A winter chill
Fogs from your mouth,
Dissipating after a brief moment,
While the sound
Echoes
From soft lips
And closed eyes,
Allowing your sense of touch
To be your mind’s only focus.

A lost art
You’ve come to appreciate,
Flows through you
In the night.
Goosebumps roughen skin,
As a chill runs along your back
From the breeze.

Your button-down curtains
Have opened up,
And the moon's gaze
Is the only entity
To be witness
To such a sight.

The letters
Fingertips write
Across bare skin,
Drives a longing
Towards the edge of sanity's cliff side;
I wonder if you’d trust the fall,
Letting the breeze
Wander further down below.

I wonder if you enjoy the wind at all,
From kissing lips,
Paving a road
To destinations unknown,
Or animalistic eyes
Smiling up,
Locking this moment
Within the iris,
Craving your love.

Desperation
Is a bitter smell
That clouds the mind
With illusion and mystery,
But I wonder how
It could make
That smile of yours
Unfold.

I wonder if you want to boil over,
Or if you want to be still,
Stay blush from
This winter chill,

Staying safe,
Keeping the temptation
From leaving your embrace,
And hold tight
The drum
That beats wishing,
And be atlas-stone cold,
With a spark
Blown out
By the winter chill.

It never ceases to amaze me,
How lucky I am to be living today,
All the things I take for granted,
That others in history never dreamed of.

Pale light floods through my window
The moon reflects your light
So I know that you're still shining
Even when out of sight

It's a small but beautiful thing
That something so far away
Unaware of my existence
Can make me feel that I'm okay

Now a light appears behind me
As I gaze at the moon out of my window
Someone just beginning their day
Is texting to say "hello"

I'm eager to respond
As I tap this small glass screen
As we talk a world away
I still feel heard and seen

It brings me some small joy
To imagine how they react
How their face too lights up
When the screen is no longer black

I rarely get to hear your voice
But I don't feel the need for mine to be heard
I still feel love in your messages
I see you between your words

It's hurts the brain to think about
It's heavy on the mind
From across our small blue planet
You can still say "you're mine"

I'm glad that we're alive today
With the chance that we've been given
To meet a beautiful soul from across the world
That reignites my love for living

I'll be waiting by the phone now
Until your name appears at the top
To see "I love you"
And "I'll never stop"

I am winter,
Breeze, chill
Cold.
Brushing through
Trees fingertips
Killing
With every kiss I blow.

I am the water,
Pouring into hot oil,
Burning and tainting
Skin that immediately regrets
Holding.

I am the void
In your heart
You cannot ignore,
Giving false hopes
To drive you further
Beyond even trying.

Breathe into me,
And give me life.
I am the shadow
You call your friend
When you lie down your head
Unto empty sheets
And your single pillow.

Maybe you will hate me,
Maybe you will hold on,
But I will always be a part of you,
For I am your creation after all.

The sky is still dark
It's early morning
The smell of dryer sheets fills my nose
As I grab my scrubs and head to the shower.

The warm water runs down my body
Drips from my hair
As I think of all I might do today
How to save and heal lives.

I've put in the work in class,
I've studied disease processes,
Their cures and treatments,
The proper assessments and labs.

It's all so abstract on the pages of textbooks
A disease exists as a concept in my head
The treatment plans seem so simple
And so straightforward.

In the simulations I've done
Everything is controlled.
As long as I do everything right,
Everything will turn out fine.

Now on the hospital floor,
I receive my assignment,
And the paragraphs from textbooks come to mind,
As well as the practice questions and simulations.

But walking into my patient's room,
The conditions and diseases I've studied,
Are no longer conceptual.
A living human being is suffering.

Checking the labs and diagnostics,
Just how uncontrolled real life is,
Begins to sink in,
And the reality of inevitable failure sinks in.

In the hallway I gather myself,
As I grapple with the new reality,
That I won't be saving lives today,
My assignment is to make what's left as good as possible.

My sudden change in perspective,
Is nothing in comparison though.
My patient has an adult body,
But the mind of a small child.

During one of my routine assessments,
My patient winces,
Unable to verbalize their pain,
They strike their head and cry,


"What did I do wrong?"


My heart breaks.
This poor soul,
Cannot understand that a disease,
Is not a punishment.

They cannot understand,
That something indifferent,
Without intent or thought,
Has begun to end their life.

How cruel…

All I can do is hold their hand,

Give them medications to dull the pain,

And wish that you could understand:

You didn't do anything wrong.

An image tells not of the experience.
A tree in the forest
With the proper exposure
Can draw people to stare,
But the point is missed.

The ones staring
Are in awe
Of someone else’s experience,
And are too comfortable,
In their current state-of-mind,
To face nature’s posture for
Themselves.

We’d rather just live secondhand,
Than live in the moment,
But an image tells not of the experience.

How does it feel to stand alone?

With nothing but a stem
And a bud unbloomed,
You are cast in shadow
By the mist
Of the tall trees
That outshine you.

The sun finds them,
Doesn’t even acknowledge you,
Even though those trees
Are the reason for the shade
In which you uphold your residence.

It wasn’t something that was wished
It was given,
But not all presents received
Have much thought,
But the mind accepts them
Because it’s better than receiving nothing.

Gifts of putting you down
In an attempt to make it harder for you to grow,
Wanting you to be exactly what they want,
And never what you deserve to be.

Animalistic men pry and **** you
To drag you into the dirt
With the rest,
Because we are all slaves to attention,
And I’m ashamed to tell you,
Sometimes that’s all you’ll get.

But you should know,
You aren’t like them;
Trying to grow tall,
So that the sun can see you
Isn’t what you need,
It’s what they made you believe.

You are a flower,
Soft and sweet,
Juxtaposing the rough
Trees that try to outshine,
But they know deep down,
They aren’t made like you.

A flower
Doesn’t need the sunshine
To illuminate the darkness around
And to warm the ground enough
That not even the snow falling from their branches
Could make it wilt.

And you are one such flower,
If you decide to be,
But I wonder how it feels to stand betwixt
Such an undeserving crowd--
I wonder how it feels to stand alone,
And I question whether you’ll be so bold
Or if you’ll hide your wonderful bloom
From the world;

I hope you’ll find
The self-acceptance and trust within
To show them what you are made of
Because what you deserve is better
Than what is given.

What an ugly state of things.
How did something so gruesome
Come from something so serene?

Blades were exchanged the day
We said "I love you" and then turned out backs,
But deep inside I feared it'd always end this way.

You stabbed me,
I stabbed you back.
Who's Caesar and Brutus
Just depends on who bleeds more from the attack.

We're just no good for eachother,
But we can't share the blame.
It's hard to believe I ever loved you,
But I guess neither of us are the same.

Now we look each other in the eyes,
The eyes I used to see my future in,
While we tear open all new scars
Before any healing can begin.

Somebody's gotta be the villain,
Nobody wants to be the one who got off easy.
So now we fight to be the bigger loser,
So people will know by what they see.

It doesn't matter who drew blood first,
It only matters whose the last to stop bleeding
In a bitter war of attrition,
With someone I said I'd love til my heart stopped beating.


Pain is no competition,

Because there are no winners.

There's no greater pain,

Or pain that's less important,

The pain you feel is as severe as you feel it is.

Don't get caught up in a losing war to try and leave as a victim.

Don't fight to be the biggest loser, so you can throw the biggest pity party.

Don't minimize other's pain, because you haven't lived a second in their mind to know how they feel.

When someone shows you they're hurt
Think of them first

Pain is no competition.