I built a garden in my chest
with things you never said—
planted hopes in rows of maybes,
where your silence softly spread.

I watered it with almosts,
trimmed the silence like vines,
taught the leaves to chase the light
you never said was mine.

But nothing real grew—
just a heart dressed up as soil,
soft enough to cradle you,
but never meant to spoil.

You were the seed that never stayed,
the wind that kissed, then flew.
And I — the ground where you once rested,
but never rooted you.

I’m in a contest I can’t win
Or even come in second.
My bird has flown from the streetlight arm
And taken promise with it.

Another lands and then departs
To mock my hopeful prayers
The sky teems with symbolic fowl
But I can’t suss their meaning.

A big one flew straight over me
But I can’t read its message.
Was it promising good health
Or telling me it’s sorry

That I’ll only get just what I have
To get me through tomorrow
And if I am not strong enough
The game will then be over.

Why are birds the messengers
In answer to my pleas
They send me signals I can’t read
And I walk on in darkness.
ljm

Dodging memories that bring me pain
I scurry through the obstacles
I set up for my foolish self
To keep me from the place I need to be.

I bruise my shins repeatedly
On dangers that I did not see
Due to the fancy mask I wear
That blocks half of my vision.

The need for haste is manifest
By ever looming banks of fog
That somehow scheme to bar my way
And keep me from salvation.
                 ljm

the lone knight battles himself,
engulfed in hatred for the throne,
his damsel is distant,
the odyssey to she is treacherous,
he must beat the man within,
or else she’ll be the one,
without,
him.