Sillas Lee

“Moss”

Led through the old growth trees
Earthen Wire, spools of green wool
Pointing through the fog – through muck
To true north

“Burning”

Weeping dawn
Lays across the way,
But high up on that rock –
It all comes to a stop.

Wrists bound tight, dried grain beneath thine heels
Pointing out like splinters, layered like cumulus clouds,
Old oakwood tree – stripped of its bark, dignity
Torturous their instruments, silent our mouth,
When it all turned south.

I see that stick raised high, pious man,
Whose wife saw,
His holy wand,
Torch, waved above their head – not for long

The people gather round, teeth flashing with barbarous joviality
They rage and blame-
Say their convulsing sons are due to mine own deal with devilish zeal,
That cinder spark, lemon yellow light touches dried bark –
Would hanging save me this agony – When it sparks –
And into flame it Roars
Glutting jaw, distorted, wailing, Mourning

Fluttering butterflies, twisting body within the cocoon,
Wriggling, spindling, convulsing,
Ripped open too soon –
The sky is dry up above, the dawn lit gold in this gloom,
By the wrestling, encasement of elysia
In my tawny, tinder box tomb.

“Proclamation”

In the infinite supernova of the universe – the planets feast when they collide
They linger in the crucified plunge of the divine – awaiting their cosmic chance at penance
Their pursuit of redemption is their asphyxiation as their doctrines unravel, their bodies tossed to the rabble.

In destruction where they only find repentance in their stricken belief they belong – their compulsive, delusionally embraced dream –
The destruction of a universe – holds dear the concept of holy proclamation – where all things splitter and die
But at the lingering horizon of the night when it lays across the sky – the ethereal the gates of heavenly blight will be shut from them
For their crimes were not victimless –
And the gallows sit and wait – for the last star to die.

“Bipolar”

There’s a companion of mine,
They’re quite important, all consuming, dripping into the crevices of shattered glass
They’re unwell, inherited, causation, mistreated
The stigma around them is quite terrible, can you see why?
Type 1 or type 2, do you know mania?

There’s a companion of mine,
They’re quite important,
They’re rushing waters filling in a dark crawl space rapidly
Joy is bittersweet, overwhelming and devastating
Ecstasy or happiness, one of them is unfamiliar, unseen
The intensity of them is as tall as redwood trees, as vast as the earth is round

There’s a companion of mine,
They’re quite important, quite bittersweet,
They can’t see, they know everything and nothing
Fine one moment, tripping over their feet the next
How syrupy, sweet, sticky – unwelcome.

There’s a companion of mine
They’re quite important, a lack of a single line
They’re the lie detector needle
Zig zag, ring. Liar, deceiver, a broken bird’s wing
They’re hopscotch of emotions, rapid and fluttering
A jump rope ting before the rope even hits a full swing

There’s a companion of mine
They’re not too important, they’ve burrowed beneath my skin, made an old cottoage home and used my bones to make a windchime that spins
They’re a swing on a good day, floating back and forth. They hold reins in their hands that dig into my tongue
Drip, drop, bleeding
An episode, I’ll call it, words like bile in the back of my mouth, sticking to my tongue like blue raspberry dye
Do they know the stigma around them?
Do you know mania, despair, a mood drop, skip, jump, dive?
It’s a high, it’s a low, it’s overwhelming, it’s anxiety, it’s ecstasy, it’s fear
It’s choking on grief of a friend who hasn’t died, the spilling of guts of people i’d rather hide

Do you know them
Do you know me?

I hate that their eyes shimmer like moonlight, that it disappears behind heavy clouds at the drop of a hat
I hate their nails raking into my skin, the blood dripping down to my fingertips like a sin
They’re a companion of mine, something gifted down the family line
They’re pearly white teeth of an open maw
Crippling despair in a bright sunlight field
They’re memories and sickness, combined into something wholly unfair
They’re friends finding you unstable, unreadable, like a fine hair that splinters and tears

They are inconsistent, a brush stroke, a put out light bulb
They’re a line of christmas lights, every color a different feeling, sensation, scandal
They’re the videos of mold growing sped up to only a few seconds
Here and then gone again
Do you know them, their hair interwoven with lilies that grow and wilt interchangeably
The candle flames of their fingers, of singes along imperfect skin
They’re the blankets draped over a lonely figure in the middle of summer, of winter, of fall ands spring

My companion is a shade of yellow, no green, no blue
They’re a rainbow turned into a noose.
Do you know them, do you know you?
Do you know their unforgettable, miserable sensation, their riding crop in the left hand and a preacher book in the other
Do you know them as I know you?

