on corpses and safety pins

be important, i beseech you.

wield safety pins and broken hats.

be that which cannot be defined,

and wander home to thunderclaps.

—light the way for me,

oh blooming rose and corpse softly lit.

come home, it says.

come home,

come home.

be scattered letters wrought by shaking hands,

and scattered grains wrought by shaking sands.

be far away and none at all.

and fine!

be fine!

be fine!

profess that shade doth fall on wilted leaves,

that boots of worn and weary nature trod along the ashes.

confess endless crimes uncommitted into the dead of night,

to corpses,

yes corpses,

again

and again

and again.

come home.

—light the way—

live softly underneath the pregnant bellies of the clouds,

birthing second chances.

and rain,

oh glorious rain.

awash with sin-soaked fearful unbecomings,

transformations that are now yet unimagined,

but hoped for

all the same.

wide awake with dreams of betterment,

bear witness to frayed edges without shame, scrubbed raw and aching.

forgive not what was done at night,

for you, to you, in your name,

what happens when you're sleeping.

—light the way for me,

oh niceties left roadside and dampness seeping.

come home.

while it rains,

and rains,

and rains.

be unbearably erring beneath unbreathable air.

yield not to horrors, but to lovers undercover.

be wide of eye with gaping caverns,

guided eye with draping patterns.

and good!

be good!

be good!

attest that the only body unliving

is the littered,

gasless,

shapeless thing,

born of sad animals' sad children.

hear the caw of raven's truth,

to corpses,

always corpses,

blooming radiance unknown.

the ways to open the door are myriad,

i assure you.

mountainous.

impose.

impose.

impose!

—light the way—

be insane, i do implore you.

wild, electric, ungovernable,

resplendent waste of space worth sharing.

writing on walls of stone,

of brick,

of gods' disturbed green earth.

the dirt under your fingernails does indeed taste of freedom.

lies taste of freedom, too.

dead thing draped in living wounds,

rended from eternal peace, or the closest thing thereto,

slumbering in far off tombs, the day-shine drawing ever nearer.

—light the way for me,

oh luminous, violent epiphany.

with face pressed firmly in the overgrowth

and space left firmly in the forwardmost

underbrush

cheeks-stained blush, be wise to all that's left behind

wise enough to be grateful for its absence

rot amongst the roots that get stepped on,

tripped on,

staked, and bothered.

swear your father never knew the good old days,

old boys' old ways.

and alive!

be alive!

be alive!

lament the loss of that which haunts,

silky ghosts amidst the firmament do howl

a heavy-hearted tune,

and cry, do they cry,

do they cry.

with faces forgotten and facets forsaken,

and wails with hallowed voices—

"come home, come home, come home."

—light the way for me,

oh hollow nighttime undying defender.

with wilderness so wonderful between the breathless deaths of winter,

away without quarrels over basic arithmetic.

know that one plus another strikes fire lakeside

and sets tides rolling over limbs of forgotten horrors,

daughters of exorbitant mothers.

understanding is flawed,

as are law and reason.

be grateful not to know the answers to questions asked

uneven.

be grief-full and sorrowfully sorry tomorrow.

be righteously starving and sleepless today.

be yesterday's dream of unending tomorrow,

the kind with old hats left outside in the dew.

stand forget-less and faithful at the altar of broken branches

as they crunch beneath the heels of time

misspent in disasters long past.

spaces lay empty,

lie plenty,

let it hurt.

come home.

be safe of sound with bones of feeling,

safe around those bones of healing.

bones you gave,

and gave,

and gave.

oh, walking never harmed another.

the journey alone may unwind,

unwound.

fear not the way the sky downturns,

the vision blurs, the madman learns.

be graceless, reckless,

nothing but a whelp,

carrying only a shovel and broad shoulders.

be sorry not to be drowned.

and found!

be found!

be found!

utter gentle admonitions.

premonitions so profound, the gone-forgotten they do wake.

and for my own sake,

and my nonexistent children's children's,

be open

and loss-full

and empty

and red

—light the way for me.

it's important, so important.

7/21/26 4:22pm