Setting sail in the seas of life one wave at a time
Are we more than this?
More than our bones, organs, and skin?
At the end, do we slip deep into the abyss?
Perhaps there is more beyond what is within
Another place far away
Something only a prayer can touch
An ethereal highway beyond the decay
With faith meaning more than a crutch
Perhaps this place in the physical is only temporary
A learning playground for a celestial place
May my final stop not be the cemetery
But where I shed my flesh and step into grace
Ships among the stars carrying my hopes and dreams into the celestial pool,
Panhandlers begging for a little soul to purchase a place in Heaven,
A compassionate spirit ready to give from their overflowing supply,
Not knowing what they have done.
For Heaven is not a resource that can be mined or pillaged,
A territory that can be claimed,
Nor a kingdom that can be conquered.
A soul cannot be taken in order to patch up the holes within one’s own,
The more one takes the more that shall be taken from them.
And when the ship has sailed,
With it goes the divinely lit dream of the many,
To weave within the fabric of all that was, is, and will be.
The ones lost from a path led astray to fall plunge into the everlasting abyss,
Never to be sparked with divine light nor human will.
For right now it doesn’t have to be too late,
But don’t waste too many tomorrows,
For they cannot replenish like an hourly paycheck.
Choose the warm embrace of a divine light,
Not the siren song of a demonic temptation.
The grass is not always greener on the other side,
Because the green currency overshadows what is hidden from the eye,
Underneath lies a truth most dark,
From your side of the fence lies what is real.
Your grass may not always be green,
But yet it is still grass.
No amount of green paper can breathe life into the garden now so soiled and stained,
It’s value only lies in those it benefits,
A garden can only have the spark of a divine flame,
Never the rot of greedy materialism.
Awake
Or am I?
Floating in a still lake,
Swirls reflecting galaxies,
The wind whispering a dream once lost,
Perhaps the skies echoing fallacies,
Tears preserved in the first frost.
Destiny is calling,
Her number is restricted,
Tripped at the end of the road; I’m falling,
I wish to speak, but my soul is constricted.
My tongue twisted into survival knots,
My heart beating a tune for a love not yet known,
My mind is a tangled mess of wired thoughts,
My roots longing for a place in which to be permanently sewn.
A place where the ground embraces my feet,
Without the lifeless hum of machines,
Where the soul is free to wander like a butterfly fleet,
Untouched and serene.
Where the hand of corruption is just short of reach,
The darkness may attempt to claw and suffocate all around,
With time all deeds will one day wash up on the celestial beach,
Temptation may be the most mighty sound.
Yet love and faith will always prove stronger,
Devils may attempt a divine pose,
Even when my breath will be no longer,
Am I awake yet or have my eyes always been closed?
A cotton veil draping over the mirror of the light
The space reaching all corners of the night
Where lie miles of darkness as far as the eye can see
Just beyond a flickering light waiting to be
As land fades into the depths of the sea
Stalactites of my rays still pierce through as far as it’ll let me
The whirlwind of my might circling into a tornado that barrels through your quiet little town
Leaving behind gentle whispers as the expired throne comes down
My emotion rocks your world with a crack and a quake
Yet still you stand unfaltering in my wake
The sirens cry and the streets may weep
Your foundations still held strong while everything around crumbled into a heap
I may bring down the old for real estate ready for the new
And your quiet little town will rebuild and rise into a city from the tiny beads of morning dew
As each minute ticks closer to that final hour
I pray that it will not cause my soul to rot and sour
The bird sings and the alarm weeps
I cannot recall the most recent restful sleep
Times are tough and I pretend not to fret
I tell myself that it’s just not my time yet
The day rises and the night falls
The cacophony in my head is sure to drown out the call
A rugged path of sticks and stones
Or a smooth road that lay atop bones
I hear the siren calling and by God does it sound sweet
For the Devil is bored and needs some fresh meat
But today I will live again to tend a soul most pure
No matter the struggle I must face nor the path I will endure
I had seen a glimpse of Heaven back then
Or so it seemed
I could have sworn it was a real-life manifestation of what once was my dreams
As the edges of your mouth curled and lifted so did my soul along with it
A single embrace as your arms wrapped around me felt as though I had been wrapped in a gift from the Universe itself
Your laughter the song that cascaded over my body and soul in a pristine waterfall that smoothed out my edges
It felt as if the war that raged within had finally been calmed
There was peace in all the land between all the factions within my mind
Every thought a relief as they all clanked a beer in cheers
Not yet knowing I was only in the eye of the storm
As the light had not quite reached the furthest and darkest corners
The pearly gates I had entered had quickly become worn
The paint masquerading as pearls had begun revealing itself as bones as it chipped away
What had once been magnificent laughter and song became screams and cries of the souls of the damned and forgotten
The beautiful gardens that could only have been Eden had turned to ash and graves
Cerulean seas turned to scarlet rivers of blood
What I thought had finally become my liberation became the slave master
My own thoughts the shackles and whips
What had been my good night and sweet dreams became my good fright and sweet screams
My endless nightmare
The clanking beers and cheers became clanking swords and war cries
What once was the pristine waterfall that cascaded over my soul became the rivers that adorned my cheeks as they descended from the windows of my aching soul only to drown me
Instead of the ship that sailed me to my own little slice of paradise became the stone and chain to pull me down under back into the abyss from where I started
The arms that wrapped me in a gift soon wrapped around my neck in an offering to the king of Hell
My soul to be the next one screaming
The newest addition to the ever-growing collection to the cage
Perhaps too foolish to see the bones that the pearls paraded as
I only saw what I wanted to see and that ultimately became the prison within me
The gold throne on which I thought I sat was only skin and bone.
