How does she do it?
How can she stand me?

I’ve driven needles through her heart,
So many times.

I’ve scorched the earth, and drowned the land,
Still, she takes me back.

I’ve let her wither in my silence,
And the coldness of my voice.

I’ve let the worries feast upon her,
But see her smile when I get home.

She’s known such cruelness from me,
And given anything but.

Still, where the world might see little,
There finds herself, the whole world.

Amidst twilight-tinted clouds, she roams.
On a trip, so overdue, back home.

Over dew-covered hills of green, she lept,
unbeknownst to us, who thought she slept.

Long removed from time and place, she stood.
Spinning tales, reminding names that no one could.

Every month, he'd bring her flowers to her bed,
Making up for things he'd done, things he said.

She was lucid for a while when we'd come by.
But I'd catch her staring blankly at the sky.

I was sad I got to see them less and less,
But was glad they didn't know me as a mess.

Every day I'd go to Grandma's and play kid,
and she'll go looking for us, laughing, while we hid.

On a cold September night, in a hospital room with mint-colored tiles, they wrapped Carol in a yellow towel, with the purple washed from her little body, they placed her safely on her mother’s arms.

In the pink room, about early spring, Carol plays, sitting besides her, on a yellow stool, is a purple dinosaur, her favorite, adorning her bedside table, a flower, gifted by her friend Miguel. Downstairs, awash with gin and grinning at the TV, her mother finds comfort in other people’s plights, meanwhile, as is common of his rainy Fridays, her dad lights a cigarette in a motel room.

-Alarm clock, shower, comb, mirror.
On a special September night, Carol gets ready to go out.
-Lipstick, perfume, bedsheets, fear.

On the grey colored room there’s only silence, her mother rushes up the stairs, Miguel waits on the line, laying on the floor, a yellow stool, hanging above it, Carol, her face purple, the call ends.

The sum of the toil will pay up,
You'll see once I'm set free.

My name, in their voices, uttered.
You'll hear once I'm gone from here.

My words on the shelves and headstones,
You'll read and the warnings heed.

Once I've doused these seeds with my blood,
You'll see how they'll turn to me.

Until then, I'll remain the unknown, the weird,
one more lamb in the field one more cog in the wheel.

With unfazed gaze, we've stared
through screens, their screams, we've shared.
And weak our wills have fared
when to those flames compared.

Another fire's now lit,
as one more throat lies slit.
Averted hearts are split,
and naught a course seems fit.

And those who hold the rein,
know not of grief or pain.
Unmoved their souls remain
as doom begins to rain.

Yet how are we to act?
when odds are all but stacked,
subservient to the fact,
Our world's been bled, *****, sacked.

The rinsed-out certainty of facts,
And played-out character of acts.
The milled down thoughts and weighted pasts.
Have left us barren, hardened hearts,

We’ve long sought meaning beyond that,
But with our failed effort sat.
We searched in color, music, art.
And gave ourselves to brand new starts.

But few found solace from the plight,
And went to God, in all but spite.
Fewer still found truth in rites,
And chanting songs at candlelight.

Yet others longed for all things bright,
The gilded, minted, stacked to height,
But found a dreadful side to light,
Akin to Icarus in flight.

And still asunder our hopes lay,
Aspiring, writhing, in dismay,
All meanings lost there in the hay,
Abound with needles, prickly, stray.

To the boldness of them,
may it never end.
Those who go in blind,
trusting you'll be kind.

Lives being gifted whole,
to another soul.
By those who jump in hope,
others hold the rope.

To you brave of heart
muses to all art.
For whose love is raw,
I remain in awe.