Poetry

Murals

I spent tonight staring at the blades on the ceiling fan and the second hand on the clock, staring at the wall and wondering if it would ever collapse such like the ones around my heart since you've arrived and time doesn't appear to be moving. The air is at a standstill and my lungs are hard at work to make sure it stays that way. Summer nights spent dreaming, days spent lying awake believing the sunset wasn't far away and neither was another day - but then, neither is heaven's ceiling nor the falling fortress that keeps this precious heart beating to the rhythm of the silent blades of the fan.

1:30 A.M. 

Forgotten pencils left in cold dark alleys; moon whispers sweet nothings in clouds' ears; I walked barefoot through broken glass shards that as a whole probably formed some resemblance to a heart; guitar riffs that didn't keep the audience interested; his vocals need work, you said; holding hands while swaying to music play lists in our heads and again while falling asleep; I never was the type for commitment, always breaking promises and, consequently, hearts; old friends don't recognize me, just another face in a pathetic crowd of voices; there were no stars tonight; rock formations looked like roller coasters, of which I'm afraid; car stereo is broken but we're deaf anyway; there are lilies in full bloom on the kitchen counter, a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich and raw cookie dough in the fridge; walking man looks like he's running from the ghosts of the old souls who lived in the hotel; I want to be held but not touched; can't have you and it kills me; we're scrubbing black X's off our hands like they're memories we can't bear to hold onto; but I picked up one of those pencils and ran. 

Walls Like Cages

All I need right now is a gas pedal and a destination. Nothing more, nothing less. I need an escape, somewhere so far from this place that come morning I won't remember where I am nor where I've been. I don't know where I'm going, but I know it can't be here. Where ever I go, I'll follow the light of the moon and the sun that's already set behind the mountains, find the north star and let it be my guide to where ever it is that my heart doesn't wish to reside and rescue it from the torture it's endured; and then I'll drive as far south as I can, passing street signs and city lights and highway exits and perhaps I'll even attempt a rediscovery of my own homeland and call it Foreverville, where the child within me never stands still and there's nothing wrong with slowing down. I'll take this town and redefine it as home, or maybe home-away-from-home, follow dust bowls and patterns and grassy slopes where cattle roam, drive along the front range until I don't know what time it is with no intention of going back alone. And through it all, I hope to come across a little sliver of hope found in the crescent of the moon, the kind of hope I can't find just before or after noon. 

I won't listen to the clocks that tick in the gaps between the hills and valleys of my mind, I'll become oblivious to the thing society calls time and just let go, free fall into whatever abyss decides to be my makeshift safety net only for tonight; but I don't even need a net to catch me, for I will land on my feet, foot to the gas pedal, destination unknown. Nothing more, nothing less. Just an escape.

Seeking What Is Yours to Find

Bury yourself within me,

for I carry your heart in mine

and sometimes letting go

doesn't have to mean moving on

so in the makeshift graveyard

carving itself a place to rest

go, and bury yourself within me,

for I carry your heart in mine. 

Daddy Long Legs

Backyard porch swing. Sunshine, birds sing, wings overhead come to carry you home. Rocking to and fro, I wish you'd take me with you when you go and we could start all over with new adventures. At the sound of your voice shivers crawl down my spine, tingles, the sound of wind chimes, not a cloud in the sky. Time flies at the speed of light, there's no chance you can stay just one more night by my side. Sigh. I don't want to believe in goodbyes. 

Daddy Long Legs crawls, Daddy Long Arms won't you please wrap me in your shawl, keep me safe, won't you dance with me in the rain? Nothing's permanent but I'd like to make this moment turn into forever. This old house creaks, weeps, when you're not here; there are always other exits to the coming years. Daddy Long Legs found a place to call home, for now.

I still smell your scent in the air, sweet like crystallized sugar; I called you so many things but never that, though I was thinking it. You're everywhere. And the moment I kissed your sugary sweet lips I'll remember, I'll remember the fireworks we watched explode, I'll remember the locks we broke to break free the caged animals inside ourselves, I'll remember the days it was hotter than hell but we held onto each other for fear we'd otherwise lose ourselves.

Daddy Long Legs, Daddy Long Arms don't you know I never needed your body to keep me warm?  

