A is for Abigail, who shared with you a kindergarten trauma and
then forgot who you were in eighth grade, like Belinda, who
left without a word one sunday morning after mass, C is
Catalina, your best friend’s ex-best friend, who went
with you to Daana’s book launch in texas, and
Enrique, who you planned to room with in college but you hear from friends
crashed his car into a tree and joined the saints, but Flores had
another kid and his man bun is
slicker than ever and Gumaro, who you helped teach
english in fourth grade is still
hitting the gym beside Hiris, even as she
works at la perla full time and overtime, beside Isabella who
no white girl would talk to in middle school because they said she
smelled like dirt, or Juliana, punching
numbers into a cash register at the dollar general thinking
of falling in love with Kruz who made a
perfect vanilla cupcake candle in home ec but couldn’t
cook steak to save his life.  
Lucio remembers kissing you on the mouth in the church
nursery but he is now engaged to a white girl you’ve
never met, and he remembers a particular
messy Maria who would draw like her life
depended on it, and a Nadia who would cry in english 11
because her parents couldn’t help her with the homework
but still kiss him after her soccer games, who no longer
bothers to call Olivia, even though they were teammates for
a decade and now she works at her own sports shop with
a daughter who could have gone pro if only.
Profe, who was a migrant “helper” at your elementary school,
laughs at it all, remembering yelling at parents in spanglish,
although you heard her husband yelling at her on the phone at lunch,
laughing when Quito broke one of the chairs that the school bought with
its 4 million dollar bond that drained money and morale, who went
out with Romani and started a band in seventh grade that took
longer than usual to fizzle out, and the bullying stopped for a while, though
Sergio would never forget how it felt to bend down for hours with
bad black bruises up his back, wouldn’t ever stop
reliving every labored breath spent both here and there.  
And Thalia couldn’t even make a living, recalling almost
forgotten days of swingsets and slurping
pelon pelo rico tamarindo under the orange tube slide.  
Her ex-husband Umberto everybody but the feds
forgot about, and V is for Victor, the high school goalie who had to quit because he
strained his wrists in the fields, like Wanita, who is trying to raise
money for her second hip replacement, like father Xavier, who carves statues of
woodland creatures for the children he could never have, and
Yesenia, who sewed and sewed until her fingers curled and her
forehead wrinkled beyond repair, and she tells you that Zaida, who made the
best tamales in town, is now gone to the saints, and no longer
fears anything, even the government and their obsession with
small white slips of paper.

So much in a name, in a hyphen, in a tilde, but no, it
should be under V—“virgulilla,” and their names should be
written in your address book but instead
they’re in a list at some office in
the States underneath “undocumented” and “illegal.”

I close my eyes and
Try to imagine all the
Impossible things—

The things that God has
Done that I simply can’t wrap
My little head ‘round—

The continents He’s
Designed, the canyons forged and
The rivers that He

Made to flow, all the
Flowers He taught to grow that
Bloom in their seasons.

The world sings of the
Power of God, of the One
Creator of all.

This world He did sculpt
All for us with His perfect
Paintbrushes of love.

It’s not raining
But sometimes words fall
Down like rain.
Sometimes they come in a
Deluge
        Flood
               Monsoon
Or whip around like a
               Wind storm
        Tornado
Hurricane
And instead of building up, they
Destroy.
It’s not raining
And the sky is blue and not gray
And instead of bad I kind of feel okay
But the fact still remains
That we sit here and say
“We need to talk”
And yet
All we do is sit here
Surrounded by the blue
Wishing for it to
Rain
       Deluge
                 Flood        
Anything.
But all we’re doing is
Sitting in a drought.

sparklers are for the people who
love more
than they could ever
be loved in return,
for the ones who
exhaust
extinguish
their own light for others
to only appreciate them
for a moment and then
be forgotten,
for those who run out in rainstorms
for people who won’t even
stay with them in the sunshine,
for the ones who wait until
everyone around them is shining before they
ignite their light and glow.
but you can’t live by just
borrowing love for an instant or
living with the
ashes of other’s achievements;
you die a fresh death every time you listen to
those voices
that crash down on you like hail until
you’re too numb to move
you’re too over it to try
you’re too cold to ignite
at all.

What is this Love?
This glorious mercy from above:
This life He gives
So I can live
How can I not worship fore’er?
O read and see—the Lord is here.

What is this Cross?
His love in fullness there displayed
So I can say
That e’en today
I have a home eternally
O read and see—the Lord is free.

What is this Tomb?
The reason He was in the womb:
To bleed and die
So He could buy
Us all back from our own dark graves
O read and see—the Lord, He saves.

What is this Day:
This day He rose and left the grave?
Let the world know
His love o’erflow?
How can I not tell all the world?
O read and see—the Lord, He serves.

What is this Love?
This glorious mercy from above:
This life He gives
So I can live
How can I not worship fore’er?
O read and see—the Lord is here.