I’m faded in ways
Cue the shame
And no, drugs are not to blame
Caught up in a daze
My soul ripped from me leaving me empty
Nothing left but a void that’s screaming
But no one can hear in a vacuum
Is it too late for a wasteland to heal?
Searching for a former glory that never was
Now all that’s left is the next hit for a temporary buzz
Now back again at square one
What to do when everything is so wrong?
Trapped in a cycle in which I will never belong
What is the meaning in a world without soul?
Perhaps it’s in the same place where mine may be
Where love is weak and fear is stronger
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother
Perhaps I’m dead
Trapped in the limbo inbetween
Peering in on all the beautiful things I cannot reach
A place of stunning souls
There I could see yours shining brightest
I may not be able to reach, but I am not yet blind
My sight reaching farther than where I’m confined
With an inhale I may tremble
An exhale I may fall weak
My legs unable to carry
Yet my arms will pull me to you
I’ll give you my labored breaths
Perhaps they will give you what they never could give me
For in you I find my soul again
Every word and every touch pulling me back together
Even at the seams once weathered
Thinking my tears left me drained when they filled an abundant ocean instead
Thinking I crashed the seas alone when you were the wind that carried through my sails
With every caress traced a road map of every part of you I conquered
Every whispered word a verse of a song while I could not hear the music
Perhaps not all things must come to an end
For our embrace shall be imprinted into eternity
Perhaps not all stolen is lost
You showed me the way back home as you dragged us along
In the emptiness and cold lies a flame that will one day expand
Reaching the end of a chapter we found the rest of the story.
There has got to be more than this
All the famine; the shame
The booze, money, and fame
Every day is always the same
Playing the same old game
Reaching in the dark yet always seeming to miss
Another dollar and another soldier to maim
Another spoke in the wheel without a name
New monkeys every day to tame
Sentenced to slavery if that is whence you came
How to recover as we fall deeper into the abyss
Sealing the end with the Devil’s last kiss.
Glistening gates
Paradise awaits
Instead of God stands the Fates
A single eye
My answer a wicked gleam with a side of a smile so sly
I begin to fly
Soon I realize I’m falling
The blinding light fades to crimson as I hear a faint calling
Soon it becomes clear to be a mocking behind wails and bawling
A small jolt overtakes me as I halt
I see around me many other souls trapped with me inside an infinitely massive vault
A voice echoes within that I am at fault
But, my dear, there is a chance
A figure appears so striking with but a glance
Approaching with such grace as to dance
How could this be?
As the light fades and my eyes can see
The savior was not He
The key to my salvation was me.
Words so sickly sweet on my lips as my cravings pull me in
Not realizing I’ve been poisoned
The taste satisfies for but a moment
Soon I want to claw out my stomach and wrench out my heart
A wildfire chasing the trees
Consuming as it moves from one to the next
Until it reaches you where there is no oxygen for my flame to burn
No more love to feed
The orange mass licks and reaches as it flickers and fades
The hot kisses only singeing your skin
The one thing keeping it going pouring water on it
He thought water was what I needed
A thirst that needed to be quenched
He thought I was the trees, but I was the flame burning them
He the kryptonite to my being
Snuffing me out
Until there is nothing left but my aching soul
Nothing more than a heartbeat slowly dissipating
My ecstasy became my demise
For our love was like fire and water
The light in my eyes steamed away as we got closer
Evaporating with you into the skies
What ascended you
Descended me.
–Sevanna Simonette
The Sevan Seas 