Author: Hannah Stokes

You started out a solemn soul
Eyes of sterling and wings of gold
Hollow bones filled with hope
Help to take you where you want to go

So you packed up all your things and went
But weight accompanies time well spent
The hollow spaces you once knew
Became heavy as you grew and grew

A burden it is to travel light
Not on the body, but on the mind 
Let it down every once in a while
Come back home after mile after mile

Fill your books with 
Pressed plants and poetry
Empty your heart of the things that you’ve seen 

But don’t let me keep you
I know you have soaring to do
Just please don’t let go of me
Through all of the things that you see
I always knew you would leave
Right now I’m just trying to find peace
Just promise you will stay true
But do not let me keep you

Just promise you will return 
And tell of all the things you’ve learned 
But don’t let me keep you
I don’t know what I’ll do

The chilling of the breeze on a holiday
Sanctuary comes as a labor of love
Taking in a breath, I feel a mile away
But as the moments come you are always enough

The comfort of a friend when I’m feeling grey
Happiness will come through the labors of love
Leisure feels like waste when there’s so much at stake
The feeling tells me lies of what I’m capable of

But healing comes
In the shape of how we’re loved
And healing comes
By way of how we love

Since the fever of my youth and in my searching for
I have been enticed by the feeling of love
A whisper, then a scream, I hear my heart call out
Begging for sign, a word, from someone above

The poisons of my pride ask me to run and hide
Shadows start to play when I step out of love
Be tender, draw me near, something hurts inside
I’m trying not to fear the idea of love

But healing comes
In the shape of how we’re loved
And healing comes
By way of how we let ourselves love

The way the moon the sings when dusk turns into evening
The way the tide moves when it will rise and fall to meet me
The way that blue looks, the way we try to pin it down
The way the stars seem to always turn us inside out

And I wonder how any of these things
Led up to me

The way the sky bleeds when water becomes too much to bear
The way that night seems to always touch us where we scar
The way mountains kneel at the oceans feet
The way that I know without a doubt that you love me

And I wonder how any of these things
Led up to me
I wonder how any of these things
Could be
And I wonder how among all of these things
I am me