What It Means To You

Everything has meaning; all is what it means to you.
I don’t understand why nobody sees
The deeper shade of blue.
Nothing’s ever quite so simple.

Three seconds to a billion years, fate’s timer to go off.
I don’t understand where your soul has gone,
And holds your heart aloft.
Beauty knows no bounds.

Fallen angel, wings were torn away.
Now on the edge of last resorts, hear what I have to say.
Listen to that one small breath between the night and day.
When the purple sunset fades to dark, you ask which is more beautiful.

Even the laughter’s melancholy, for all the sides you see.
I don’t understand why you’ve given up
All the people you can be.
Reality to haze.

Ripped from one world to the next, all of it surreal.
I don’t understand where you belong,
Coats of thought blocks start to peel.
Swirling colors drain to void.

Fallen angel, wings were torn away.
Now in the gaze of nothingness, hear what I have to say.
Listen to that one small breath between the night and day.
As true poets weep and bleed their words, you ask which is more agony.

Some fire can burn the guilty mind, provoked out of it’s hiding.
I don’t understand the thoughtless stuff:
Just whose time are you biding?
The stars are trading places.

Sometimes teddy bears heal all wounds; sometimes it takes so much more.
I don’t understand just who you are,
All the times you loved but tore.
You never know for sure.

Fallen angel, wings were torn away.
Now drinking the flow of deep abyss, hear what I have to say.
Listen to that one small breath between the night and day.
As water courses and flame embraces, you ask which life is older.

Treacherous play lead to fading: a warrior on his own spear.
I don’t understand how you survive:
Without all the evenings of fear.
Mirrors are true tragedy.

Few eyes see through true falseness.
Thoughts will sometimes beat you senseless.
Innocence is fleeting; things can be complex or defenseless.
The fallen one can walk again, and you know more than I.

Fallen angel, wings were torn away. But anything can heal with faith.

Out of Tune

Half asleep, and far away.
Oh so deep, I long to stay.
This flow is where I once belonged,
Within the sweet accord of song.
In my dreams the music plays.

Once dancing to a silent beat,
I was renewed and full, complete.
Standing on the trech’rous edge,
I planted down my feet and pledged
Never to admit defeat.

Now where is that melody?
Growing dismal, I can’t see
Why my life is out of tune.
While around me notes are strewn,
I long to feel my harmony.

Now day breaks not quite so bright.
My frail wings take half-hearted flights.
A cloud lies heavy on my soul.
Where is the beat that made me whole?
I yearn to touch celestial light.

I cannot find my flawless chord
Within this mind that once adored
The rhythm and the rushing tones,
Life’s song immersing heart and bones.
Now I live perplexed and bored.

My Lord, please don’t abandon me.
A sword of truth my safeguard be.
Grant me shields of angel’s wings,
So that my heart can once more sing
Without the dark uncertainty.

Once Your love within me welled.
Above all others, You compelled
Me to Your purity and grace,
Once more please let me see Your face.
You are the music I once held.

I need You more than I can say,
Be freed within me, this I pray.
Consume all that I am, for then
I just might be complete again.
Life’s music lies within Your way.

Foreign Dreams

I traced my handprint on the ground,
Not sure exactly what I'd found.
And thund'ring stallions in the sky
Paid no heed as I passed by.

My heart is faint, my knees are weak,
I don't know what it is I seek.

The trees stretched out to slap my face,
Said I'd disgraced a sacred place.

Where I came from's growing dim,
I'm living only on a whim.

I strained to hear a single word,
Then pressed my ear to grass and heard
A million voices crying out
But I don't know what's it's about.

The river climbed up past the shore
To wash clean what was done before,
But night rushed in and beat it down,
The moon her heart, the stars her gown.

I met eyes with an ancient bear,
We both stood deathly still to stare.
Massive troubles all freeze silent,
I know one day they may turn violent.

Oh, beauty knows no bounds, and yet
It hasn't graced a soul I've met.

I'm going home, that's all I know,
Sure wish I knew the way to go.

But no matter where I flicker,
My love and courage grow still thicker,
And I will walk these foreign dreams
Until everything is what it seems.

Wolf Cry

Magnificent spirit,
My soul is ever weighted with you.
Brother, my brother, I grieve you as dying.

Come run the forests,
Come walk the plains,
Come ease my pain.

