It's like a leech
It clings to every memory I own, it infiltrates all my senses

I see his face everywhere in the faces of strangers

I hear his final words to me through the sigh he gave as I told him I wished we could have worked, that he should keep me in mind should he change his

I smell him every time I sit at my piano and think of the times we spent poring over Faure and wishing the recital were over

I touch him every time the white keys glide under my skin and the black ones poke my fingers into submission

I taste him on the tip of my tongue as I try in vain to forget the past

He was my train wreck and thinking of him makes me hate myself, what he hated, what he told me he wanted and then told me he would never want in a million years.

So I pushed him to the back of my head,
But his afterlove
Just clings
To my heart
Instead.

A tree,
It stands.

Ruler of its own universe woven through thickets of golden brown branches and emerald green leaflets.

Refuge for all and for none, offering solace from the cruel, hot sun.

Holding its arms in a triumphant stance, letting its leaves dance in the wind to their own tune of rustling and clapping.

A tree,
It feels.

It starts slowly at first- a slow seep, an unintelligible infection....

The glistening Mercury winds it's way through the veins that keep the being ruler of all and slowly infiltrates all the secret chambers hidden in knotholes centuries old.

Black like coal, white like fire, none can tell its appearance from anything but extraordinary and yet the tree does nothing. It waits.

A tree,
It wilts.

Ruler of the universe, it hands it's legacy off to the many saplings it has taught how to breathe from the grounds below it.

Refuge for none but itself, the emerald leaves lose their sheen and fall to the ground like a dancer who has twisted her appendage.

Reaching its arms towards the ground in a silent last prayer-last words- it caresses the faces of its children in the soil, giving a sweet silent goodbye.

A tree,
Crying tears of dripping silver onto its children below.

Then it is no more.

Mercury--evil--has won.

A stump.

But it's legacy lives on.

A sapling grows....and who knows.....the cycle begins again.

Does everyone have a calling?
For, I think that mine's been stalling
And is simply appalling
Just how cruel our life can be.

Days when I'm glad he's staying
Nights when I stay up praying
Dawns when I keep relaying
Just how cruel our life can be.

The times when he holds me tight
Just close enough to feel just right;
I wake, then scream in hard cold spite
Just how cruel our life can be.

The day when your ancient old cat dies
The crude old sweaters your grandma buys,
That's when you come to realize
Just how cruel our life can be.

Dressed in liquid reality,
Flames fanned by false equality;
Yet sometimes we may never see
Just how cruel our life can be.

Her brown eyes crept up to me.
Delicate and wide.

I could see the love of her mother,
And pride of her father.

A universe stretched out farther then the eye could see,
Filled with shining stars,
And faceless scars.

Her stare had an ingenious beauty.
Like a meadowless daisy.

Her glare had an artless grace,
Like colorless vase.

This glow was naive from the broken lives,
Wondering on this fallen world.

This credulous light,
Waiting to be ripped by jealousy.

I almost wanted to hold her there,
Away from the horrors in life.
Far from Apollyon's hands,
Like a guardian in the night.

Her innocents daring to walk on this thin rope,
Called hope.

Then, I saw with my waking eyes.
A white aisle covered by heavens flowers,
Congregations starring at her beautiful smile.
Oh, what a lovely mile.

For, there I knew
Her life was a magnificent design-
That wasn't mine.

I let her go into the hands of the divine,
Where she waits for her Valentine.

Oh, Lord I know you will hold her tight,
As she waits for her fearless knight.

Lethargy follows the facade
But I can no longer pretend.
This is how it has always been.
How it always will be.