“Fallen”

I sit in an old pew in a new church
There’s an old man ahead of me
I’ve been here most of my life
starlight, sunshine, rain

I sit in an old pew in a new church
I have questions with no answers
I’m told to be quiet now
Sleep, hurt, tired eyes, sun

I sit in an old pew in a new church
I’ll beg god on my knees tonight
Wish for a better sunrise
Dissatisfied, wake

I sit in an old pew in a new church
Do you too think god cares for us
The preachers lie on sunday
Listless, bitter, foul

I sit in an old pew in a new church
I don’t know if god can forgive
There’s tears to be cried tonight
Guilt, repentance, hate

I sit in an old pew in a new church
There’s a tickle and scratch at my throat
The old man has passed away
Unusual, shift

I sit in an old pew in a new church
I don’t know if I believe this,
But I see horns and a tail
My seat burns my hips.

“Too Young”

Too young
Too young to be crying along the bathroom bathtub
The floor is cold time beneath your cheek
Your eyes swollen and bloodshot

Too young
Too young to be staying inside locked behind glass
Fearful of the doorway
Hoping day after day they won’t appear like a dark shadow –
To steal away your hope and light –
While they take away what little is left of your fight

Too young
Too young to be unable to speak –
Your airway restricting
Black bile curls beneath your tongue –
Floods up your throat and fills your lungs
Until it dribbles over like spittle
And turns against you

Too young
Too young to feel pain, too old to cry
Suck your tears back in, your eyelashes brittle
Ungrateful child, vicious adult – black sheep, monster, feeble
Fabled battle – life and death

Too young
Too young to think of a hanging cord, too old to not know better
Feet against a cold floor, the roughness of a rug
Hanging pendulum – once and done – a thousand times more
“Oh how could this be” – they say
But they pretend not to have known what was going on –
Behind that big oak door.

“Consumption”

What’s a bigger monster
Creatures or me?

Humanity is cruelty, inherent evil
Some are kind, but they crush their bones and used the sand as face powder
My blood makes rouge
My eyes make gems
They may not be blue, green nor hazel, but they shimmer with honey in the sun

My fingernails are the encasement of lightbulbs
My vocal cords are use to string up plants
I’m considered monstrous, inhumane, insane
But my bones make chandeliers, my tears fill the sea
My blood will color your drapery

If you dry me out with salt, i’ll be jerky
My teeth make fine jewelry
My tongue is a delicacy
You’ll use my guts to make cello strings
My spine will make the legs of chairs, a centerpiece
Use my splintered ribs as hair pieces and pins
Sewing needles and thread made from fine hair
I am a leather seat, a bookcase and the railing of stairs

If you take a bite of me, can you taste my humanity?

“Aftertaste”

My childhood was a candle flame against a raging sea
The sound of running water wakes me, i pray for rain
My bedroom is etched into my mind’s eyes, a reminder of the past like stretch marks – scars

My childhood was gasoline and suffocating silence – choking on the fumes
I carried my bird size heart in the middle of the night, convinced the dark was home, safety
I drowned part of myself. Their blood turned the water awash with red as they choked, spat and bled.
I sat with the other half. They stumbled on the way back down and tripped, snapped and shattered.

Two sides, one, a thousand glasses cracked into a million shards
One side was a scream, the other a lit match
How they amused each other.
One was a smile, one was a baring of teeth. I was ashamed.
Kinder, smarter, better, failure – not enough air to speak.

I was a child screaming of injustice no one seemed to believe – ignored, inconvenient, needing to be “grateful”
She did not have to take you in, they told me – I was not her burden to bear
But the scars left on my very soul are from her
Verbal, trapped against a wall – Eyes full of vitriol –
They were a sore throat, ragged from screaming – and I was the aftertaste