Let me finger your prints in the damp, cool mud.
Let me surpass my language,
Let yours come pouring from within me,
Let me throw back my head with an ancient cry.

I shall grieve you as your sister,
A lost one of the pack.
I return to you and pay respects,
You are wizened, tired, and grand.
I grieve the life I have lost with yours.

Bring me back to the circle,
Back to the gray skies and shallow dens.
I am home in a dome-shaped den,
Comforted and solid.

That my ears might draw back to honor you,
That a tail might flourish in greeting,
That your spirit might enter my heart and live therein,
And I, this little sister, sleep in peace again.

Soul-Storms

Beauty lies encrusted
In the eye of every storm,
Sequestered and entrusted
To each heart that watches o’er.

Storms rage captivated
In the soul of every being,
Unemancipated
Till our birth-wet wings might soar.

Summer storms are raging
In my soul this weighted night.
Through volumes here I’m paging
For the truth I thought I knew.

I’ll uproot the crystal beauty,
Unsung, yet all alight,
Alight with piercing mystery,
My soul-storms, silver blue.

Self-Window

I am Danielle.
Do you know me?

I am Danielle of two: two names, two directions, two harmonies,
In whose blood burns a coward and heroine, in whose eyes is a spark and a shadow.
My soul is the hue of frozen light; I am staring out windows, longing to see shapes in the heavy mist, be they dark or celestial, I only wish to see.
Can you see me?

I am Danielle, who is quick of mind and slow of wit,
I am admired, appreciated, analyzed: I am forgotten as eyes slide away.
I am Danielle, thirsting for originality, but I am Danielle, craving conformity,
Who fears conflict, trembling, lights ablaze, drinks it in, spews it out,
A fire-eater, drunk on that which is fatal.
Am I simple in your eyes?

I am Danielle, who longs to breathe beauty, and I will strain my eyes to blindness to find it, searching as brown plants search for sunlight.
I shall wither, or I shall blossom; either way, you have known me, and I am valued.
Awkward silence is mine, and dearly cherished stillness is mine.
I poke at distant souls,
And will flee from any half-formed beast,
But if you are a half-formed beast I will love you to fullness.
Have I loved you?

I am Danielle, who sings with her being, dances alone to the silence, turns to stone in the presence of faces, loving or cold.
I squeeze, pat, and bend words into the shape of my flickering thoughts.
You have seen them; they are not true.
I am a sculptor with hands too rough and heavy.
I am a half-hearted artist of dreams that will crush my regrets, those actions trickling out as sand between my fingers, grandeur carried halfway home.
I am Danielle, with voice too loud and words too soft.
Can you hear me?

I am Danielle, an eternal amateur.
Brimming with talent and possibility and “if,” of everything,
I shall be always good, I shall never be great, blessed and cursed so.
I have grown up too fast and left myself behind, and I am behind you with silent understanding even as you look up at me.
I have watched you, and seen you, and known you, and loved you, and envied you.
Would you believe me?
I am Danielle, flowing in this place, with every flame, drop, wisp, and grain.
I am aware of all that is in me, and therefore of all that is, and nothing that matters.

Will you remember me?

Dream-Born

Once upon a night we met,
My archangel, guiding star.
Dream-born, tenderly sunset,
Chaste whisper from afar.

(I held your soul in my hand; be aware! I am a question yet unanswered.)

Through the laden labyrinth,
Alone, exclude your voice.
Beating heart and passion-calm,
Strong and soft as song and psalm.

(I know you knew as I that nothing is liberating as a broken watch, or charming as a duck.)

You don’t think that I could drink
Of life as others do.
In strife, in wandering, just once
I found my footsteps true.

(My dimension was a tangle, children and charm, and you were all the greatness in me.)

Plastic walls in bated halls,
Wind and red and death.
Before I slashed my boundaries,
You cried out, froze my breath.

(I clasp young feral memories with me, swathed in threads of purple passion.)

I found you in the end of time,
And begged your arms to stay.
Suffused with love regretful then,
I vowed to go along my way.

(You must have been caged, or awoken I’d have never.)

Reality undid the dream,
Dusky, sorry sighs.
Realize I had to go,
Moon-fed spark, and now I know.

(You will save me again, and we will dare to believe in clichés. We are imminent and certain.)