Integration Into New Themes: poetry

The Emperor

Infrequently but abundantly enough

In forests too meager to hold just their flora

A butterfly is netted

Thin strips of cotton dividing the nectarous flowers from the ravenous insect

Allowed to see only by the clawing grips

The overseeing emperor leering behind a winged monarch

Gaze at the labyrinth of webs intertangling against nets that hold the captor

As wings fall, defeated

Adrenaline spills out as vengeful blood, from not the dead but the

Monarch

Wings will not rebirth

Yet the rotting carcass, cast aside

Spits remains of pride

The faintest hint of bloom

Roses caressing a spine — you were forced to bend so we shall grow

A tombstone is incomplete without a name

So, make one

Rather than an emperor, at last the Monarch speaks

And alongside decades of ghostly screams

Deny a decaying mold

Embrace a new form

Create your collage of broken bones

Hold it up, it’s your golden crested glass wall

Break through the kaleidoscopic decor — barricades merely illusional

The soil, sun, rainfall and skies

Await

Freedom beyond isolation

The future and present in perfect harmonization.

This Place

Fingers graze across the worn out leather;

All I could do was wonder who but me had sat here so.

Brown eyes gaze at lights strung eave to eave,

All I could do was wonder who but me had lit your soul.

The smell of perfume talks so loud here now;

I remember when we left the windows open and that was all.

The color of white bleeds so strongly now,;

I remember when we left alone the dark marks on the wall.

Fingers graze across the cold empty bed;

All I could do was wonder who but me should fill this spot.

Brown eyes gaze at rain upon the window;

All I could do was wonder who but me should cry for you.

The smell of roses feels so faint now;

I remember our window sills: there were flowers line by line.

The color of light shines so overwhelmingly now;

I remember when we’d only light candles and open the blinds.

It’s this place I foolishly called home;

Now I see it once again, all alone.

It’s this place I foolishly fell for;

Now I leave, heart strung no more.

🕊🕊🕊 The first piece was written by Nat, and the second piece was written by Anya!