I have traveled back in time
Or maybe I have dreamt this place in 1987

A bank
My mother a teller
In the middle of a divorce
Or maybe the divorce hasn’t happened yet

My father walks in
He is a security guard
College dropout
Ex-marine
Loves fighting as much as I do

She never went to college
Maybe she thinks he is mysterious
He prevents a robbery
Beats a man in the parking lot

He flirts with her over a coffee break
And this is the part where everything goes fuzzy
Because I could never see my father as a charming man

I want to tell them to stop
If love at first sight
Cared enough to have foresight too
They’d stop

Maybe they were nice people once
If we all knew what we’d one day become
We could fix things

I want to tell them that they will have children
I want to tell them about the things that they will do to these children
And then to themselves
And back and forth and back and forth
Like a pendulum made of knives and soft things

But I do not exist in this place in 1987
And even if I did

I want to live
I want to live

Her hair smelled of the sweetest fruit and fell on snow white skin
Her lips he wanted to devour, they were so soft and thin
He gazed into her eyes so blue; like deep caves of sapphire
And saw her soul so pure and true, dancing deep inside her
She gave a coy smile, his heart skipped, a beat never returned
She felt his joy envelop her, and of his love she learned.
She threw her arms around his head and laughed a seraph's song
She gazed intensely through his soul and then their loves were one.

They would not defend it -
dangling over the gate, split nosed –
the fall I watched from inside,
so jealous.

They would not reason it;
splint in the accident
of the wasp pumped crimson
lip, nor my lopsided

forgiveness for smacking
the backs of their laughter
so. They would not look
away

from the wind that ripped
my threads of hair -oil
slick - the slate of
what became so readily

an excuse to cry. Their
eyes became the
grinds in my cheek;
a pummeled day

where fists would grace
and I mapped my desk
with what they wouldn’t
do; the lines of every taut

lesson  I held thick,
the thumb pounced athletic  
nib of my pen
crawling my arm

with schools of red fish;
itching arithmetic.
How could they know
which colours I use

to dot the I;
that spot
being so readily marked
with their X?

A pair of eyes can hold more than a thousand lies
some of the deepest darkest ties
these eyes can show skies
skies that hold secrets
little whisper winds
Of what makes up a face
a face of beautiful
a face of grace
a face that holds no regrets of what race
Racing lips
lips that can contain the words to be put on a page
lips that make a cage
a cage of rage
waiting to be unleashed from
the tongue like a stage
Still holds less than that of the Eyes
eyes like the darkest skies
eyes of a deep and haunting demise
A pair of eyes are the window to a soul
a soul blackened by change
a soul as darkened and deranged
as change
a body the greatest of all machines
It can endure heart break
it can recover recover from fake
it can give
it can take
But most of all it can make
This body
This mind
This soul
Made of many things
Most of them being
These secrets hiding behind
These
Green
Eyes

The late-day light slants in through
the large, framed window and onto the couch where I sit again.
I watch my Abby lean against the back and
squeal with joy as she points towards the tall trees
dropping pine cones and needles and filling the air with yellow dust.


"Dance! Dance!" she chimes while the trees continue to sway.
A sober smile spreads itself across my face
because the contrast lays heavy in my heart.

The air is thick and stuffy even though the wind outside blusters with
the warmth of a young Indian summer.

My grandmother sits pale and broken in that chair.
there was a time I sat there with her
delving deep into tales that took place so far away.
Her soft, careful voice lulling me
like the trees were lulled in that wind-

And there were times that I lay outside with my sister
our hair ratted with autumn leaves and pine needles
on a carpet of the greenest grass.

We would lay there, trees swaying above us,
shrieking and giggling nervously when they would bend.
Clutching hands we would laugh nervously and say
it was just a game.

And Grandma would call us in
to soup and sandwiches
made with such care
and over chocolate milk
we tell her of how the wind had snapped branches off the apple tree
and we had found a perfect bird nest with feathers still caught in the twigs

As she listened her eyes would widen with interest and,
at just the right moment, her hand would flutter to her heart
and she would gasp with such sincere surprise
that my eyes would meet with my sister's and we
would choke back a chuckle with a smile.

And there were times when I would snuggle deep
into the cleanest smelling bed linens and
Grandma would pull the quilt up over me to my chin.
"Goodnight my Angel," she said.
But in her eyes I saw the real angel
as she bent to kiss me softly on my cheek.

The smell of her face cream always lingered on my cheek from that kiss.

But now she sits
tired and broken
in that chair we used to share
and watches my little angel
young and vibrant
giggle at the same swaying trees
in a different age.

As the sun is setting, coloring the sky,
as the waves are crashing, as the tides rise high,
as the wind is blowing through the grass and trees,
and all the worlds creations seem to be at ease,
the sound of my guitar and my feet on the sand,
breaking through the music of nature and its land,
seconds turn to hours as our notes combine,
natures wind and waves together go with mine.