You walked the halls of my school,
Your blond locks flowing behind you
You were not the epitome of male beauty,
So what did enchant me?
You were the silent kind of beauty that could only be noticed with a discerning eye
And I am the observant type
Though, I could not see your ugly
Your mask hid your coldness and showered me with light
You would pick me up in a giant spinning hug
You made everything feel okay
You were exactly what I needed in those times

I used to want to be an
archaeologist.
I thought digging things up
looked like fun.
I thought that I wanted to
touch history.
I don't get paid for it,
but I guess
I sort of am an archaeologist.
I dig things up.
I run my fingers through years
of history.
It just isn't as fun as I'd always
thought it'd be.

the freeway was loud, screaming below their feet, truck drivers at 80 and up, the west coast late night norm. higher decibels made them feel more properly hidden taking bumps from the bag, and she sniffed in and thought of how she wasn't expecting this night, but she was lonely, hopeful, a wreck. he sniffed harder and he tugged down on his hat, realizing just how unprepared he was for the way she looked at him.

It was a graveyard and overcast sky
and I sat with book and accordian in hand,
hearing the world with its screams
swallow up around me.
The people whom I had loved and lost,
Papa with his silver eyes
Mama her sharp tongue and tough love
Rudy whose hair the colour of lemons
and questioned why, the living and dead,
worlds apart, yet both did not have a choice.
I stood and screamed so that everything shook
the burning rubble and ash and dust
willing my words to bring it all back
but it did not come, and my breath rose in gasps.
Death had looked me in the eye and said,
“It’s not time yet.”
I would shut my eyes to the world
only decades later.
I will understand that there was hate and pain
there was sadness
but even more so, there was love and joy.
I will know that the people I loved had reason
to kiss goodbye
whether it was their own hurt
or saw it as a necessity,
but they were never truly gone from me
always somewhere nearby,
in the thick and thin
frail and worn
of times.
I would learn
to forgive Death that day.
I will understand that
and I will be hurt,
but I will be okay.

~

Not all deaths are sad.
Some, meant to ease their own pain,
Are called freedom.
While some,
Meant to ease the pain of others,
Are called love.

© BT

there is
a           mess
about her,

fluttering
towards  open

    space.


writhing

below pale
skin,

refusing to sit

so structurally,
so secured

in flesh.


wildly
           bending
and      swelling,


becoming

the
           savage


she so calmly
swears

isn’t there.











*-MJS