Title(s): "Shells Cut Our Feet", "Sanguine Fields", "Gilts the Sand, but Rots the Fields", "Once was Gold, Now is Black", "Denounce"

Summary: Collection of poetry on Gael Torres

Rating: PG-13 for violence and angst

Spoilers/Timeline: End of first book

Characters: Gael, Mel, Adrien, Alan, Geoff

Note: Major Spoilers, obviously

Shells cut our feet

We stood on sandy shores

but shells cut our feet

and we're

lying in the surf, but

all we can do is bleed.

And the

waves that crashed against my legs

can't wash away guilt or grief

and the salt burns our eyes

It's gettin' hard to see

Well it's hard to see past

a veil over a false heaven

and it's

a rather frightening thing

'cause Hades is laughing at Poseidon

Sanguine Fields

Blood floods the crotch of our old oak

The traitor that pinned you,

while they beat you--

How can we forgive her now?

Fields that once sheltered

Us five from the swelter

of blistering summer

and their hate--

Reeking with murder

The wheat's turned sanguine

Your life soaked the ground there

So we'll not tread there

In those fields that betrayed us all.

Once upon a time it was our paradise

Take a look now at what we held so dear

Childhood footsteps long washed away with tears.

Rotten stalks lay cracked in half

Heather grows no more.

On the broken fence, a blood-soaked sign that laughs:

"Welcome to Hell...population: four"

Gilts the Sand, but Rots the Fields

A bleary moon spreads over

Over our home-- at least we thought it was

Our home---- a place that kept us

Safe, safe in love, safe in hope

Nothing could touch you

Not even the hate of the world

Wish we had seen what the moon saw coming

Maybe we’d have found…known about

That scheme

The eclipse coming

To block sweet sunlight out

But we didn’t see that moon

Our’s was gleaming as we stood on sand

How could we have known, back home,

Death was curling a tight hand

Around our field, our world of make-believe

Tight and tighter until, choking,

Our gentle dragonfly hopelessly beat his wings

I thought I heard him cry out, saw where they beat and tied him

our oak smeared with red

for who he was, they crucified him

Not even who,

But “what” he was

And for that, our dragonfly lays dead and broken

Moonlight used to smile at us

Before our field was stained with red, and

That moonlight smirks at us now

Because our sunlight’s gone to heaven

Once was Gold, Now is Black (Published)

Once we painted Autumn gold

Like the leaves that gilt the trees

Blinded with hope, numbed with light— us five children in the leaves.

You were called a sinner

Though more than those who branded you, your soul was clean.

We knew they didn’t love you, but didn’t know what their hate would mean.

We played in those fields when we were young

Played Camelot and knights in shining armor

Flying down The Yellow Brick Road to Pepperland, which naturally was right around the corner.

There is where they tortured you and beat you— kidnapped you and tied you.

For “what”, not even who you were, they crucified you.

The earth that once cradled you in her arms, holds you, her dear child, safely in her heart.

So sleep now, sweet Sunshine, knowing you’re at peace will help us start

To dull this resonating crash of breaking timbre (We know God must have heard)

So sleep now, darling, and know we loved you just the way you were.

Every year when autumn comes, the flowers start to wilt,

Heralding the winter, augmenting to our guilt.

The bitter colors come now, blinding crimson and soft brown

These colors stain the leaves as your flesh and blood stained the ground.

Incomplete now, we don’t know where we’re headin’.

We paint November black now… …because our Sunshine’s gone to heaven.

Denounce

Go on, throw stones

Throw blows

Crack the crayons you don’t like and throw them out

Leer in your wolfish way,

Covering for yourself,

Do you think we care?

What you call denouncing

We call truth-saying

The best part of not being ashamed of who you are

Is that no one can make you feel ashamed.

No one can denounce those who already admit the truth.