By Alyssa R. M.

Give me a home here. With a fire to warm to and arms to return to. Give me book to read and a garden to weed. Give me a home here.

My breath spouted from my lips in white billows. The cold air viciously raked across my lungs and I stopped for only a moment to lean against a nearby tree to try and catch my breath. The sharpness of the pine needles were making my eyes water, or perhaps that was just from the pain in my side. I didn’t know how long I had been running for. The sun was masked behind a wall of cold and uncaring clouds, slowly inching further below the forest horizon. I only knew that I had to get out of there before the light disappeared completely. If I did not come across civilization before then, that would be the end of me.

A twig snapping in the distance caused my heart to leap against my already pounding chest; adrenaline instantly pumping through my veins in an even greater quantity. Shoving away from the moss laden tree, I began sprinting once more. I didn’t dare look behind me as I continued my mad dash away from there, to anywhere but there. And then I heard it.

Sometimes I want to gather everything up that I have ever written and cast it in a fire. Delete it permanently.

Sometimes I want to close the blinds and switch off the lights; hide under a blanket and squeeze my eyes shut tight.

Sometimes I just want to be all alone forever and ever and the urge to run creeps up under my skin. 

Sometimes the stars and the sky and those lovely books that always catch my eye seem like more than enough company.

Sometimes I am afraid without knowing how it got that way.

And I could listen to its sweet, silent music forever.

It came not in the Morn,

Nor did it come in the Noon.

It came not in the Eve,

But a few hours past Dawn.

A seductive whisper,

Nearly lost to my yawn.

The hectic buzz of a crew,

aboard a sinking ship.

The roar of the mighty,

with a sword clanking at hip,

The laughter of a child,

Slipping through the trees, nearly wild.

New stars forming,

separated lovers yearning….

It comes not in the Morn,

nor does it come in the Noon.

It comes not in the Eve,

but a few hours before dawn.

A seductive whisper,

all but lost to your yawn.

-By A.r.M.

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

-By Maya Angelou

Let these pages stay blank before me.

The alternative is too scary to write.

imprisonedphilosopher:

his pen scrawled blindly
across the silken page
speaking words of wisdom
transcendent of his age
for though his mind was closed
words poured forth from his open heart
and in this fiery chasm
he finds his source of art
the place where all these words
mesh together one by one
until his pen runs dry
and his story has been spun
only then does his mind open
and gaze upon his prose
whereupon his heart is spoken
by the words that it so chose

And through these inky words,

I had a lover that never was.

I had friends that never lived,

And lives that never were.

I saw the creation of the sun and the moon

And the trees laughed with me

As they taught me how to sing.

I traveled many a foreign sea

And slept under unfamiliar skies.

I dined with kings and queens

And witnessed the birth of whole nations,

Whole worlds, whole people.

And it was all through those inky words,

The kind that too many overlook

And too few overlove.

What will happen when I run out of words? When the well of ink inside me runs dry? I can already feel it happening sometimes. I can feel those last few words clinging to each other, holding out for as long as they possibly can. So I try and ration them. Only use what I absolutely have to use. I try and conserve the last precious words that I have left in me. But what happens when I finally reach inside and find nothing? That is my greatest fear. What will happen when I have no more words? Are they a renewable resource? And if they are, how can I replenish my supply? Must I find them? I have never had the need to look for words until recently. They have always flowed for me in abundance before; spouting from my finger tips, swirling from my mind in great rivers of color. My imagination had no sky and my words seemed endless. And now, as I write these very words, they don’t even seem to be mine. They feel odd and unfamiliar, as if a stranger is writing them; as if I am pulling them out from a stranger’s mind as to not use any more of my own. I am just so scared of the day when I find myself to be nothing more than an ink-stained empty shell. I must find another well before then. I dare not think of what will happen if I don’t.