What you don't know.

I laid awake you know. 

You probably didn't know it, but I did.

I was tired, exhausted really, yet I lay there, denying myself the luxury of sleep. 

I lie there awake, for I knew no sleep would be as steady nor as peaceful as the kind I would undergo at the hand of your voice. 

So awake I stayed.

Clutching to the perhaps of you sedating me with your words.

It didn't feel like work you know. Staying awake. 

It did at first, simply because time seemed to entangle itself with my torturer- sleep. Time plotted with sleep, stretching out it's seconds and minutes while sleep simultaneously declared war on my body.

My defense was your perhaps; It was your maybe. It was the possibility that I could hold onto tonight long enough to get my dose of you before tomorrow rushed in.

I braced myself in my bed, yielding my armor of hope and anticipation.

It worked.

I lie there awake. 

Content with the heaviness on my eyelids and the haze in my head.

I laid there awake, because sleep without you is sleeplessness all the same.

.K SG C.

Home was.

Home was not where I walked through the door.

Home was where I stumbled into your arms, and rested my cheek against your neck.

Home was not where I came home after a trying day.

Home was the spot next to you where I sat, and relieved the shackles of too long a day spent.

Home was not in the daytime, where I meandered across the floor in search of productivity and purpose.

Home was the night, doing nothing but absorbing your glance, feeling purpose in your stare.

Home was not a place.

Home was a you, and I never felt like I could get there quick enough.

Home was not lazy Sundays, cereal, and the sounds of cars outside.

Home was listening to your steady heart, racing the sun back to my house, and more often than not, a groggy following morning.

Home was not sound ridden.

Home was your secure embrace, and the strange quiet I was able to find in the mess that was my mind.

Home was not the reliable couch you became part of at the end of the day.

Home was feeling alive and safe simultaneously. Home was standing on the edge of a cliff, but leaning against your forearms and feeling your head upon my shoulder. Unshakeable.

Home was not an address.

Home was any direction we took, and the zip code was our license plates.

You sighed. You pulled me close. I sighed.

Words, timid at first, confidently finished, escaped from you.

"What does this feel like to you?"

I leaned into every bit of you and sank in.

"It feels like home."

.K SG C.

Old Lightbulbs.

A light came on.

You smiled and there it was. The light. That light. The one I had missed, the one I had lost. It was there, beaming at me in every sound, color, and language I could comprehend.  And couldn't. I hoped to understand those later.

But it was there. It did not have a brightness, but a precense. I knew it was a light. I did not need my eyes blinded, or the company of pitch black to see. Perhaps that's why this light felt different.  I closed my eyes. I opened. You were still there. Your light was still there. I no longer needed the darkness to see it.

I looked down to my feet, hoping I would not feel so illuminated. You had a way of doing that. The way you looked. The smile. The light. I could feel myself on display. Not under scrutiny, nor up for criticism, but to be admired. In the light. In your light. In the light that was warm. I knew I should welcome it, accept it, perhaps dance in it, but I could not. My feet offered protection from the goodness you were offering me. From the goodness I had condemned. They were my favorite shoes. But I cursed them for their temptation. 

No, no, come back. I panicked. I broke away from the hold on my shoes and looked to you. Darkness I expected. My chance gone. Squandered. Fleeing.

No. You reached out. The light. My god there it was. Again. Bright. But in disposition, not in sight. It was shooting through me, like electricity to my body. Renegade veins happily carried the glowing significance that was your light. My light. Possibly our light. I withered. Our. I wondered if there was enough of it to speak like that.

And right then I swear every particle of space that surrounded us became injected with this contagious light that you created. I could hear the hum of a million old lights that had been waiting to be turned on. I could hear their cheers. Gleeful buzzing. 

You were here. I was here. I couldn't explain it, but my god I didn't care. How does this happen?  You laughed. Oh that sound. In harmony with the lights. All of them. Yours, theirs, mine, ours. It created a symphony of understanding, and bliss. I turned. The lights were still on. The darkness hadn't fallen.

You were here. It was all that mattered. I turned my back on the off switch and looked to you.

You smiled.

A light came on.

.K SG C.

In the name of what is good.

In the name of what is good,

Let me write this space

About what it feels to write of good

From a less darker place.

In the name of what is good 

Let me be reminded 

That there is so much potential

In the parts that are still lighted 

In the name of what is good

Let me not forget

Despair may make for pretty words,

But there's more to it than that.

In the name of what is good

Do your best to remember 

That there is so much good to tap into 

When you're on a downward bender

In the name of what is bad

Don't choose to stay long

There's nothing worse than being 

A regular of what is wrong

In the name of what is good

My god make it matter

In the name of what is good

Choose to write from better.

Do not let darkness become your default

Or misery be the same

In the name of all things good

Don't forget good's name.

.K SG C. 

 

Phoenix.

For the times when I search out reasons why, instead of solutions to change the what. In times of fear, diapair, loss

of hope. Search out yourself. You are far stronger than you know, and hold more capability than any outside source can provide. Seek out refuge in yourself, even when you're broken.

The glass hit the floor

Although it did not matter

The window lay there broken

But it was our hearts that shattered

And the hole that now held place 

Gaping, bold and harsh

Did no justice in the least

For the holes is each of us

Loudness filled the empty

The water quickly rose

So we turned away and jumped ship 

In search of different coasts

I remember when light approached

My memory recalls it blurred

But I could make out the silhouette 

Of a larger bird

A Phoenix I concluded

A sure sign of rebirth 

But being in its precense

Felt like going backwards 

It felt hot to the touch

It stung just like my eyes

The pain was not alleviated  

It's tears mimicked my cries 

The sting proceeded to spread 

And furious I became

How did I get here?

At the mercy of feathered flame?

The light shut off suddenly

And I willed the bird away

It's abcense didn't bring relief

To the burn now engraved

So I looked out in the distance

Contemplating with revere

I hadn't the words to describe

What had transpired here

So I sought out comfort

A safety guarentee

I layed amongst the dark

And went chasing after sleep

The Phoenix couldn't fix it

A job too large it was 

For any living entity

To fix the damage done

But it lead us to a place 

That we never needed more

It provided us with closed eyes

More importantly closed doors

And slumber did bring comfort

Sudden clarity

I may not know how to fix it

But in mending I did see

I no longer worried about the mess

From the pieces broke apart

I knew we'd all heal in time 

From our shattered hearts

No pheonix will fix it all

The coast, nor light will do

When it comes to picking yourself up

Search for strength in you 

And it may not always feel easy 

Bur here is what the key is-

You must hold on to what whole feels like

When your heart lies there in pieces.

.K SG C.