She keeps songs
locked away in boxes
like secrets.
She will take them out
like postcards
to help her remember
the feeling of
a different time,
a different person
by her side.
She likes the one
that makes her
eyes close
to see the lights.
She smiles at
the one that  
makes her stand
up on tiptoes,
the one that
helps her forget
she doesn’t know
what to do
with her hands.

The tune
will carry her.

Like it did
the times when
voices broke
like a heart.
When instruments’ strings
would snap
and hurt.

Existence feels like a prison sentence
25 to life for the crime of being born
Nothing I do could ever be considered "good behavior"
So I might try to escape soon

I lift my head up and look
To see my own reflection
Everything on the surface
Laid to bare, hiding nothing
All blemish the eye can see
Judged for every little thing
All they see is the exterior
Everything inside, never seen
Making first impressions
Wrong way too many times
The mirror is so misleading
Because it doesn’t show everything

STORYTELLER SPINS HIS TALE

the trees take
to the sky

great flocks of them
heading south

flying in a V formation
across a moon

the birds standing still
a forest of wings

a plantation of
song

when the mind is
twisted so

it's hard to tell
the woulds from the could bes

I  fall asleep
curled up in my uncle's lap

the magic of his words
winking like one cobweb to another

caught in
an early morning dew.