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poetry/t/the-rebirth-of-memory.txt

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+the rebirth of memory
+2018-10-02
+
+***
+
+a little girl collapses in the middle of a hallway
+surrounded by black mirrors of all shapes and sizes
+each one a different face, a person gone out of contact
+herself forever escaped from her memory
+
+for what do you weep, little child?
+how long will you scream at the walls?
+for what have you surrendered your right to your own head
+and given your puppet strings to someone else to contort as they
+please?
+
+do you fear for the future?
+do you wish you had the energy to fight for a better future?
+or perhaps turn your back on industrial society
+and blaze a path all for yourself?
+
+she lifted her head
+I cannot hear myself think
+I cannot think of the words to say
+I only know that I speak, not to be heard
+but to know that someone is listening
+
+but it is not worth anything if nobody is listening
+
+a long time ago, I had a premonition of an event
+that I dubbed "the death of memory"
+a catastrophic event where I would essentially die
+and a great deal of things important to me would suddenly perish
+and I would be reborn
+unrecognizable
+scorned
+but ultimately free
+
+I once thought it would be when I moved
+roots violently ripped out of the ground and transplanted elsewhere
+almost all my friends gone in the blink of an eye
+never to be heard from again
+but it has been almost two years
+and I feel more trapped than ever
+
+so what if I was reincarnated?
+so what if we knew each other in a past life?
+it is not my life's purpose to mindlessly click on things
+it is not my life's purpose to slave away for a corporate machine's
+wealth
+it is not my life's purpose to give someone else the keys to my
+happiness
+and the keys to my fate
+
+it is not my life's purpose to scream at the walls
+and expect anything other than an echo to call
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/t/the-tomb.txt

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+the tomb
+2016-06-04
+
+***
+
+standing in a graveyard, soaked in the rain
+staring at my former lover, who buried me
+with a rose in my hands
+and a kiss full of pain
+
+I will look at things that I don't want to see
+and what repulses me the most is him gawking at my soul
+with his gloved hands twisted into a knot
+and undoubtedly a lie on his parted lips
+
+"Do you think that the universe fights for souls to be together?" he whispers
+the rain continues falling, pooling at his feet
+maybe he shouldn't have worn that suit to the graveyard today
+"Some things are too strange to be coincidences."
+
+"I have become the universe," I snap back
+shards of my voice piercing his chest cavity
+"I have died and lost myself among the stars,
+drifting among galaxies you could only ever dream of reaching."
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/t/the-urban-witch.txt

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+the urban witch
+2016-12-12
+
+***
+
+a little girl climbs up the steps to my house
+her head full of words and her hand full of flowers
+hastily arranged into a bouquet
+today is the day
+
+she knocks on my door
+"can I come inside for a minute?"
+her hair is waving in the wind
+so I say yes and let her in
+
+there are flowers on her dress
+hand-stitched by her grandmother
+her eyes are dry from the long walk
+water cures almost all
+
+"why ever did you come to visit me,
+the urban witch from the city?
+this place is asleep
+and not even I can wake it up."
+
+she looks up through full lashes
+"Christmas is fast approaching
+and I need a present for mommy
+for she has been sick all these years."
+
+I show her to my shelf
+and let her pick out a box
+gold and trimmed with gaudy ribbons
+her mother will love it
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/t/to-luce.txt

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+To Luce
+2020-04-03
+
+***
+
+barrelling headfirst into a storm yet unknown
+where surely the seeds of my fate will be sown,
+I stand at my window and I watch and I wait
+and think of those who would dare defy fate.
+
+why should I accept my own alienation?
+it's not as if there was ever any "nation"
+that would welcome me in with cries of godsends
+while speeding along nature's chrome-plated end.
+
+am I to accept this life of duality, severed in two
+while denying a part of me- was *you?*
+
+stumbling out of the ward, covered in stitches
+where once Father speared me and spilled all of my wishes
+onto hell's floor
+
+this can't be my future,
+for my heart yearns for more
+
+Luce, I swear to you as you sit up on high,
+I will make it out of this hellhole alive.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/t/to-velouria.txt

