Come with me child, I'm gonna pull at your heartstrings,
it will amuse me greatly, destroying petty things,
look at how your blood flows, such a beautiful red,
now, my dear child, get right back into bed.

Run, run, my darling,
run, run, away from me,
hide, hide, my sweet,
hide, hide, from dear old me.

You can't escape now, precious, time is drawing nigh,
all can tell from the looming, raining sky,
you've got nowhere to go now, so sit right down,
quit wasting time trying to turn things around.

Hush, hush, my darling,
hush, hush, through the night,
stay still, my sweet,
the ropes will hold you tight.

What do you think you're doing, girl, everything is fine,
don't worry your little head, dearest child of mine,
there's nothing you can do with demons in the house,
so you'd best keep quiet, docile like a mouse.

Shut up, my darling,
shut up, my sweet,
there's no ray of hope now;
You belong to me.

Lying dormant with it's sleepy memories,
Profound nostalgia burns in the bonfire.

Memories rise and ride on autumn wind,
Their heavy, smokey smell is addictive.

I inhale, try to detect and relive them.
I exhale, frustrated at having failed.

The fog that has descended upon my mind
Is permanent, solid, like the shadow of a conifer.

Why are my heartstrings plucked
Like leaves off trees, when autumn creeps?

My own memories have fallen victim
To autumnal decay.

This is the worst possible time
For all this added stress.

There was literally no other way, was there?
This HAD to happen now.

You're a beautiful mystery clad in gorgeous enigma.
You're poetry that looks good in a skirt.

There's an orchestra on your tongue, playing the sound of your voice like a melody I can't forget,
matching the tempo of the drums in my heart
and the broken strings of my violin compliments.

You are a notebook, a yearbook, a sketchbook, a burn book,
every facet of you written in swirling cursive,
rhymes and famous signatures snaking between cinnamon hair and cleverness.

You are a pen running out of ink,
bleeding dry in Barnes and  Noble Moleskin journals,
but that's okay because I have more ink,
and you can borrow whatever you want from me--
store it in the heart you stole if you're bored enough to hunt my words for the pieces.
You have the key already.

You're the first dream of the boy too scared of nightmares to sleep again.

You are the taste of honey and cigarettes on the lips of the first girl that boy ever kissed,
because she was a rebel and he needed a hero
who wore boots instead of Mary-Janes
and band t-shirts instead of blouses.

You are the rose he drew when he was bored,
an outline with potential,
mysterious, entrancing, incomplete,
not yet ablaze with the red of desire
because he was never good at finishing things.
You are a dictionary. Your picture isn't just under "beautiful."
It's under "dangerous" and "witty" and "myth"
because Medusa bowed at your feet next to James Bond and Edgar Allan Poe,
and you're too good to be true anyways.

You are a poem, a telltale heart beating inside a lesson in vengeance,
temporary only because nothing gold can stay.
You've walked past where the sidewalk ends (certainly the road less traveled by)
and come back far more darling than any buds of May.

(You are the paperback novel he read under the covers,
the flashlight only bright enough to show paragraphs,
and every new page unique in shape and form
while the text remains the same.

You are the raw words read aloud by the daring poet,
standing beneath midnight moon,
the power of the throne,
the breath of a whispered promise falling upon the ear,
the warmth of kisses on the cheek,
the passion of all hope there ever was in trust and truth.

You are the fire in lightning,
the sparkle in the snow and the glitter in the rain,
the fierceness of the wind and the gentle, soothing peace,
the blazing chill of winter and the roar of summer's heat.)

But you're still a mystery.
A beautiful,
beautiful
mystery.

Closed windows, pretty flowers,
Beeping machines, no loose threads.
TVs running, nurses waiting,
Painted rooms, well-made beds.

The atmosphere is clean and open,
Yet stuffy and enclosed.
And the nurses here are smiling
While patients grasp their crosses close.

The temporary homes are painted
With animals and desert view.
Anxiously waiting to see if the
Person will go soon.

The hallways: long and deafening.
The rooms: screaming with fear.
The walls are closed in, watching firmly,
For miracles also happen here.

A child sees his first glimpse of the world;
A cancer survivor leaves happily after the fight;
A lucky person lies relieved after surgery;
A suffering man closes his eyes.

-

Artificial home-like furniture, hands sanitized.
A life is lost and tears appear from words they wish they'd said.
Luck or blessing, yours to name, and flower scent in the air.

But once a body leaves or fails to give away a breath,
Nothing is changed.
The life that lay upon the mattress now ceases to exist,
And the chamber stays a chamber;
For all they are are painted, lurking, killing, curing rooms
And tucked-in-well-made beds.

I'm quite certain, as you ask, that I am in fact, not happy.

But don't you worry, I am not sad.
I can tell you that for sure.
I know, sometimes I cry, but, I think, I'm only trying to fill a space
that I'm not sure should be there.
See, when you can't quite think of what to write
sometimes you fill your blank page
with little water droplets.
It's like a flock of swallows swooping past
on a cloudless day.
Like pepper sprinkled across the sky.

Maybe you're not supposed to fill empty things.
And maybe if you try,
you might just find
that the things you try to fill them with
might not stay for long.

Yes. You heard me, the feeling, it's not happy
and it's not sad,
So I suppose, maybe it's kind of like that feeling you get, when you see
two empty chairs together
under a big willow tree.

But I will tell you something;
I'll tell you what it is,
It's the most comforting feeling I think you could ever have.
Like we're all on little rafts in the middle of the sea;
You watch all the people around you
trying to paddle with their hands, trying to reach some destination,
and all you do is sit there, and look around you.

You do not try to steer your raft.
You do not care what unknown lands you are taken too,
In fact,
You would not care even if you were to fall in.
Because that's how it is.

There is no sadness, no passion, no anger, no disappointment.
There are no worries or expectations.
Because you do not care where the sea takes you.
You're alive because you were put here,
And if life decides to put you here,
Then why is it up to you to decide what you should be doing?

All you want to do is lie across your raft and admire the sky.