Here,

Winter crawls into your window
Whenever you’re not looking.
No matter how prepared,
It latches to your toes
And freezes on your hair.
And stiffens up your nose.

Here,

You’ve forgotten once again
The warmth beneath the shine
The green oaks and the pines
Just growing in a whisper
Like kept secrets in time.

Here,

The sun will wave a ray
And tell you where he’s been
But then he’s soon rushed out -
A memory left unlived,
Left, still, a piece to miss.

Here,

The walking dogs are all the same
Attached to them a metal cane
Attached to that a person
a person
a person
all the same.

In the night, he thought.
In the night.

In the night while she’s sleeping,
In the night when she’s dreaming,
She dreams.
Dreams I’ll turn to spoil.
Dreams I’ll turn to rot.
And later, much later, though not
Later than the next moon,
She will not forget,
She will not forget,
She will forget me not -
The night I sought to grab.
And I grabbed.
And I grabbed.

Grabbed but rose, startled,
When she stopped
Sleeping
She was until, again,
Her dreams, I turned, stopped.
And instead, she screamed.
Instead, she stumbled,
Knocked a shelf to stop my grabbing,
Stop my babbling,
“Calm down,”
And when we’re heard,
“She’s dreaming, she’s dreaming,”
A dream turned rot.
A dreamed, I turned, rot.

No one will believe you - I do not say
But only to the others,
The ones who heard but did not see
So, therefore, did not
See
I say,
“I came to help, I came to help,
And then she knocked upon the shelf.”

The bookshelf.
She likes books,
Now spilled.
Now she spilled them and herself.
“Get her mother,
This girl needs help.”

“My uncle, my friend,
My dearly trusted close one,
My mother’s brother
My grandmother’s son
My family, now done!
How could you?
How do you?
How would you
And why?”
She says with a cry.

“I once had,
I did have,
I did cherish,
Though without knowing it,
A life without the dream
I wish was a dream
But so obviously not!
No, a memory.
A memory so foul, so foul
Turned to rot.
And you! You were there!
You caused that great crash,
Pushed me back
Into the shelf, and yelled,
“This girl needs help!”

“You fool, you utter disgrace!
Now daring to say
It is my own face
That lies.
Lies!
Lays in the bed
Next to the man
Without knowing it,
Without knowing it,
So deeply penetrated
And Now
Sowing it back together,
Though hardly at all,
And how could I,
When brought with a fall
To the stone floor
Next to my grandmother’s wall
Where a portrait was held
Of her Fine Children.
But one son, A Deviled Son,
A child of hell.”

“That is you,” she says
“That is you.
And let it be known
I will forever remember
The very black night
You pushed me down,
Scattered the shelf, yelled,
“This girl needs help,”
After grabbing,
And grabbing,
And whispered in my ear,
“You will forget me not,
Your dreams, I’ve turned to rot.”

I took a swig of too much of something
And in my veins, it retaliates and swirls and
Stabs and yells quite menacingly,
Quite vigorous, quite furious and happy,
Delusional mostly but too sober to ever
Doubt, deny,  or chastise:

Girl, what have you done!

You’ve rocked this ship and now it’s
Sunk.
Or if not so then nearly so!
Or about to!
Or if not those - then it set aflame.

Girl, you made a big mistake!

You’ll pay for fire in your blood.
You’ll pay for me,
Your desire - and infamy.
I bask in it, I am it.

Your love - like poison in mud.
It seeps, it’s swallowed,
Devoured,
And once done,
Becomes one.

A book
On a cold wooden shelf
Alone

Like everyone else.

In a field
Lit with snow
Acres long and silent:

Till the brush of a fox
Just caught by light,
The call of a bird,
Alone in sight,
The crackle of clouds
Amongst a herd
Of cows like those below
Like snow.

But other than that,
Nothing.

Except the whisper of wind
So nearly unheard but still felt
Behind the backs of grass
Or as the sky turns,
A cool whip and a chill
A shiver and a thrill

On this silent field
Where everything is still.

Surely, you are not the first
Boy
To demand respect

In a household of women
You claim to represent

We listen when you make us,
And if you wish, we cry

But snicker when you fall
And smile ‘cause we lie:

At night, when no one’s watching,
Our hands unveil,

No stopping.

And once intwined, we share the
Secret
We’ve known for quite some time

That poor old fool
As if the strings
Were his to pull.

I have suffered more than you have thought, more than you have cried, more than you have fallen upon yourself in the midst of everything else.
If I could have brought on to her the cuts and bruises and salty wounds that I myself facilitated, that she herself on more than many occasions had brought upon, I would have. In that moment. But that moment passed quickly, like a nightmare after sleep. And good, then, that it did. Because that was not me running the show.

I’ve known this person before, seen them in the shadows of my imagination. That is the person who creates many things inside my little mind when the moon is high and I am awake; when there is nothing left for me but to stare into darkness, darkness comes from them. My shadow gives me very high buildings and sharp objects to play with. It gives me riled dogs and empty pages of well-worn books that I have read before, but how could I have? When there is nothing to see and nothing to taste inside the binds but my own reflection glaring back at me, angry as I’ve always been.

To wish her that world inside my head would be to **** her right then. But that is not me. That is someone else.

A person hiding deep inside the shadows of my imagination.