stars (calling lost angels)
1.3.07

-

tell them to look up.
tell them to remember the stars.
- to write love on her arms

-

i.

every night
since the cross fell from my neck
and i followed its downward spiral
into the agony of innocence stripped away
where rosaries are always stained with blood
and pulsating heartbeats of pain against emptiness
(without God) always crucify faith against the
whispered (twice screamed – once followed) midnight
appeal of suicide (without hope). -

during every broken night
when my little-girl image with lifeless eyes
tore apart skin to feel the blood drain from her
dying soul – as whitepaper flesh was cut open
and scars were written, screaming aloud into
tearstained prayers burning when midnight came
and open gaping wounds cried out for healing
when heaven was closer than little-girl ever would
have dared to imagine (inside her twisted nightmares)
and only hell felt real (against the numbness bled dry
when she couldn't feel herself breaking open into torment
far past what raw contorted skin-screams could forget) -

the stars held meaning
even when i was dying,
when my eyes saw only the blood on the mirror
distorting the value of the shattered image in the glass -
when i tasted only what hell felt like on earth
only keeping the blade away from the heart given away
(in bloodstained self-sacrifice -) because i was convinced
that when i no longer felt the trembling waves of pain
shooting needles through the infections in my skin
reminding me that my heart still vomited the precious bloodflow
i only appreciated when it broke through – and (i) became real -
i would open bleeding eyes and feel a burning
even beyond what tore my wounds apart until only death
became the escape – sought and almost found so late after
i lost myself only because of the fear (of hell -)

i saw no hope inside their untainted shine,
crippled beneath the weight of my own filth -
i recognized no symbolism inside their light
breaking through the blackness of midnight
(as the tears dried on my face and the blood
stained raw areas of skin ripped open once more)
but even through my blindness to the truth
that cried every time i reached closer for the vein
convinced in growing brokenness each time
that redemption was futile and could never wash
away three years of blackened s(k)in from the
flames threatening to swallow me whole
like the feeling that pierced my heart – gone -
(like the nails that pierced His hands -
reaching out in desperation through midnight
darkness, but) i still dreamed of self-abortion,

even through the stains of blood that sewed my eyes shut
with ribbons of pain dripping lies that i swallowed as my
definitive reality, (suicide as salvation – bleeding as my only
source of comfort) i could see and appreciate their beauty,
for the few precious moments that i thought not of myself
but of how the stars broke through the blackest midnight
and sent whispers reflecting through the dark
that i interpreted as my aching soul's desperate wishes
for my fate to become what i had once wished for,
and would never feel now that little-girl had died
and something stained and broken had bled into the
empty space where innocence once fed me hope.

&
it was only after
death close enough for me to reach out to touch
and scar and burn – as i fall forever -
trapped me bleeding beyond desperation
inside the coldest broken nights i had ever felt
that i reached with scarred and shaking hands,
trusting for the first time, for their light
to provide healing as my sobs echoed pure despair
against the silent flourescent hallway -
when i took my first step of faith
and began to search for the stars
through the hospital window -
beginning to believe that they were there
despite the patterned shatterproof glass
protecting those who had never wished for death,
taken a fall of bleeding desperation over the edge
and reached for it (but i survived)
from the truth that screamed inside our empty eyes
as we bled against white to make our sickness tangible,
my tears always silent as laura screamed – and screamed -
and i finally allowed myself to wish that there was light
like the stars i couldn't see when there was nothing inside myself
(except for pain -) that meant hope could still shine down for me,
and that not all innocence had been raped by the cruel reality
of avoiding death by the space of a few breaths -
that in a place i wouldn't completely feel until the night He
brought me back to life (and back to Himself)
where little-girl was waiting, still wishing, the rosary
still faithfully in her hand – where i could live,
in faith that still seemed inconceivable, with little-girl
still believing, somewhere not forever lost, but deep inside.

-

a/n: i wish you could see how the sky looks tonight. it's absolutely gorgeous. it's comforting.