I Hold My Brother On My Lap,

Joy Sullivan, from “These Days People Are Really Selling Me On California”, Instructions for Traveling West

Blacklit Sky

Iam ridiculously jealous at the moments

you give to her instead of me

and that

your hand will never reach mine

except through

my mind

my shadow and yours

collide

not by chance

but by some forgotten vow

etched in stardust

and sealed in sleep

our eyes look up the same sky

over and over again

untill the orbs meet

for the first time

as if the heavens are tired

of holding our longing

my velvet fire embers

and your hues of ocean

dancing across the sky

that never noticed

between the void

and the constellations

above the world

entwined

for a lifetime

I miss you every day. But today, it feels like everything I do is just here to remind me I am living without you.

I want to lose myself in your love

make you my home again.

But your happiness doesn't belong to me

it is she that makes you bleed

and I watch without being seen.

We scroll past

starving children

to buy shoes we don’t need

and call it life.

Babies are born

with lungs full of poison,

their bodies warped

by toxins we dumped for profit.

Mothers wrap sons

in flags

like it softens

the sound of a coffin closing.

We skin the earth

for gold and oil

and hang it on our necks

while forests burn

and oceans bleed.

We worship Gods

but not Their creation.

Pray louder

than we love.

Animals scream in silence.

Children rot in camps.

Water is sold.

Air is dying.

Truth is filtered.

Kindness forgotten.

We kill over dirt

though we are made of stars.

We hoard

while others die thirsty.

This is not a world,

it is a graveyard

we are still digging

with our eyes wide open.

-Cyrus K.

“I wish I could say everything in one word. I hate all the things that can happen between the beginning of a sentence and the end.”

— Unknown

She believes she knows my ache,

she thinks she understands my sorrow,

because once, she too was broken.

My pain is

a slow implosion,

a daily funeral

with no mourners,

a storm I must swallow

so she may walk beneath clear skies.

She remains with another,

while I cradle her chaos in the dark,

I try hold her world steady,

bleeding in silence,

so she never sees the stain.

Quietly tearing at the seams

just to keep her whole.

I laugh when I want to scream.

I smile so she can cry.

I disappear so she can shine.

And each day,

I wake inside a coffin

just to hold her hand.

This doesn't feel like love.

This is a man burning

so she may feel warm,

and never knowing

that the smoke

is me.

-Cyrus K.

“It’s amazing how much damage can be done when you have nothing but good intentions.”

— Tom Marin