The steady rise and fall of the chest

I used to spend time dreaming
I used to feel at home
Now the world is crumbling
and the ceiling tiles groan
The resevoirs break
rushing water from broken bones
beneath the wood begin to shake
along the fissured stone

My breath manifested ghosts
Eyes hinted of broken glass
They longed to be part of the coast
Instead of rusted brass

I don't know why my eyes won't close
or why my mouth won't unlock
They must be angry I suppose
At all the thoughts I've fought

I need the static to rest
the steady rise and fall of the chest

I realize that I am not normal.
I love the sound of wind caressing the trees
just before it settles upon my skin
It's like a game of telephone nature only plays with me.
I imagine paintings that stare back from their frames-
Sculptures that get down from their pedestal and pose me in awkward positions as mannequins pass by and laugh.
I wonder sometimes as I sketch, if I am merely someone else's work of art that jumps off the page and alters them.
The painting that stares back.
The voice that you remember when a song stops-
how yours is to me.

I sometimes wonder where I will be buried
and whose voice will guide my echoic memory into a visual encoding of the celestial heavens
I wonder if what I'm doing will flash before someone else's eyes in their last moments
and if enough people have such eyelid camera lenses
that someday the snoring beast that are the people will wake to find that swing sets were always more of a home than classroom chairs, and sometimes, at least in my case, more than the seat at the dinner table.

It's like when you lose a year
to a manifested homeostasis
That maybe hell and purgatory are the only things humans can obtain by their own hands and well-wishing
That Heaven is a rare gift that is obtainable only in a reflection of another's eyes
When you see what a lover sees when they look at you
and shows you the infinite beauty of human fragility

What if all the images your eyes had held
flooded out as you passed away
and all the noises you had ever taken in
spilled down your neck in those last few seconds
I hope my parents would be proud of them,
that they'd say
"I had no idea she had been exposed to so much beauty. If only we had listened sooner."

I wonder what makes the sun come up
I imagine it's in love with the moon.
Or, like they say, the sun is made of diamonds
and the man on the moon is a greedy theif waiting for the day he finally catches the treasure.

My shoulders hurt

Sometimes I get aches in my neck.
I'm told it's because of stress.
I believe, however, that my ancestors used to have wings-
That they once lived in complete aviary freedom until settlers brought airlines and motorized vehicles, rendering their inborn traits inethical.
A few began walking amongst the wingless, being given stares only convicts would understand, like they were guilty of foreign crimes the people couldn't fathom. A desire arose in their chest that spread to their heart, and then their bodies, until one day a man awoke from a nightmare, no longer graced with the ability of flight; He had ripped off his wings in the midst of the night. The curse spread to the young woman he used to go to school with down the street, who passed it to her father, who passed it to the baker, all of whom slowly and painfully dreamed their feathers away.
The man had created a landlocked disease.
I believe this is the reason my shoulders hurt when I feel lonely.
That those same glances of the judgemental and close-minded haunt me to the point my body revolts and attempts to regrow what once allowed me to see the sun first.