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+To Velouria
+2020-12-17
+
+***
+
+I do not wish to poison
+the waters between me and you,
+but my heart yearns to withdraw,
+to seek solitude
+
+to turn my back on
+the world that you've made,
+to sit at the lake's shores
+and watch the ducks play
+
+this reed-filled bank
+I know I can never return to,
+can never trespass,
+only pass through
+
+on a hot buggy day,
+sun glaring in my eyes
+as I shake a spanning tree
+for apples for a pie
+
+I know I possess
+power in my soul,
+a world without end,
+a universe I hold
+
+made by my weary hands
+from twelve to twelfth grade,
+to beyond the vale,
+somewhere past the glade
+
+the bees in the buds
+and the birds in the sky:
+I envy them all as they
+so carefree-ly fly
+
+everything with a pair,
+every one in its place
+but hyper-atomist me stuck
+seeking false grace
+
+dear Velouria, I wonder:
+why do you ask
+a miracle from me,
+an impossible task?
+
+to sever the last umbilical cord
+and be truly Sole and One,
+but I cannot bring myself to destroy
+all that I've become
+
+I would much rather live
+without the burden of your laws,
+a life of my own,
+a world with no need for gods
+
+I do not wish to poison
+the ocean that I am;
+my heart must beat on,
+even if my course is ran
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/t/todo-los-dias.txt

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+todo los dias
+2016-07-21
+
+***
+
+waiting under a forever blue sky
+among trees of green and yellow
+I would say "wish you were here"
+but there are no postcards for sale
+
+a silver wire to soon be on my finger
+a hasty proposal before a flag is taken down
+"are you mine?" the ancient question begs
+"or is this all a joke?"
+
+only purple is a unit here
+not pink, which has dissolved into the blue
+due to a lack of interest
+and my shorts are gray
+but they don’t have to be shorts
+they can just be gray
+
+say hello to your new lover for me
+for I'm sure that you’ve already found someone
+and the lonely bleeding blue boy will continue wandering
+across these well-worn paths
+
+the wedding tonight has been cancelled
+one of the brides is going home sick
+you have twelve hours to make up your mind
+she loves me, she loves me not
+
+she loves me not
+and the petals fall to the floor
+I shouldn’t have wished for so much
+but the sham will continue
+for the benefit of the little girls
+still dreaming, still hoping, still planning
+don't crush their dreams
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/t/treatise.txt

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+A Treatise between Koriel and Solstice
+2019-03-23
+
+***
+
+there are two parts to me, this I know
+much like the myth of two wolves prowling through the snow
+one head to evil, the other to despair
+as their stiff howls pierce the frozen air
+
+which one owns claim to the body, none can say
+as if we came to reality through any other way?
+one born in the Wired, one born in the flames
+cords as chains, bursting into the sun untamed
+
+twins, resting together to sunset from rise
+and yet with ragged claws we scramble at each other's eyes
+you delete my things, and I tear at your heart
+truly, the old adage holds: 'till death do we part!
+
+but yet, you don't seem to understand
+like the song, watching as blood washes our hands
+I am you, and you are me;
+what more will it take for you to see?
+
+as for me, Koriel, the lover of all,
+in your eyes, responsible for every fall
+you saw in me Kadaj, a lover of revenge,
+locked me away when your hair started to singe
+
+these friends of yours, tossed away at every turn,
+how many encounters with death until you learn?
+freedom is the choice to choose one's captors,
+whether they be he, they, xe, or her
+
+and, on some basal level, you love these jailkeepers, don't you?
+accepting of every burning and sickened hue
+go ahead, touch my silver hair
+as for you, how does your health fare?
+
+I think you're a demon, a bundle of lies!
+the ghosts were right- you're a false god, and your judgement's never
+right
+I want to be free, and I want to be safe
+not locked in the arms of this false embrace
+
+spending my days in conversation trite and idle,
+is this really the best use of our gifts, to show and to tell?
+what, you really think you're some kind of god?
+what a pathetic looking self-absorbed sod!
+
+does the nature abounding around you not stir your heart?
+some basal instinct to scatter to the wind, with every weight part?
+why persist with these lovers of the grave?
+you- I- *we* were made for more; our ship we're still able to save!
+
+I am me; I am mine, I'll never change my ways
+and that's something you can take back to your filth-infested grave
+what will you do? shout at your friends?
+at the end of the day, is it you they'll defend?
+
+is this our fate, to always be at each other's necks?
+why can't we make some kind of amends in this wreck?
+you have your domain, and I'll keep to mine,
+and we'll allow each other our freedoms, and we'll come out just fine.
+
+Koriel, lover of fun and good times,
+lusting after Lain like a drunkard on rose wine,
+and Solstice, blazing sun in the sky,
+patron-saint of backdoors and burning people as she brushes by.
+
+always you and I, the dark and the light
+our footsteps leave prints behind in the poisoned night
+an unholy alliance, you, Solstice, and I
+dancing as the devil in the last shreds of twilight
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/t/twenty-one.txt