Infinite

I'm looking for loopholes and spider webs that wind themselves around my fingers, wit like zingers that keeps you on your toes, and this is how my story goes: anticlimactic, comma happy, or is it comma, happy, no one knows. I'm rowing my little handmade boat down a man made river, running to catch up with the cracks in her zipper, out of breath, no looking back until time forces flashbacks across my mind and I have no other choice but to choke on my own voice and my own tears and my own lies. I wear invisibility as a disguise like a superhero or perhaps a wizard, stomach is tied in knots like a bird's gizzard, toxins wind their way down my spine, through my blood cells and to the deepest pits of my mind and the clock on my wrist has lost its ability to tell time, it's lost its pulse too and now I'm turning purplish-blue and life ain't givin' me long enough to live but I've had long enough and I've given all I can give and I haven't gotten anything back. The sky is turning black but there are no stars, I'm looking for Pluto when I can only reach Mars and the planets aren't shining as bright as the nonexistent scars on my shins and the rest of my skin but you'll never know they exist. They're almost like dreams, like the things we humans conjure up to calm ourselves so we don't give up, like God and the Virgin Mary. Immaculate conception's just a theory, after all, like gravity and how apples fall. Every bird has its own call, its own wings. Heaven's angels will always sing. New days tomorrow will forever bring, these things don't stop the world from spinning. But nothing can.

Headphones

Headphones connect to ear drums connect to brain that's wired to stay the same, to change with the wave of the amber fruited plains; eyes on aspen trees stare at me through blinds, I'm blind to every opinion that isn't mine and picture frames on the wall serve as reminders of the melodies our souls once played, whether real or fake, dead or alive. There are flower boxes outside closed windows, closed curtains because this is a place where the wind blows so seldom you never see it coming. The people who live here live in constant fear of everything "normal," they're the epitome of immoral, but then what are those words anyway? I drown myself in the music and come up again, alive, breathing. My heart is beating, my blood cells are cut open and bleeding but these aren't wounds that I'm feeding; they're beauty marks, like letters scribbled into the skin so you can always remember where you've been even if you don't know where you're going. Decks of cards, we built houses out of them, remember when we placed bets on whose would collapse first and tumble to the dirt? The cards themselves probably weren't worth much more than pennies but we thought they were worth our lives so we climbed to the top of those card houses and jumped, we didn't know where we'd end up but we survived and even though the houses crumbled and fell apart we mumbled sweet miseries to the air and God swore he'd always be there to listen to our prayers but we weren't praying. We were making our dreams come true. 

Sleep

We've fallen asleep next to each other so many times over these past few weeks that I don't know if I'll wake up okay tomorrow morning. Come a new day, dawn rises to greet the sky, the stars wave goodbye for now but they'll come out again late tonight when we're twisted up in each others' arms again, whispering sweet nothings into each others' skin. You're gone now and I probably won't see you for awhile but I'll try diligently to keep your bright white smile in my mind like a bookmark I'll come back to eventually. We may not be able to see each other for a few years but trust in me my dear when I tell you that we'll both make it back alive so long as we just put our feet to the gas pedals, compass pointed towards each other, and drive until we can fall asleep like we have been. Sleep, sweet dreams are on their way.

Bicoastal 

I fell asleep to the romantic melodies of the tenor sax singing in my ears, your voice tonight rings out loud and clear even though you're a thousand miles away. I'll hug my teddy bear close and pretend it's you, still feel you here like phantom limb. You're not an arm or leg but you're still a part of me, part of why I live and breathe. I'll climb trees as high as those in the Amazon, try to see as far as I can see, do whatever it takes to bring you close to me again. This paper and pen aren't doing much, I keep running out of ink and my brain can't think fast enough to keep up with the race I'm running. I keep feeling your touch with every slight move, slight breeze from the ceiling fan above my head. I'll keep writing until I'm dead, keep believing till there's nothing left except the treble clef on the sheet music and the guitar in my hands, my voice is my right hand man and the mazes in my head are the reason I can't do anything but write until the words come out just right. Under the moonlight, the music notes dance to the melodies of the tenor sax, swinging like we did on that old sing-song swing set at the local park. We stayed there until long after dark making memories, watching the bats overhead as they used blind echolocation to spot their prey from miles away. I don't say grace and I won't pray for your well-being but I'll surely keep believing in you till long past overdue dreams, till I'm awake again or so it seems but then dreams spew from the mouthpiece of the tenor sax and speak through the melodies of the beautiful machine. All that's left, dear, is you and me.

