Explore Your Soul
don’t thank me
i might’ve stepped on you
had you strayed
don’t try to change me
i’ll take from you
if your lie is true
and when i’m done
your lungs will empty
and your heart will pound
you’ll call for me
but i won’t be found
by Daphne Shadows
silence becomes blaringly loud if you’re willing to hurt enough to hear it.
this sorrow can’t eat into my bones any further. but then you turn your back on me and i’m riddled with hollow marrow. my cells turn on themselves.
this isn’t supposed to hurt but my skin is burning with the cold of your emptiness.
this wasn’t a nightmare. how did you do this? break this so fully? can’t the sun hit my heart enough to bring me back? from the edge. from the moment. the moment i forget how to boil my own blood until i can speak through lips i own.
this wasn’t supposed to hurt.
this wasn’t supposed to hurt.
By Daphne Shadows
they poked holes in our walls so they could siphon our voices. and pulled down time to remove our choices. but we remembered our nightmares and made them our soldiers. took to the night and stood on their shoulders.
they scoffed from their pretty plastic houses and ordered us dead from their plush designer couches. not a finger, no, not a one. they needn’t lift to get anything done. they forgot all the danger, all the danger in their lies. ignoring the downtrodden’s desperate cries.
we never forgot what it meant to survive. never a chance, not one, to thrive. but survive pain we could do and do it well, no matter what new challenge, new ambush, new Hell.
we took to the streets and remembered our names, they covered us in deceit and burned us with flames. we took back the matches and rose from our ashes. stalked through their perfect and broke through torn patches.
inside their lofty mansions with stolen rations, they laughed and they jeered. outside in the cold, we struggled and feared.
but every little lie, causes a rift. and every empty promise comes with a gift. because inside our emptiness, we called on a light. and with it, you see, we won this fight.
little did they know, we fight every day. with the poison in our blood and the stones in our way. we fight our own minds each time progress rewinds. and fight our own demons as each day begins.
we choose from our hearts, we choose from our mind. not a piece of plastic nor mask will you find. because we already learned, we already know. what we hide is where we’ll grow. and vulnerable hurts, yes, but it’s better than their mess.
so they can come with their arrows and come with their spears. we’ll show up in armor we stole from our fears.
by Daphne Shadows
I got in a fight
And broke my own nose
Could be nicer, I suppose
The mirror shattered
I woke up on the other side
Left my bloodied wings behind
Because I know
There’s mold behind the dry wall
Never capitulate when I fall
The decay keeps hiding
But I can smell it out
I don’t know what this is about
Pieces of glass in my way
I think I found your secret
Don’t know if I can keep it
You’re not who I thought
This reflection’s getting murky
I keep forgetting it’s me
I got in a fight
And broke my own hold
The duality never gets old
by Daphne Shadows
your breath keeps fogging up my heart. fingertips charred, frostbitten heart, you need this. hope hurts but it’s the only game in town. and if my lungs can pretend I’m alive, we can make it on this tightrope. too far from the ground to know what’s up or down, bleed into it. dig in. electricity swimming through my nerve endings, a heady breeze stolen from the safety just out of reach.
I had my eyes closed when I tripped over your wings, blinked and you were gone. I’m dropping baggage and balancing on broken feet. try me. they already did, with gasoline in their veins and thorns in their embrace, but they fell to their own poison.
a kiss can never lie but death sure tries. and just before I flatlined, I felt it wake in me. a sleeping creature that met me as I fell, live flames in my mouth, jumper cables to my heart.
breathing fire isn’t so hard, after all.
by Daphne Shadows
I feel. And you punish me.
I try to heal. And you break me.
Little glimpses, little offenses. I live inside your kaleidoscope, swirling in hues of agony.
So brave. So brave to peel your skin off for everyone. Wrong one. Wrong skin. Wrong soul.
Stuck in a web of lies. Razor blades in my spine. I take them out. You put them back.
Silly little child. It’s no big deal.
Never is.
There is a disease in my blood. You pour these bullets into my hand. Pull the trigger so I cant burn down this cage.
Pump my stomach for the key but you’ve drowned me in these useless tears.
The sky is falling from my lips and ive lost myself to you.
I hate you.
Silly little child. Its no big deal.
Never is.
Silly little feather. Silly heart. Thinking you can breathe. You are shards of ice or hot enough to burn and nothing else.
I try to temper you. You shatter me against the darkness, burry me in the hope until I’ve done it again.
I’ve forgotten. Again. I feel. And you punish me.
by Daphne Shadows
mmmmmmm… that breath, right there.
i can pinpoint it in a pinwheel of daggers. all lashing into the downy feathers of tomorrow, sending hiccups of blood into yesterday. i can play with the leaves until morning hits, sweeping the sky with the last of my patience, brushing my hair off my lips.
you didn’t remember the sunspots on the forest floor. but i did. i painted them rouge with every last little dovetail of spilt time. there were eyes on us then, strangling the ocean tide through needle point.
i miss you.
by Daphne Shadows
sometimes I try to force the pieces to fit
but all I do is shift the tide
and the moon weeps
at my feet
it isn’t over
if your heart is still in it
I need a new heart
one that sees me
beats for me
maybe you too
but that depends
can you see in the dark?
I am flames burning the forest
I am the forest, too
breathing with charred skin
and begging people to stop cutting me down
I’ll hurt you
(I hurt me too)
and soothe us with rose petals
and the moonlight
that drips from my lips
creation and destruction
the game we all play
I am not playing
I am the one moving mountains
ending sunsets
setting alight the ills
I am the one
tripping over grains of sand
and choking on broken glass
dripping from my eyes
I am lost
even though I know
who I truly am
where I belong
who’s name is on my heart
I am lost
in a pool of ink
drowning on your absence
and the demons
kneeling at my door
they’re singing
to the darkness in me
I need a love affair
with my own soul
but there’s more
more that I need
sometimes I try to force the pieces to fit
but all I do is shift the tide
and the moon weeps
at my feet
by Daphne Shadows