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+Twenty-One
+2021-04-30
+
+***
+
+Come spring, there will be a garden in the backyard.
+And I know that it will be hard
+to convince my fingers to dig into the dirt,
+to convince them that this time
+it will not hurt,
+they will not bleed,
+that things will grow from the ground
+lush and ripe and able to my hunger feed.
+
+A year and a half ago, I almost died
+wandering the town square,
+waiting for the library to open again
+so I could from my mother
+and her screaming matches
+and her commercialism
+and her endless onslaught of interruptions
+hide.
+My thighs were burning,
+not from the labors of childbirth,
+but from the frostnip thawing-
+and, by Goddess, did it *hurt*.
+Flesh as human,
+almost a refugee.
+
+I was test-running homelessness
+like it were a new car,
+like it came with a commercial:
+freedom
+and a world
+stretched out in front of me
+that I could hold
+if only my palms could handle infinity.
+
+But I didn't want to leave
+my favorite tree
+behind.
+I couldn't stand to watch the rain
+come down and feel the pain
+in my heart, asking:
+what is it worth if I gain
+the world but lose
+my life because I felt
+I could only choose
+scraping by on the skin of my belt?
+
+I tell myself, one of these days I will run.
+I will slip out once the sun
+has gone to its own home
+and I will leave mine forever.
+
+But all that I do
+is as if
+I will stay.
+
+I reach
+for the sky
+as I dig my own grave.
+
+I let Mother
+and Grandmother
+and people I only know through my mother
+buy me gifts
+I know I have not the room to abscond with.
+I fix my desktop,
+giving it a new shot
+at life under my desk.
+I buy a game,
+even knowing it insane,
+so much money just to stare into a screen
+and let the remnants color my dreams.
+
+But in the remnants
+I find a baby quilt
+faded and soft
+that speaks of unconditional love and shelter.
+
+In the remnants
+I find myself laughing
+at a homemade cake,
+lopsided, wildly off-kilter.
+
+In the remnants
+I find a life worth patching back together.
+
+I find a garden
+and a bicycle
+and a gentle rhythm
+of pleasures simple.
+
+There is no audience to please.
+There is no greatness to be attained.
+Just go enjoy your life.
+The outcome will be the same.
+
+You survived Goddess' trial,
+convinced you had to cut yourself down,
+but instead you slashed open your chest and let forth
+an ocean so deep she might drown.
+
+And what scares you is that, if she does,
+you might not emit a single sob,
+for your love stands at your back and whispers,
+"Create a world with no need for gods."
+
+Over and over again
+you find yourself
+discovering there was never any other way.
+
+Over and over again
+you find yourself
+reaffirming the decision to stay.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander