Explore Your Soul
Maybe when it drops down
We’ll make sense of it
Maybe not
If the sun drips sapphire
It might burn to the bone
Maybe simply warm
The ashes
Until they catch fire
If we drown in our riches
Perhaps the earth will sorrow
Or perhaps she’ll sigh
And drink down the blood
An offering to the carrion
To restore balance
Maybe when it falls down
We’ll make a foundation of it
Maybe not
If the bones keep dry
I’ll sleep inside the carcass
No one will breathe my way
By Daphne Shadows
And yes, I remember you.
Slinking through the corridors at night while no one was watching.
I saw you.
I knew you.
I remember the air in your veins breathing past my lips.
Filling every heartbeat until my teeth burned.
They didn’t know you had a secret.
Or where you went.
I knew you.
They say you don’t exist.
By Daphne Shadows
There are these
Stilted Scarecrows
Jolting about
On corpse legs
Forcing their way
Into my line of
Vision
Throwing blood about
Beating on a drum
Funny
They choose not to notice
My silence
The past
Cannot be
Re-done
Re-spoken
Some wounds
Cannot heal
Until the
Scar tissue
Is erased
In another life
So desperate
For me to be
Sitting around
The fire
With you
But I remember
What those embers
Can do
I’ve collected
These Scarecrows
Though I’m really
Not certain how
Or why
They shamble around
In the dark
Just out of sight
Waiting to pounce
To stitch their bony joints
Into my hair
I’ve befriended
Murders of crows
I’ve decorated
My home
With them
Etched them
Into my bones
And yet
These Burning Eyed
Scarecrows
They find me
Clothed in dead skins
Sickles in their hands
Carved faces
Straw innards
They haunt
Ghoulish calls
Carrying clappers
And stones
They are my funeral march
Hurling perilously
Into the fires they create
Pinning me the patsy
I’ve collected
These Scarecrows
They keep hiding behind
Death masks
I do not belong
To them
But they claw
At my skin
Their past presence
Scarring my Sight
I belong to the ravens
I side with the crows
By Daphne shadows
emotion
is not a
Death
Sentence
i wish
i knew
how to
feel
without
going
Mad
By Daphne Shadows
My feet
They won’t walk right
My legs
They don’t shift light
My thoughts
So staggered
My sense
It’s shattered
No meter, no rhythm
Guess the lies never mattered
by Daphne Shadows
Filled to Empty
Once Again
Just so you can
Poke holes in me
Shaped into something
Beyond
Recognition
Soft thumps
Abrade the inside
Of my rib cage
And something odd
Flitters through
My chest
It isn’t life but tubing
Left there from
When I hated myself
A little less
Electronic beeping
Reminding me
To pretend I am alive
I am not.
Not today.
Not inside this skin.
Not inside
This mind
That falls down
So easily
Sometimes it seems
So silly
That I ever thought
I could be real
To walk without oiled joints
Or charged lights
Behind my eyes
From which everything
Was stolen
(by me)
(something whispers)
I forgot
I was the one
Behind the mask
Wearing the gloves
Leaving no trace
I forgot
I was the one
Who let this happen
Who roused from slumber
And did nothing
Who watched from behind
Serpent eyes
And let you die
I wonder
If it would hurt less
If I was never human at all
Simply a stain on the porcelain
The sand slipping down the time
Shivering down the hourglass
I forgot
How to tell the truth
Or which it was
I forgot
How to speak
Without a tongue
How to see
Without a spine
Can I walk
Knowing the many times
My very breath crawled
Why?
Why do we torture ourselves?
How many of us are there
In here?
This one little body
Pieces hiding
Shuffling about
Slipping behind curtains
Fixing smeared mascara
Redressing so no one notices
Their stories
Are shuttered up
Dust chokes the sunrises
Moonlight can’t hide
The shadows
I forgot
How the tip of a fingernail
Could hold so many
Dead skin cells
They aren’t all mine
(yes they are)
(something whispers)
Â
And I deny everything
Black lipstick that doesn’t
Smudge
Or leave
Photos behind
And no, I wasn’t
Made by accident
Why does everyone ask?
We all clamber around
Waiting for a story to be
Unfolded
It wasn’t an accident
We remember
I shake my head
We know
Our skin
My skin
We feel
It’s like they can see
I’m made from
Different coincidences
Kissing beneath the
Atom bomb
Waiting for something
To change
Or someone
To notice
The shadows
Etched into my bones.
(can anyone see me?)
(no, I don’t think I can)
(something whispers)
By Daphne Shadows
I wish I could
Reach into your chest
Hold your heart
And breathe life
Into your skin
If only my tongue
Told stories with
Answers instead of
Questions
Maybe if I used the
Whispers hiding inside…
But they don’t want
To show themselves
Outside my skin.
I keep forgetting…
But I cannot
Remember
Sometimes I wish
So deeply that I forget
It’s a wish
And then I forget
It’s there at all
By Daphne Shadows
There is more
Something we don’t listen for
It cries
And in our ignorance
It dies
by Daphne Shadows