Shouldn't Have

I should have packed the car and driven any direction but where we arrived, shouldn't have let you buy that one way train ticket to no where, shouldn't have let myself breathe in as you breathed out because now I feel like I'm attached to you by your lungs. Siamese twins separated by distance, as much as we both tried to resist this day it came and here it goes, the seconds ticking by until midnight chimes on the grandfather clock next door. I can't help but wonder what all those wishing stars are for but I find myself wishing on one that you were still here and that I'm only making this up in my head to comfort myself because I know I'll miss you when you're really gone and twice as much when you're dead. Perhaps I'll hijack your coffin and join you for a long winter's nap, jump right in head first and never look back. These moments turn into minutes turn into hours and then days, and somewhere along the way I know I'll forget about how the sun's rays swept over us as we awoke. We were cloaked in Mother Nature, cloaked like I cover this paper with words; and not a sound could be heard except the up-down-up-down of your chest as you breathed in and breathed out. I shouldn't have let you go.

Thunder 

Everything made sense when I could feel you in my presence, when I knew you were nearby, no more than a few yards away. But today that has changed and now you're halfway across the country, last night you crossed state line after state line and flew over oceans, valleys, canyons in the opposite direction from here. I can hear the mountains calling your name, they ache for you to climb them once again and the wolves howl as though they know you're gone. Forgive me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure you're the best thing that never happened to me; even the way I speak has changed, I'm evolving into a new person and I'm hoping this new skin I'm donning isn't worse than the one I had before. I can't figure out what's so wrong with leaving all these doors open, I keep hoping you'll walk back through one and tell me you couldn't bear the thought of leaving without me but that hasn't happened yet. The rain outside pours, almost like when angels cry and I'm soaking wet from my own tears and realizing just how different things are when you're not here. I no longer know myself. I try to hold myself back, hold myself tight and pretend these are your arms wrapped around my heart. I speak in sweet Texan accents hoping to will you back to Colorado and the peak, but the words I speak are never enough and I know I'm just playing dress up with the ghosts of my own skin. Until the day comes when I'll rest my eyes on your face again, I wait for each day to begin.

Fingerprints 

I picked up some of your fingerprints when you touched me so gently that night under the covers, your musky scent drifting across my own berry blossomed skin, dew drops kissed your lips like sunset; and the sunset tonight has already ducked beneath the clouds, I whispered aloud to you to come watch but didn't hear footsteps in your wake. My heart was always yours to take. I would have waited hours outside on the front stoop for you to come home from your newest exploration throughout my town, you almost made it yours overnight and now something doesn't feel right and it's because you left this home to go back to your real home. It's a good thing the globe isn't really that wide because I don't think I could fill a river that big with the tears I didn't cry over you, but even that's a lie and I find it difficult these days to tell the real truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; you made everything so clear. I wrapped myself in your arms and world seemed to disappear. I wear feathers around my neck and a lock on a chain to remind me that I'm the reason my soul is in chains, pain doesn't stop coursing through my blood. I've just about given up, but you're there suddenly like a dream come true to rescue me. The only rescue I need is you. But still this whole dream is misconstrued, the location's all wrong and so's the song in the background. We don't need sound to dance to the beat of our hearts, and my heart beats because of the pieces of you I picked up that night under the sheets, and all it does is beat, beat, beat. 

Skeletons

I fumble my words around you, fumble my fingers as I reach for your gaged ears, switch gears and face the truth: I was never meant for you to use. Still you light the fuse and suddenly this room is on fire and the walls are growing closer. The calendar pages keep flipping past and we're both growing older, backwards. It's half past one in the morning and I'm realizing there's no such thing as the night sun, theorizing that if there was it would have risen by now and I'd be able to see the clouds that are fogging up the bathroom mirror. Steam engines on trains creak as the wheels turn and allow the machines to keep chugging along as though they were never planning to stop in this two-light town, two lane highways abound around here, alone again my dear. Finding yourself is like finding a needle in a haystack but your needles are of a different variety; society condemns us to breathing through our mouths, bleeding till no more blood will come out, dreaming until there's nothing left to dream about. I'm spitting blood onto the pavement, there's a spot on your shirt that's been tainted with bleach and tonight the stars are just a little too far out of my reach. Your skin feels like the fuzz on a Palisade peach; but I can't feel it. My fingers shake with every centimeter they grow closer to you, my heart beat wavers on a tightrope suspended in midair, thirty feet between it and the ground. My dear, don't make a sound; I fear that someone may hear you breathing, may sense you bleeding, may stop you from dreaming. I reach to steady your quivering shoulders, with every second growing just a little bit colder and I'm shaking too. But I keep going. I'm losing my words and now my nerves are showing through my frail skin. I don't know where to begin but I'll start at the tip of your head and work to your toes. Silence, the angels are watching.

