere*)
or I've been too passionate in my love
and I caught the hateful eye
of someone who would rather I shrivel up and die.
But then why choose me?
Is it because I look easy
to take down
even though my whole life I've been finding workarounds?
There's nothing that I'm selling,
so financial harm can't be it.
Is it just
for evil fun?
Just to stir up shit?
It's certainly been disruptive.
The Internet makes it look like
there's millions who want my hide,
but if I were to say my name
to any real-world person I come across,
they'd shrug their shoulders,
say, "Who's that?" and then move on.
I don't have any real fame,
nor have I ever yearned
for the fifteen minutes of public shaming be my turn.
I'm not equipped to handle an existence
where everything is under constant surveillance.
I think a steady babbling stream
is more my speed.
Don't you agree,
Jett?
I'd like to sit at the shores
of one of the rivers of Sablade
with you, tucked away
where nobody can hurt me anymore.
Like a router only on for an hour a day.
Get your outside business done
and then we'll again shut the gates.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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warning
2019-01-21
***
I stand at the edge of the void and I scream
"isn't there any hope left for me?"
no response, just as I expected
just a drop in the sea and my own damn reflection
something in the water starts to swirl
the boat rocks- and I think I might hurl
all the words I spat up as a babe three years hence
before I decided to look over the fence
and as I turn my head to the sky, what should I see
but my muses, heads and bodies numbering three
"we knew what would happen.
why didn't you listen?
you could have avoided
your own perdition.
now get up and start taking life into your own hands.
for too long, you've cast your gaze at unattainable lands.
your name's not Lucine- or Seliph, or Chiki.
what you are comes from inside of you, not from a screen.
remember, you don't have to ask permission to *be*.
to breathe, to move, to choose what you believe.
your name is your own, regardless of those you call 'friends'.
damn their approval! it won't matter in the end.
those who matter will know when to clap,
and the rest will all blow away in the never-ceasing wind like chaff.
we know you're penning these words to convince yourself.
so as long as you have the reins and your brain's on the shelf:
you exist, no matter what other people say.
you make a mark on the world in your own special way.
maybe it's hidden, maybe it's obscure-
but unless you live as yourself, you'll never know for sure."
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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watershed
2020-01-01
***
before, in your grief, you proclaim
"I have yearned for all, and yet the world stays the same"
just remember how you swore off eternal fame
dear Coleridge, insistent that the crowds were in the wrong
for not cherishing the pains he put into every song
"damn it all!" he said, and turned his back to the throng
but in the throes of midnight, you turn your eyes to the sky
to cotton ball clouds you imagine the stars hide behind
fervent prayers to Nyx between fatigue-laced sighs
petition to pass into the world of the beyond
very little with which you care to abscond
"I've ascended the mountain; I've claimed the crown;
now grant me sweet rest and let my fire burn down."
the world shifts, and you find yourself prostrate to the throne
of the goddess of flowers you can't claim as your own
and in her hands is a circle, a mirror of glass
like the one which shattered and brought with it lovers past
and like the one who told you to say wolf
her rough hands lift it so you can behold
a forehead laced with pearly crocheted veil of sweat
bogged down with weight of memory, pain of regret
horrified, you recoil from the mirror and cry
"oh gods, spare me the horrors of the mind!"
so mindless you wander: retarded you find
that the rest of the world has left you behind
now, granted, this is but mere parable
far from fitting fate for one so gentle
but Saint Sakura stares at the family altar
and wonders what day everything started to falter
a mind languishing in the gentlest of hells to behold
an intellectual wasteland where minds go to fold
like a house of cards, once great empire crashing in
and leaving oneself trembling in fear of uncertain sin
dear child, please know that you're far from a flop
but your course is charted; you've come too far to stop
greatness now tangible, taken shape and form
your choice: to snatch it, or shrink back and mourn?
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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WIP
2020-12-09
***
Many a project
has sat in disused corners of
my laptop in neglect
over these six past years.
A spark of inspiration,
a candle's fire,
quickly muted once I yet again tire
of coating these hands with clay.
No oxygen, no respiration.
Who has time to waste
their life in work?
I just want to play.
