Joy Sullivan, From “These Days People Are Really Selling Me On California”, Instructions For Traveling

“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.”

— Og Mandino

Blacklit Sky

Iam ridiculously jealous at the moments

you give to her instead of me

and that

your hand will never reach mine

except through

my mind

my shadow and yours

collide

not by chance

but by some forgotten vow

etched in stardust

and sealed in sleep

our eyes look up the same sky

over and over again

untill the orbs meet

for the first time

as if the heavens are tired

of holding our longing

my velvet fire embers

and your hues of ocean

dancing across the sky

that never noticed

between the void

and the constellations

above the world

entwined

for a lifetime

“It’s amazing how much damage can be done when you have nothing but good intentions.”

— Tom Marin

I loved a girl

like the earth loves the rain,

knowing she’d never stay,

but needing her just the same.

She cried once in my arms

and I caught her tears

as if they were stars

fallen just for me...

but she wept for him.

I bandaged wounds

carved by another man’s hands,

whispering lullabies

to a heart that beat for someone else.

Every time she broke,

I shattered more quietly.

She kissed me...

like a door half-open,

warmth lingering on the threshold,

but her soul still pacing

somewhere far inside a house

I was never invited to live in.

And still,

I gave her my all,

a love without borders,

a fire without fuel,

a sea willing to drown

just to hold her reflection

for one more second.

Is this not the cruel poetry of love?

To give,

not for return,

but because you were born

with hands that only know how to hold,

even when holding means breaking.

They say unrequited love

is the purest kind.

Perhaps because it never has the chance

to rot with reality.

It stays eternal;

not because it lives,

but because it dies

beautifully.

To love like this

is to bleed in silence

and call it devotion.

To smile through heartbreak

because her happiness,

even in someone else's arms...

still feels holier

than my own.

- Cyrus K.

She believes she knows my ache,

she thinks she understands my sorrow,

because once, she too was broken.

My pain is

a slow implosion,

a daily funeral

with no mourners,

a storm I must swallow

so she may walk beneath clear skies.

She remains with another,

while I cradle her chaos in the dark,

I try hold her world steady,

bleeding in silence,

so she never sees the stain.

Quietly tearing at the seams

just to keep her whole.

I laugh when I want to scream.

I smile so she can cry.

I disappear so she can shine.

And each day,

I wake inside a coffin

just to hold her hand.

This doesn't feel like love.

This is a man burning

so she may feel warm,

and never knowing

that the smoke

is me.

-Cyrus K.

"I swear there is no greater burden than to wait without hope."

— Beau Taplin from The Waiting

I hold my brother on my lap,

I don't tell him to calm,

Or hush his sobs,

He does that himself.

I cannot stop his world ending,

But I am his sister, and as long as I stay,

He has a part of his world still there.

The roofs shackled deep,

Far below the spires of the churches

That not a soul wanders into

For fear of being seen and accosted.

The roofs shackled deep,

In the pockets of the pictures

That crop up on midnight lights

Every half year or so.

The roofs shackled deep,

And then held out of reach

Because blood is thicker than water

And both are bought to let.

Reap torn bodies with a bare hand

Because we'd all do it if we can,

There are those, and there's me

And then the crop of the land.

“Until we have seen someone’s darkness, we don’t really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone’s darkness, we don’t really know what love is.”

— Marianne Williamson

“Real tears are not those that fall from the eyes and cover the face, but those that fall from the heart and cover the soul.”

— Unknown