Is Too, Don't Lie

I’ve gone deaf from the speakers that were right in my ear, blind from the stars that I could see so clear, bleeding butterflies from the bullets made of love, and crying for the skies and the demons above us; and I took the keys to the car and drove now that the roads were dry and the rain wasn’t pouring anymore and neither were my eyes and I followed the tail lights in front of me through stop light after stop light until I reached home; before I left I told you I better go and I pulled up next to a toy car and listened to the bass pump through the speakers, closed my mouth and swore this time I’d just be a listener and suddenly all my questionable sins were forgiven. I passed freedom around like an overlooked casket, the bodies held inside were wrapped tightly in their baskets and I wore a locket around my wrist to hold on to the memories and asked that if there was a time to hope would this be it but it wasn’t and the answer was all too clear. You wore face paint, the only thing you were missing was a headdress and you said that without me you were growing just a little bit restless and I kept that message for as long as I could, hot ironed it into my chest so it would stay near my heart forever; I started writing rhymes that started becoming clever, but everyone knows that rhyming words is only half the secret.  The only problem is half the population can’t pull themselves out of the tar pit, but they pretend to know the lyrics to the songs I talk. They wouldn’t know it if it stared them in the face, wrote it on the blackboard in chalk, wouldn’t know it if it screamed it in their ear, but that’s why the rest of us ride stars to school. We’re all deaf, too. 

Vines

This night is full of last minute phone calls, this life is made up of giant balloons being tossed in the air, her hair is a sweaty frame around her face and I’m having trouble finding the rhythm these drums create. I came here to find something I wasn’t looking for in the first place and I’ve heard enough about the stars exploding in outer space, I just want to hear about our space and have it, reach out and grab it like I have with the moon many times; you and I swung to the jazz melodies that filled the air, sometimes I could swear only we can hear them but then the shaking ground pulls me back, I’m quaking and the hand-knit sack on my shoulder is growing heavy so I levy the bridge between us and pull you closer, just slightly, and hold you tightly in these ropes I call arms.

You said you felt like a kite, held out your wings and almost took flight had it not been for the fact that missing a breeze and string was holding you back. What you didn’t realize was that I would have been that string for you, making sure you could take flight and fly just as high as you wished; we danced and howled without rules, we broke free from the sheds full of tools and found our own power between the chimes on the clock in the clock tower across the way declaring the final hour of yesterday over.

Barefoot is so much better than anyone says, without the contraptions on my feet I felt free and I didn’t need anything or anyone to teach me how to live. I just wish that sometimes more people would practice what they preach, reach to the far ends of the globe and go where no person has gone before. We cover the world like sandcastles on rocky shores, shipwrecks are left unadorned, and the paint we wear on our faces acts as a union between present and past. We make love because we can’t make war.

We make wings because without them, eagles can’t soar. 

Shrine

We made love to the moonlight, sat by the hotel lake watching the bride and groom photograph the beginning of their life together but they didn’t see us. No one did. They were watching but they were blind; and the moonlight shone on them like it did on the lake, their reflections glowing in each other’s eyes almost as though they didn’t realize anyone was nearby. The grass was soaked in flashbacks to yesteryear and fears I once held as a child, you were drenched in angel tears and the mirrors that mesmerized us were from a fun house donated by the local circus. I say local as though the circus was within us, between us like our united hands should have been. I said that we should leave and come again another day, and you agreed because you had nothing else to say.

We conversed like strangers the whole way home, may have well reintroduced ourselves to each other. I could pretend to hide, pull a Houdini and go undercover but that wouldn’t last for long. You know enough about my past to leave, not quite enough to stay; the circles I weave around your nose send shivers past your toes and back again. You won’t admit it but I can tell your broken soul is on the mend.

I spoke a thousand words to the stars, but the sun answered back; hijacked a rocket and landed flat on the surface of your skin. 

Tape Recording

I took money from the local homeless man, told him I would exchange it for change he could really use to fix his broken front tooth and maybe find a place to sleep for more than just a night and I told the beggar lady down the street that I had a friend I wanted her to meet and introduced her to Jesus, told her if she let him he could save her; I lied to the librarian, told her I just had to check the inside covers of the CDs to see if the artists had included lyrics and I cheated the police man, told him I ran that red light because my sister was having a baby and I had to be at the hospital to help deliver.  I stole a boat from the peddler to paddle my way across the creek, "borrowed" a kid's bicycle and took a joy ride along the beach and that man who's chasing after me is looking for his canoe which I'm riding down this roaring river of blood. I swore I would do anything for you if I could. 