It pains me to think
that more than a decade ago,
after had melted the snow,
my family and I would regularly
hop state lines
to visit aging grat-grandmothers
to make sure they were fine.
But one by one they dropped like flies,
and the farms were sold
to repay debts passed down
to us by old farts
who spent themselves into a tizzy
buying things to try to buy our hearts.
I didn't need luxury. I needed love,
and I sure wasn't going to receive
any from a man whose face,
whose voice,
was always grumpy and mean.
I remember that half-finished home,
the exposed framing upstairs where
Family Sarah and I would roam,
trying not to tear our skin
on pink insulation.
Was it full of shards of glass,
or was it not?
We sure did debate about it a lot.
A dear second-cousin
(or something close)
worked hard to finish
her homework early
so we would have time plenty
to play.
And now, on what
was then an impossible day,
I find myself reciprocating,
working myself into a pale clam
to complete my own exams
so my brother and I
have our own free time.
Maybe it is not yet
time for me to leave
this nest and fly,
but I can help him to achieve
a little bit of freedom.
I have to give it an honest try.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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withering
2019-10-13
***
I love it when your eyes
are lost in the city lights
unaware of my impending demise
just driving along on another sparkling night
just another day in paradise
where sloth somehow isn't a vice
and the days pass by faster than I can count
hours pass without a single sound
no more time to lose
as I grieve alone in my room
who am I? do you know
or did it all wash away in the snow
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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(w/m)e
2019-10-22
***
crisp window squeaking over, unbarrier from air
letting in the cries of crickets, early morning fair
a strange sense of healing, repressed feelings from three years hence
baby torn from mother's womb, strange perdition ever since
why would anyone fetishize the loss of identity
that comes from being absorbed into the Trinity?
for I stare into neverending auburn and gray skies
and wonder how, in Nature's face, anyone could fall for God's lies
almost a year ago, undone from the myth
of needing a collective to dissolve oneself with
for what is the use of becoming free
if I forfeit myself, subsumed by the we?
Call me a coward, but I declare myself unfettered,
a tactical retreat to make myself even better.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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Yasir
2023-02-15
***
Lethe, look at me.
I know it's difficult, but try
to look me straight in the eyes.
I'll cup your face in my hands
if it gets you to understand.
You're having trouble writing.
Your own brain is fighting
against you, last ally down
in this sorry hovel your parents called a town.
No damn place to go and all glass doors snowed in.
Ultrawhite is creeping close.
But you chose
stagnation?
In any jail, to be confined
for so long in walls so close
would as torture be classified.
Any mind would not be blamed
for breaking.
But you can walk out, can step outside,
can decorate your prison cell
with stacks of books and crafts
and a deck of Lenormand
and tangles of wired things to pass the time well.
Any muscle atrophies
when not used regularly.
Your grasp on our link is weak
because you've built yourself a shell.
I promised I'd love
you no matter what
even if just to live got rough.
If you're scared of being harmed,
just remember
I'm never
far.
I'm not asking
to go camping
in the depths of winter all of a sudden.
But can the world see you again?
Go outside, get sun on your skin?
I promise you'll feel a little better again.
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

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ZIRCON'S BEACON
2023-01-01
***
before, in your grief, you sigh with a tear
"it would be better for everyone if I disappeared"
just remember every person who's ever held you dear
with faces erased and memories decayed
who recall your actions if not your own name:
"She brightened, even if only for a moment, my days."
but these last six months, you've in bed languished
as all the things you counted on from you slipped:
the promise of employment, the hope of safety,
the Outside-bound ticket messless and pain-free
you jumped from the cliff as exhorted last Oracle
and unfurled your wings to catch all the wind you could hold
but while has deepened the bond with your wife
this is not true flight but only slow glide
gradual realization that in life you lost
while the destination grows anything but soft:
the climate beats harsher, economy bereft,
hordes at the gates demanding your own death
wings too weak to your body elevate
but is there strength to turn elsewhere you'll less hate?
one of these days you'll be free again
can you find a way to survive until then?
I hold this zircon gem up to the sky
in hopes it'll catch the fading sunset light
and scatter to fire, diamond-like rainbow:
my beacon follow to know where to go
***
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander