Fields of gold sway like waves of the ocean.
Gentle chimes echo through the air,
Their dancing melodies swing with the wind.
A unison of wonder from the heavens.
Surface level beauty apparent to common eyes,
But underneath are my memories.
Below the golden breeze,
A piece of me remains cold and still...
Placed there as a result of my own negligence.
I caused us all so much grief
And the guilt consumes me still.
I left this place,
But you...stayed.
The further from you I get,
The more your face is clouded.
I can't see you,
And I can't hear your name.
I don't want to forget.
I don't want you to disappear.
I need to return.
I need to see you again.

Coin of pure gold
In green oceans,
Or a setting sun
Sinking into
Open hands?
Tucked away there -
Where I’ve hid all my treasures.
One hidden note
In the loose earth
with a map to the things that I’ve found...
Drawn by hand.
Tied together
With cloth torn from her apron

O, crack in a mirror!
A penumbra blinding!
Pulled back to what was!
And Weakness in clouded eyes!

Torn from
The dirt.
The willow tree
I once knew.

Brother!
Sister!
Mother!
Father!

Nights are getting longer now.
In time I’ll be too old.

Now, nothing is familiar!
The shadow is blinding!
This face, and these hands -
Dead trees and dead soil.

I pulled the golden cornsilk from my hair.
Hand made curtains drew me home.
I am a silvered shadow of old air.
Where I lived now overgrown.

Torn from
The dirt.
The man that I was.

Faded thought!
Lost my name
To your ghost!

I pulled the golden cornsilk from my hair.
Hand made curtains drew me home.
I am a silvered shadow of old air,
Where I lived now overgrown.

There, a small chair in the dust
On its side with splintered legs.
Cracks in a mirror
Across from old portraits.
There, a table that I carved into.
Secret note below laid to bare.
I believed what was written -
“I am invisible”

“Light the candle in the middle of the room.
Burn your bridges to a past that has been lost”

The shadows in the room have grown taller.
I’ve been here too long.
Blinded by greed for a past I don’t own -
Crater in the carpet
Where I once dropped the match.
I speak to shadows.
My shadow….
Myself …...
Longing for this room
To be crowded again.
How can I feel what is gone?

Can I be replaced with love?
Kiss away my wooden bones.

I am a pilgrim,
And Oh, I am lost.
The past that I loved
Has been molded and mossed.
A ghost in the window
A ghost on the lawn.
And Oh, how I miss it,
When certainty won.

Arms of the earth lay bare on the ground!
Through broken windows, the cicadas sound!

Light the candle in the middle of the room!
Burn your Bridges to a past that has been lost!
On a bed made out of broken matchsticks and moss….
Light the candle in the middle of the room!

[Instrumental]

O, Lavender Calligraphy,
You who exist behind every letter!
A faint voice, if I listen…
What was your name again?

Here’s the flower I picked,
“I’m sorry”
That I pressed in the pages before.
“O, god, those weren’t the things that I meant”
Filled with prayers that she made,
“Resentment”
That I locked away deep in the drawer.
“It was you who said that I’d be dead”

Oh she made her mistakes!
Silhouette of a phantom I know.

“Son, you know that you’re going to hell”
Distant voice of a girl who once ran from her father.
Looking back now I know, it was fear.
Loss again -
An explosion
A match.
I live on that day.
I live in that room.
Folding quilts and avoiding her eyes
Dead regret!
Chitin shell underground.

Inside the dresser
That was there far before I could stand,
Your molded letter
Folded there in a drawer left unsent.
“I love you forever,
I like you for always
For as long as you’re with me.”
What was your name again?

I am transformed.
A shapeless artifact of myself long gone.
There are fragments in my mind of who I once was,
But the memories are obscured by regrets...
by apologies I'll never have the chance to make.

My eyes no longer see them...
faces and shadows of those who have gone from my view.
The weight of all I have seen blurs my vision.

These eyes are not my own.
I don't see myself in the mirror.
I do not recognize this image.
Past or present.

These eyes can’t be my own.
I can't see myself in the mirror.
I cannot recognize this image.
Past or present.

At the back of the house by the compost
Is the plot where my brother lies dead.
“He got lost”
That's what I told them,
And I'm mocked by the stone on his head.

How could I have known it would be like this?
It was a mistake!

Moss on the carving
Covers your name.
Return to the dirt….
My memories….
Fading…..
And I am to blame.

I left you in the dirt that day.
How can I stand by your bed?

I am a fragment of stone that was broken.
Oh, your mind..
Still alive in the trees.
Washed away,
My mind is distilled
into the purest form of grief.
Show me your face, my brother forgotten.
Let me go.
Let me recall.
Six feet below…
five decades away.
You are gone but somehow I stay.

Place upon me your blanket of soil.

Dead branches above,
A chasm beneath me.
My regret fades to thoughts I can’t place

My mind aches to join you.
If only that I could forget.

In the cellar
Underneath the stairs...
Sips of wine stole
When I was young -
Candlelight ghost stories.

Every time that I climbed the stairs -
Sun pouring on flour like fireflies…
Dust-settling room!
Dust set upon my eyes!

I never knew the pain in your hands.
I took for granted the days that I saw you.

What does it mean to be standing here...
To breathe in your ghosts again….
I can’t release this

Come away with me
I know…
I know...
All the hours that
I have spent alone.
Come away with me
I know…
I know…
I am bound by my past.
I should have known!

“I’ll make things right”

Misted face in the mirror, I'll become your host.
Growing shade of a past I can no longer know.

What does it mean to lose my own name
To thoughts that have left me alone?
I can’t release this!

I'll stay awake until I am dead!
A shadowsong of memories bled.
A cracking floor,
My old creaking bones.
I’ve lost my life to things I don’t own.

This is all I knew...I ran.
Dead men don’t come home...I’ll rest.

Say you’re ashamed again!
Spit the words out!
This hatred I cannot place
Tears at my throat!
Stone in his hand
As he sobbed on the dirt.
Broken glass memories
Spread on the ground.

I stood upon the porch
that you brought into being with your hands.
Evident memories….
I will not stand for this.
Slave to anger,
Just a shell of a man!
Eat your words, you dying coward!
I don’t deserve this! Let me come home!

Let me come home!

Give me back my mind!
Spare from this!

Oh, tell my father his bastard son
Has come unto the place of his birth
To take his claim!

Shattered glass in the light!
Apparition of thought in my mind!
Clarity caught in my throat!
Oh, It hurts to know!

O, curse of my eyes -
To see what is gone.

O, curse of the hands -
Never come back!
To cling to the past.

Let me come home!

For a shadow to be cast,
There a man must stand.
But on the pulled up floors
Of my childhood
Below me -
A sunbleached love of the past!

Shades pulled from the bones of my old home.
Torn from the flesh of me!

I never owned this.
Plaster and frame be damned!

Curtain, Candle, and Letter.

Take me home,
Flame on the floor.
Tell them that I’m home,
Light on the door.
Dancing shadows of me.
Take me home,
Fire.

Roof, open wide.
Eyes to the stars…
The sky.
Attic, come down.
Rest on the ground...
Alight.

My empty hand
An eclipse.

No need to wake again.
I’ll never leave.

Swallow each thought I am!
Oubliette, forget me
Down in the cellar.
Dirge sung in embers
To the cracking of dry bones.
Rise from these ashen walls!
Our censer!

Washed out with the flame.

I will be found in the morning,
And no one will know who I am.

Mind, rise with the smoke!
I’m asking for forgiveness!
I’m being selfish again...
But what else do I know?
As a curling silhouette
I can finally let go.
I can finally let go.

I have made my return
To the place of my earliest memory.
The consequences of my absence are clear.
This place I once called home has gone from me.
Were it not for my existence,
And the remnants of my frail memory,
This tired world of mine would be lost.
Though...
Everything is different.
The animals don't come here anymore.
The ground has moved,
And the arms of the earth have fallen.
The windows peering through the overgrowth
Seem to face a different direction now.
Even the cicadas sound different.
I cannot fathom how,
But everything has changed.

This is not my home.