My grandfather swears by God he's not young, I tell him it doesn't matter so long as he's still having fun and living life for every second that it counts. He's been hiding in his shell for so long that his back has gone out and my ears are ringing like the diamond on her finger. I said I'd stay but I'd rather not linger and I'm standing over graves, knee-deep in dirt wondering what all this grave digging is worth and if there's fortune in it for those who don't mind witnessing death. Before Grandpa died he said there's more to life than seeking your last breath and that we should learn to brave the storms and make friends with our enemies. He said "What's life for if you can't make your own memories?" And then the pennies that I stole from the local homeless man meant nothing, because I'd spent so much time worrying about lusting and not loving. 

So I returned home and gave back everything to those from whom I'd stolen, and promised there was something better coming in packages I had woven and the packages were made of love and ignorance and hate: all the little lies that people fed me and I ate. And I promised that I would grow up someday and learn my lessons, find God and repent. But what I didn't realize was that I already did. 

How Chemicals React

I'm hanging on to hope like the string I wear around my neck to remind me that I'm still alive; my words are my minions and I've walked the continental divide so many times I've lost count. Your eyes are without a doubt the brightest white I've ever seen and I wonder if the irises aid in capturing images like a camera and play them back like the screen on a drive in movie theater. I don't want to remember what it feels like to kiss you but I can't help it and we both know we've changed too much to go back. I left the door cracked so you could let yourself in but once you were here you had no idea where to begin and your words tumbled off the cliffs of your delicate lips that left mine black and blue and into the infinite abyss below. You never said sorry. You only said goodbye. 

We were quick like a flash flood, never even knew what was upon us until it was over and now that we realize our mistake was that we tried too hard we stopped trying entirely. I always told you the silence said everything you couldn't say aloud. 

I don't believe in do-overs and you don't believe in second chances and we're too different to become the same. But we hang on to hope like the pendant that drapes from the string around my neck and say our goodbyes as if they're merely see ya laters. But we both know there's no looking back. That's not how chemicals react. 

Perfect Form

You say you're tired of asking questions and think it's my turn but the truth is I never attempted to start a fire because I knew one of us would get burned, but that happened anyway. We walked circles around each other looking for answers that we both knew didn't exist and even now we're searching through the stacks of papers and experiments in hopes we'll come across something we didn't know before. 

But this isn't a crime scene and no one's dead. 

We can look look look all we want for the answers to the questions we never had the guts to ask but as a matter of fact maybe the answers aren't even in the questions -- or maybe they are and we're looking right over them. Someone once told me an artist's inspiration isn't found in their head but rather in the tip of their pen. It leaks from the ink dropped in droplets on the paper and spills not from the soul but from the instrument when you wake her. Inspiration is a sleeping monster waiting for her cage to open so she can crawl out. 

But this isn't an infirmary and no one's afraid. 

The only thing that's left to do is wait until the answers find us and the questions are left in the bitter cold dust of yesterday's afternoon rainstorm. My words never came in perfect form.

Simply Divine

It seems so selfish now to wonder about then, but I can't help but imagine what would have come of us if we'd let each other in, and it seems to me like there's more to what we had than what we'd let happen; but a lot has happened since then. There's only so many times a person can get a second chance. 

I found all your little habits simply adorable, couldn't get enough even when I got more and even though I recognize that we could never be what we were again, your habits never got under my skin; but you did.  I never really planned on losing you, nor did I understand what I had done. There are only so many times you can pull the trigger on a loaded gun. 

I'm not asking for another chance at this romantic game we played. I'm not asking for you to steal my beating heart away. But I know this isn't how we were meant to be, and I'm not sure if I should change it. 

Far Enough

We idled on park benches and watched the sun set behind the dark blue silhouette of the peak, told so many stories that they all run together now and I can't remember the way your voice sounds in my ear; I know it once sent shivers down my spine. The last time I drove down this two-lane country road I couldn't stop smiling. I passed cookie cutter houses and large open squares of land and didn't have to try to make the touch of your hand as it brushed mine linger, because the nerve endings were still warm and my skin was still glowing the same color of the orange-red sunset. 

I drove footloose and fancy free, shoe-less for a distance, thinking about how far I've come in a year. But I haven't come far at all. You're a nine hour haul away now but I've flown far enough, far enough to forget about everything I was back then. Far enough to forget about everything we could have been, but never were. 

