Boiling white hot rage
Regret and guilt seeps in
Silent looks through open bedroom doors

How I hate you so.

Peanut butter and jelly apologies
Your favorite movies on CD
Fighting for the passenger seat

How I hate you so.

Racing for the favorite spoon
Sharing a sweet treat from mom
Stealing trinkets out of your room

How I hate you so.

Pushing your buttons until they break
Scaring off your school bullies
Blaming the broken coffee *** on you

How I hate you so.

Heartfelt gifts on your birthday
Beating you at every game
Moving out to start your life away

How I miss you so.

I find myself longing
So very often I am longing
For freedom, to be wild once more
To feel the sun dribble across my skin
Through the blanket of tree branches
And the dew of morning mist
As I pass through the brush
Out there where words are never spoken

I hear you
Calling to me from far beyond this bubble
This place of metal and wires
Concrete and iron and copper
I am caged
In this cold man-made place
I know this is not where I am supposed to be
I am an animal
I am to be wild
I am to be free
But still I trapped here all the same

Yes, it is quite the zoo we have made
Haven't we?
Putting all of us on display
Dressing us up in silly fabrics
Fancy toys strewn as far as can be seen
Enrichment just a button press away
I never felt like I fit in a place like this
No, this is not what I am supposed to be

I keep finding myself
Lingering on the border of these two worlds
I can't help but give pause every time I happen to pass by its fencing,
Maybe its not quite a coincidence
That I pass by it at all

But when I do end up there
Teetering on the edge
I stare into the forest
And I see myself leering back
The me that is wild and unburdened
Mud covered feet
Hair long and unkempt
And teeth bloodied and yellow
Nails chipped and worn
I look almost akin to a beast

I feel my skin and bones yearn
My pulse quickening as my soul wails and begs
For what I cannot quite reach
I crave that which once was
And would also never be
I wish to return to being wild
Before words and people and things
Still I am caged here

I am an animal
I am to be wild
I am to be free
But perhaps I am too far gone
That I spent too much time
Became too domesticated
To be able to return to such a thing

I cannot have a small, soft, gentle love

I see now that it oozes out of me like a broken faucet

There is no such thing as a small love for me

I've only ever known how to love like an approaching avalanche

Deep, intense, and so utterly resolute and exhaustive

I cannot seem to comprehend how the world does it so easily

Like loving someone isn't as fervent as it is

My heart is just too big for me to only give so little

It doesn't feel right to love so sparingly

Can I not love you with all that I am instead?

Oh, to be loved

How beautiful and painful and wonderful it is to be loved,

Your looking at me and laughing and smiling and existing with me at this very moment

Choosing my presence

God, is it true?

To be loved this much?
I didn't know

But oh how wondrous it is to be loved,
To feel so full

Who knew that the flowers that grow inside my very soul

Would flourish just because you have stopped by to visit

The worms dance at your presence

Beetles follow your muddy foot steps through woven paths

While the snails and slugs cling to your pant legs

Hitching a ride for something glorious to experience

And the leaves of nearby trees try ever so gracefully

To kiss you with each gust of wind

Clouds part way so the sun may shine through the cracks onto your skin

And the blue hue of the sky brightens under your gaze

That's just how beautiful you are to me

My garden groweth over at the thought of you

One day I'll clean my mirrors
I don't really know if I should
It feels too much like erasing a past
Of which I cannot reach anymore
The clock goes only one way
In our little minds
Your ghost lingers everywhere
In everything I see and touch
Wherever I go I'm always followed by your shadow
I don't know how to feel about it
I don't miss you
Strangely enough
But I think of you often
How could I not, when I see you in everything I do?
When I make a grilled cheese
Take my long board for a ride
Or sitting in the back seat crowded between two people
Every time I travel
And especially when it rains outside
When I smell the fresh sage on drives
Even when I swing at a park and fly a bit too high
You seeped into the fine details of my life
My ***** mirrors made used by us
Together
These small things still make me smile
The memories so fond in my heart
I feel I shouldn't clean my mirrors
Not from longing or sorrow
It just feels strange to not have you in my life
Yet still love the time we had together anyway
One day I'll clean my mirrors
I don't miss you
But my back door is left unlocked if you ever want to come home

