// as if it was written for //
— W.H. Auden
Storyteller-
I feel it as a dark wave of sun setting,
rising out of my mouth alight, burning
down everything but now as I lock the door.
You follow me onto the tile floor. Down, somewhere
cold my voice is breaking. The great swell
of fear rises through my throat, drowning
the flood of everything rushing over.
Will you tell me a story?
I want to reach for your hand, to cry
anywhere but the black ocean beneath me.
My blood roars in my ears. Dread rolls over my back.
You smile like flowers, speak to me softly
of a market in Indonesia. The morning walk
through streets and stalls of calling women,
a crackling music of crowds in motion.
The quiet of that room, and you
sitting by the tub, telling me gently
of a place you remembered like some sweet fruit.
The thread of your voice holds me there.
I am buried in feeling, torn ragged
by the panicked crash of my self washing out,
wading white-knuckled. The spring rain of your hand
settles over mine. Even suffocating I am safe.
Darling of dahlias, pomegranate-mouth
and mirth, I saw the deep garden
of your heart through a dead wood.
A field of frail and flowering things
stretching lightly for the sun.
Years ago, untouched by time,
it is in my flesh now, too.
No god or winter can take it from me.
My cover of Too Sweet by the Irish Fae Man himself.
I found a vinyl compressor plugin and had to try it out.
You can find my other songs HERE
Connections //
My favorite piece of When Somebody Loved Me. It’s been a while since I recorded a song, so here’s the first one for the year.
. Her pale eyes fixed upon him, and in that moment he remembered the cold, quiet fear of his Keepers as they listened in the dark air to the distant heartbeat of their enemies marching closer. He knew again the frost in his breath, and the sword gripped in his shaking hand. The faces of his brothers. The quiet nods. The ripples of impossible, nervous laughter. Felt the prickle of a hundred eyes, and the calm in his passing. The Truth of their will and their strength given steel.
The First Law of Light. Fear is the bite of a cornered beast. The great bonfires of their encampment flickered in their gaze. And bite is all it will be allowed to.They had not forgotten the Way and the Words. Death could only take the defeated.
The sun broke over the fields like wildfire. The horns began to sound, and as one they clasped shoulders and turned to one another. They held eyes and spoke their Oath.
For you, I shut the door to Death behind me.
For you, no Death shall come while I am shield.
Chase the summer-fed sun down the sky,
I will run wild rivers in your wake.
Jump the old iron fence and run-out-blue
the heat, the dim, the brilliant buzz
of cicadas through the dry grass.
Burned-in like a razed field,
the bright edges of your form
lit in charred and cherrying wood.
The thunder of your grin as the sky cracks open,
and the rush of rain in the road. Running
the stormy shadow of your shoulders
in the faded yellows of porchlight.
The night sputters when it hits my blood.
The stars burn, and never has the wild roar
of living known me nearer.
-Taylor Sea, Summermind
-The New York Times ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️