Part 5/6 of "From Emerald to Hesa", a collection of poems and artwork paired together, started about 1.5 years or so ago. Figured now was as good a time as any to wrap them up! So, the poem for this piece:

Spirits like yours are scarce, 

Especially at this time of year 

But no vile nature is pure enough, 

So I'll just push my way through 

You're sitting there, 

Always along the periphery, 

And I think I see a hint of a smile 

Buried in years gone white and wintery

You've been hanging from the frames of my dreams,

And you’ve been jumping from scene to scene 

To think I once held all of that faith 

For someone who couldn't show their face!

I have watched the way you turn 

To an icy sting on my fingers, 

And then melt and drip onto the floor 

It’s a reminder that nothing lasts, 

Transient flesh 

We’ll get one-hundred years 

Maybe more, 

Then we just may get the chance to start it all over 

But maybe that’s not even worth it 

If I have to find the shards  

And piece a porous puzzle 

Pent up, 

It's all I can do to keep this hidden 

Puppet-pulling, 

I’ll never come to terms with what we’ve forbidden 

Open turbulence, slip-up undertow 

What ever happened to September's audience? 

I've made an October hostage of you 

And you don't even know it 

The bad blood has boiled to the surface,

And these mocking lesions mark my skin

This has become a season for endings,

My own exercise in letting go

I hope you're ready for what will come next, 

Because these words I’ll say will curse us both

I’ve only two ways to go with a one-track mind,

Careening unto ambitious chaos,

Or fall back into disgrace

I’m sure you’re much more like me 

That either of us want to admit 

Your coded language gave it away,

Along with your shapeshifting portrait,

My clever mimic! 

Our third has played that game, 

As have I 

Your professions and proclamations of perfection 

Robed in humility as they were 

Can only fool for so long, 

In spite of the attraction 

The next time you skim the surface of a drowning city, 

And draw playful shapes in the foam, 

Keep them a secret, 

Because there's no point in creating a revenant 

You were

Born of velvet, not straw, a royal breed

Can’t understand

The divine ego of the violent sounds I need

Engineered in past bleakness underground

Do you hear its march now? 

Inevitability is here,

Tracking dirt through the cracks in the tiles

I’ve become drunk on its grinds inside,

Out of sync,

Existentialism

Is frothing

It comes out in strained notes, and then it ceases to live 

It will soon fry and then liquify 

There’s my opportunity

To be a bittersweet ghost

How could you have known me from that pixelated winter 

And never told me until now? 

The split made us 

More honest than ever, our camouflaged brand of trust 

I’ve been telling myself for weeks upon weeks now

That this order has no chance to hurt you

Until I can believe it 

This is a disaster of symmetry, 

Suicidal waves left to wander 

Sentient splinters are the cost of peace,

Their malice leaving crimson rivulets

I want you to know I don’t despise you,

I am only removing a threat

The neutron star’s decision,

Mourning its infinite density,

Is the single point this has come to

A crisis of history and ore

Then it ends

I am not a giant

But it’s right

To crush the atom’s opportunity in my hands

I’ll shatter the walls so the echo,

A response that hits harder

Than the first call is smothered