Everyone needs a window,
you can sit in front
and forget everything.

Come join us in the garden
Your army days are done
Sit down and take it easy
Enjoy soak up the sun.

Now you need no longer worry
You will never be going back
Relax no need to hurry
Just forget about the past.

You say it's hard to carry on
Leaving the horrors of war behind
You often have those nightmares
From behind the enemy line.

So look now toward the future
The poserbilitys they are vast
There is that new horizon
Even though it's hard to grasp.

Come join us in the garden
Leave those fearful days behind
Look at all the lovely flowers
Representing peaceful times.

Look at this gardens beaughty
The war just had to end
Who knows what lies ahead of you
Your enemy could become your friend.

i always have
the urge to run.

but what is it like
to be a tree?

to be confident enough
to root yourself
and grow with
wild abandonment,
being unapologetically
you?

i'm still running,
but i wish i knew.

i don’t think my mother
ever brushed my hair.
and if she did,
i can’t remember it.
i could lie and say
that i wonder why,
but i know why.
it was because
she was busy with
my sister’s brand-new curls,
busy tending to her own
dark roots and dry ends.

when i am a mother,
i will balance my sons
and daughters on my lap
and one by one
comb through
their soft mops
with patient hands.

they will never wonder
why i left them
to sort out
the knots
on their own.

they will know
i am there
to help untangle
the predestined messes
caused by the wind,
and caused by me.

i don't like
loving you
because you
are so flawlessly
human.

you breathe
like anyone else,
with faults, & rough edges,
and your face isn't

karmic, (like his was)
our connection isn't
fate, (i don't have the heart
to believe in
such whimsical
ideals anymore)

we're just having
fun, for the time,
for the night, for the
moment,

your curls lace
my fingertips to your
scalp

grounded with
no fantasy.

i don't like
the meandering of
my soul right now,

i like you, i like enjoying this,
but i don't like
the aimlessness
of this: i miss
karma, and spirits,
and souls

i am tragic
& this love is
too sane

she had always said
her favorite color was yellow
for the girl with buttery skin and crystal eyes
it seemed rather fitting
yellow was the color of sunshine
and the color of her hair
after it had been bleached by summer
it was the color of the bumblebees
that drank from her favorite flowers
flowers that now
line her grave

she told you
her favorite color was yellow
because she knew you needed someone
radiant with light
to ease the depth
of your own darkness
so she said
when autumn arrived
you could watch the ground
become littered with yellow leaves
together

when you asked what color
lie beneath her skin
she told you it was yellow
she made herself believe
her body was freckled from stardust
and not from the amber glow
of cigarette burns
she still said
her favorite color was yellow
so she could continue being the light
in your colorless world

soon enough
your favorite color was yellow too
but not for the same reasons
she fell in love with it
you only saw yellow vaguely
in the form of teeth
stained from tobacco and too much coffee
smiling grimly through cracked lips
dripping poisoned honey
you guilded the word ¨love¨
with muted ochre lies

and now
she no longer feels the warmth
that once emanated
from her favorite color
she no longer tastes
the sweetness of butterscotch
and papaya on your lips
for you left her with nothing but
the sour residue of lemons and bile
as your gentle breath
extinguished her golden flames
and reduced her heart to ash

and now
she realizes that bumblebees
can also administer a piercing sting
and as she watches the sunset
with its amber hues
she no longer sees
the color yellow


x.