I envy the fables
Of the constellations, the Greek and Norse gods
Of the winds, sky, and oceans
And people and lands of a time long ago.
I know they aren't perfect
Not something to crave entirely
But I think these narratives offer hope
When the world feels vast and unrelenting.
Anecdotes of how the world came to be
And chronicles of mighty beings
Some sad, some happy
Most a mix in between.
Legends told for ages, passed down and remembered through time
To teach others long after you've gone.
Sometimes, I wish I could be a part of such a great legacy
To have a tale so big that people never forget
That I ever existed at all
That I'd loved, lost, fallen and struggled time and time again
And still got back up in spite of it all.
Can I, too, ascend as they have?
Would the world remember my name also if I did?

I find intelligence
Goes hand in hand
With idiocracy

Who are you to tell me
That I cannot make foolish choices
Despite knowing what would come next?

After all,
It's hard to separate
Such good friends
From one another

The things I would do,

The people I would become,

If only had you asked it of me.

The amount I would reinvent myself

For a simple whisper between

Would astonish you.

I need someone
Anyone
To choose me
To want me

I need them to whisper my name in longing
To glance through a crowd in hopes that they might see me there
I want them to look at you
And ask where I am to be found instead

Oh time

My familiar friend

How did you know it would be the last time
I played in the streets with my childhood friends?

That I'd never see their faces again
Or taste the sweetness of the fruits we shared together one more time

Why did you not tell me it was the end?

You, too, were there
Weren't you?

I would have stayed a bit longer
Smiled a bit wider
Laughed a bit louder
Loved a bit harder

Must all the beautiful moments of my life pass through me so quickly?

They hold the keys to my respite

How will I ever find home
When my memories of them become quicksand
Through my fingers?

I worry all this sand will swallow me whole
Before I have had time
To trace the lines of their faces into my bones

What do I do then?

How does one do it?

How can you spend your whole childhood
Living a few doors down from your sibling,
Your enemy and your hero,
Your greatest foe and worst friend,
And then suddenly
All at once and out of nowhere
It's over?

Your room isn't the same anymore
The walls are bare and your bed empty
I realize I haven't seen your face in ages
And we haven't talked in months
I wish we could stay just a hallways distance away

In my dreams we are still kids
And just a few doors down

To love
And love
And love and love and love
With such reckless abondon

It's as if I have no choice
But to let my heart bleed out on the floor before me
I think I lose more than I try to give

Tell me,
How can I make my heart beat less?

How can I quell it's waves so that I won't rupture in two?
So that I don't feel as though I am dying when you look the other way?

Sometimes,
The best feature of something
Is it's completion

Don't kick the dog who lays down when it's told to

Instead,
Ponder why you haven't done the same yourself

For you, I would do anything
Ill drape my jacket across the both of us
Lean against you so that you shiver less
Holding your cold hands in my own
Rubbing them against my jeans and blowing on them to generate enough heat
On cold windy days
When the sun decides to stay within it's blanket of clouds
You always forget a second jacket
But I don't mind
Because even though my hands are always cold
For you
I'd always give what little heat I have
To make sure you are warm too

I fear that my heart yearns for us to go back and be kids together
For us to go forward and be adults together

My, you are so lovely
Please
Stay holding my hand softly for every second
So I might be near you a bit longer

I think
The real reason my mirror and I
Have never been friends
Was not because I am unlovable
Nor because I am the monster I believe to be
But rather
Its that the eyes of which I look upon it with
Are not of those around me

I realize now that I am blinded
By the glimmers of light reflecting against it
And the dust and dirt muddles the details between
So that I could never see the full picture before
Maybe that is why
I've thought I looked so strange
Compared to others
For so long