The Bottom of the Sea

Grass is growing on my window ledge
In this hollow, I feel hollow
My words echo and thunder back at me
I speak in shallow breaths as if running out of air
I wait for my head to rung out through a cutting silence
My world is void of music and reels
Yet I dream in song
Yet my head is in tune
Yet void and black and bleak and filled with mirth and laughter and friends
The world has faded to this spot like a tortoise in its shell
I speak in secret to never-deaf ears
Always there, I could not see them

The pain is hard to reach, the words have flown, and yet the ache: I miss it
That heart within me
The coal is growing diamond in me
Torture, Torture!, tortured artist.

You wrote of pain
You felt the pain
And now its absence pains you
Your hand is broke, yet freedom has not come
(ask the words) you hear the whisper

The grass is growing on my window ledge
I hear it, in the space between lines
In the cold, here in the cold
Can you, can you, in the cold?
My spine creaks like wood
My ears burn, bleed, from the things I tell myself
Hope is living outside these walls, yet how much do I want it?
I stand here with the knife and yet, how much do I want it?
(ask the words) did you hear the whisper?

The grass is growing on my window ledge
And I feel a hot hand around my heart
It thumps like drums
It burns like thunder

My bed is not a coffin
It is a bed
And I miss it
Speak the words
And I will write them while the grass grows