I sit on the bench, bathed in the sun,
Listening to water, watching him run.
Tiny feet dance where mine used to play,
And I think of your gifts—
Candy at the end of the day.

Now I’m the one pushing gently,
Afraid of the swing’s height,
But his giggles assure me—
He trusts that with me, it’s all right.

I wonder what filled your heart as you watched me grow,
I can guess the answers, but I’ll never know.
They tell me I’m the best—but I knew the best.
No praise can soften the ache in my chest.

I try, I love, I give all I can,
But your shoes were never meant for another to stand.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the same cloud twice.
They scatter in their own way,
spreading across the sky, and crashing into each other.
Without a sound they collide and combine.
They darken and release what they don't need.
A quiet blessing to some farmer in the midwest.

I was waiting for a peach to ripen on the tree.
Three days later it was suddenly out of reach;
As if it wanted to get closer to the sun.
So just a little more, its branches tilted up.
I could draw that tree each day,
And no two sketches would look the same.

I sit at my table, on the side of the street,
watching beautiful people mill about before me.
Some fought the current to buy my wares,
with a smile they disappear into the flow again.
I set up in the same spot each week,
each time with new faces to greet.

Hold me like a saxophone
In a jazz bar from long ago.

Breathe into me your soul.
Give me every reason to hum your tune.

A delicate touch
From one such as you
Could create music for generations.
So come, let me sing for you.

You dress in the morning with jewelry of steel,
While thousands of miles away, they forge bullets from the same thing.

They claim to keep the peace as they turn their gun your way—
More steel, melted down, to make your coffin nails.

And once again, you're dressed in jewelry of the same kind.

Velvet violence,
Sanguine silence.

Dripping in animosity,
Perfumed and elegant.
Divulging in toxicity,
Searching for your sycophant.

Worshiped and adored,
Never doing wrong—
But oh, the suffering caused when you're bored,
Oh, son of the siren's song.

A yearning hand stretches upward,
seeking the untouchable,
longing for the spacious bed—ever white, ever blue.
Looming, seeming in reach,
and yet, from this new hill, seeming farther,
more distant.
Am I truly so far removed from you?
Will a ladder bring me closer?
Should I climb to the roof?
It may cause a panic in the street
as I leap into the ever-blue, ever-white embrace.
I find my peace in places much too high,
but I am no winged creature.
Yet every time I've fallen,
it convinced me I can fly.

I have lived in your house of glass
The crystalline structure
Shattered
I gathered the remnants
My hands torn
My heart like the walls around me

The mud welcomed my wounds
The moss engulfed me
Embraced me
I collected what it gave
And built my walls anew