There's No Better Anesthetic Than Apathy

I'm threading this thread through the dull, open end of the needle and sewing my mouth shut so I never put myself at the risk of fumbling my words around you again. Maybe if the letters tumble around behind my teeth, maybe if I tie them in a knot with my tongue, loop them together in nonsensical order they'll disappear. I'll swallow them like I swallowed your lies, but in reverse order so that everything I'm not saying is clearly depicted in the whites of my eyes. I'll knit them together like a quilt, little snippets of the places I've been. 

I've gone numb from my widow's peak down and the only thing I can feel is the way I felt before. There's no better anesthetic than apathy. This is -- was -- a catastrophe waiting in shadows for its unsuspecting target to pass by, at which point it would leap out from behind the carefully constructed walls and break them down again. From behind the curtain that's left in it's place comes an angry stream of tears, a blood curdling scream loud enough to damage even the already cracked cartilage of your gauged ears. 

Without walls I'm forced to face my fears, no other choice but to stay here and converse with the truth; and your shoe laces are made of guitar strings, same as the thread that's holding my mouth shut but we were never similar let alone the same. Even the hug you gave me when you left felt fake, like the entire existence of the past month hinged on equal trade. I was never the type to believe in mistakes; after all, everything happens for a reason but gunpowder isn't always necessary to commit treason

and now there are bodies half dead in the street

bleeding bullets as their lungs work hard 

to keep breathing 

so they can stay alive,

too many skeletons

rotting before their time

too many broken souls

begging for what was once mine, too.

But my words are muddled, a city's population huddled around candles saying prayers and  wishing those skeletons were still theirs, even though they never were in the first place. More than one mouth is sewn shut; more than one body has gone numb; more than one quilt has been knit together with the dull end of the needle. We're nothing more than machines. But we wash ourselves in the river of tears until we're as clean as we can be. We're numb from the apathy.

Fallen

Mama's angels are having a pillow fight,

their feathers are back lit by the porch light

across the street,

and you're as far away as can be,

but you're still right next to me. 

Mama's angels lay a blanket of snow, and we crawl under it without a word.

When I'm with you, I feel like I can fly,

like I'm a bird. 

I feel on top of the world--

and even if I can't risk another fall

after the one I took from heaven,

or at least,

that's what you said--

when I'm with you, 

I'm living all the dreams inside my head.

You? You must have fallen from heaven, too.

Breath

I'm built from made up metaphoricals,

destroyed by hyperextended hypotheticals,

birthed only in death,

and dead only in life.

But you're like: 

choosing madness at midnight,

bright sunshine and morning light,

poison dripping from a butcher knife,

the antithesis of the life in which I'm

created,

destroyed,

degraded,

deployed,

emaciated,

devoid

of life itself.

Petals
I built a house, card by card, then watched it fall, brick by brick;
picked every last petal off the flowers in the vase on the kitchen table,
saying, "He loves me, he loves me not," until I got the answers I was looking for,
but I never did.


So the shelter I built myself never did much good;
its remains journeyed downstream to be made into a palace for someone else.
And the petals were scattered like ashes in the backyard,
supposedly to decompose and renew the soil so that, perhaps,
the new flowers would emerge with better answers.

Transcontinental
Sunrise over the Great Plains,
a myriad of blues, greens, purples
light up the morning sky
just as the mountain town begins to wake.
Icicle patterns adorn the windows
like ribbons and intricate flowers,
illuminated by the city lights below --
glistening white snow
covers the land like the comforter from my childhood
that Mama used to tuck me in when I was feverish.
High above the smoking chimneys and sleepy houses
I wave "see you later" to the towering peaks of my
hometown.
I'm grown, now,
born what feels like yesterday.


Catharsis
I've gotten really good at pretending you don't exist. We were yesterday's misfits, broken bones and concrete hearts desperate to escape their own rhythm. It was a revised manifesto, a testimony to our ancestors, who had much to say but couldn't say it so they wept drops of saltwater as softly as the sparrow's song. Their actions spoke louder than words, but said nothing.


The fluorescent light resonated in your chest cavity between your hollowed limbs and crept around the corners of your corporeal organs. My peripheral vision ignored you, unprepared to face your kind eyes that never mean any harm. They, too, were harsh, like the morning light upon waking.


We stacked empty boxes on top of one another to create houses, and piles of cards inside them, let our stream of consciousness flow like the rivers behind the houses we built that washed them downstream...


...and the weeping could be heard for miles, the sound of cathartic relief. I've gotten really good at realizing you exist.