Out of time.

Out of habit.
Out of time and mind, I wander
Loose and bright stars
Like bullet holes
Like shining arrow-marks, they drip
Their hot silver on my eyelids.
I carry my baggage forth,
Onion paper peeling down my sides
Peer again, unbelieving through the bottom of another glass-
The answers still aren't there.
But the whispers are.
Some cold metal taps a quiet heartbeat on the door.
I scoop an errant constellation of dimes from the bottom of my purse and curse them right back.
Fuck you, winter.
Not this time.

Light. House.

Wake up.
Wake up, it said.
I can't do this anymore, every fiber
Every living breathing cell screamed back
They just hurt so much.  I can't bear it.
It...
Isn't yours to bear.  You are simply to stand witness,
Hold a safe space
A sweet and sacred space for Work to be done
For miracles of joy and sorrow and dreams to be wrought.
You are not to carry their burdens,
You are to Keep at the Gate between life and death -
It's a narrower gap than anyone should know
You are to feel, you are to think freely
But you are not to walk their path with them.
You are not to breathe their air, or take their pain or their elation
Like a thief.
You have been given a gift, a front-row seat into a secret, private ritual
Do not disrupt it, no matter how strange, how terrible, how powerful.
You are a shepherd, a lamp-bearer in a storm of fear and pain and chaos.
It's easy to get swept away sometimes
But remember your place there at the threshold.
You belong there, precious one.
You belong.

Down, down.

Down, down baby.
Down by the rollercoaster
Sweet, sweet baby
I'm gonna roll it over
Do it over
Play it over and over
Been over this before
Under, down and out
Just enough net left to keep me from
Sinking.
Tripped and fell and hit my
Hard head.
Broken open, glitter crystals born
Out.
In and out, put my
Little house of cards back together again.
Paint my cracks with plaster,
Hope that this time it holds.
Not perfect, not even
But I shine like the stars when I
Shimmy shimmy cocoa puff
Shimmy shake earthquake
I just want to do it right.
I just want to keep clean.