The slide has a 60 pound weight limit.
The slide has a 60 pound weight limit and
It smells like freshly mown grass and a
Soaked one piece Ariel swimsuit—the pink ruffles that
Cling
To a toddler’s stomach rolls as she squeaks and squelches down the plastic
Into the dark blue Made in China kiddie pool
That has creatures from all levels of the ocean together
And she doesn’t care.
The slide has a 60 pound weight limit and
Has visible handprints on the sides from
The toddler holding on for dear life before
She gathers the courage to balance on top on her own.
The slide has a 60 pound weight limit and
Sits in that yard for almost a decade at the end
Of the sickly green swing set that lifts up out of the ground
Whenever the toddler pumps too hard,
And is a end destination for the intense races across the apparatus
That occur every Sunday noon amongst the Sunday School kids without fail.
The slide has a 60 pound weight limit and
Under it is one of the best places for hide-and-seek in the winter,
When it is almost buried under the glistening snow
And the toddler can’t feel her legs anymore but she doesn’t care because
She can’t be found.
At that age she has no limits, no mental restraints that
Cut her dreams off before they bear fruit.
The slide has a 60 pound weight limit,
And of the world beyond it she is only a
Prisoner of fierce fascination.

I was sixteen when the machines came.
The letters “C-A-T” screamed at me from across the street
As the harsh yellow tore at the roots of the
Cherry trees across the street.
Of course the orchard had never been mine,
I had not planted the seeds and curated the
Beautiful blooms through their short lives,
Picked the cherries off the trees myself.
But what about all the photoshoots I’d done
Among the gorgeous white blooms,
All the times my friend had walked through
The rows of trees to get to my house and
Left paint splatters of cherries across the kitchen floor,
All the sunsets I’d seen through the leaves
That made me nostalgic for things
I had never experienced?
What if I’m growing up and moving out
And can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that
These plants that have smiled at me from my
Window for over a decade have returned
To the Earth?
What if these days the
Weeks are crying when they should be glowing and
The absence of trees is simply the target of
One of those odd tricks that sorrow shoots out of the mind
That remind me that change is the only thing that’s
Permanent?
I wish that the emptiness of the field could be replaced by
Happy little white blooms
But instead the CAT machines screech and moan
And all I can feel is
The ache of old nostalgia and the
Peculiar nostalgia of the unknown.

girls like you
deserve a love that
always feels
like summer,
a love that
sings like waves against the sand
feels like freckles and anklet tanlines
smells like sunscreen and
Mackinac Island Fudge
dripping down your chin—
a love that never ends
like those rays of sun that
spray over Lake Michigan
and tickle heaven.
you part your lips
to speak and
just like that
my world
becomes
lyrical—
dipping and twisting
like a kite in the sky
flowing freely like
your baby hairs coming
out of your braid,
like your laugh as it
echoes down the
quiet shoreline,
around the chambers
of my soul.
girls like you
deserve a love that
always feels
like summer—
I pray that
your summer
never ends.

Sometimes I wish for a war
So I could hold your velvet hands in mine
Wrap my arms around you maybe for the last time
Have an excuse to tell you how I feel-
Tell you that your smile is sometimes the only reason I’m still here
That your kind words light up every part of my soul
That you are what makes me whole.
I want to hold your face and say your name
And tell you it will be okay
That even though the world around us crumbles,
I will stay.
I will listen to your fears,
Hold all of your tears,
And love the heart you wear on your sleeve.
Sometimes I wish for a war
So I could hold your velvet hands in mine
Wrap my arms around you maybe for the last time
Have an excuse to tell you how I feel-
You are
What makes me whole.

I will always be scared.
I cannot say that
I have always been nervous
Although
Now I know
This is just how I am.
I have nobody.
It would be wrong to say
Someone would care,
If I destroyed myself again with my thoughts
I am just a worthless wreck
Nobody can convince me that
I am a warrior.

Waves cleave the cliffs
The birds ride the wind
The night fills the soul
I cleave to you

The sand polishes the toes
***** tango in the sand
Stars perform ballet in the black
The fire sparks against the stillness

Waves cleave the cliffs
The birds ride the wind
The night fills the soul
I cleave to you

When
    did I become an acquaintance, an object you pushed to the side, only used when necessary?

When
    was I not the first person you texted with news, not the first person you would say hi to in the morning, the first person on your mind?

When
    did you cut me off with rainbow bruises and lightning scars, and the thunder of your footsteps left me alone?

When
    did you create that perfect storm, that hurricane, that took me away, so now I don’t even know you anymore and I don’t even know what I would say to you now?

When
    did you stop loving me and

Why?

Silent and so calm
Heads peeking through leaves and trees
Bright eyes stare, yearning

Perfectly curled caramel hair
Cascades down her shoulders,
Bouncing in time with the music.
He can’t help but savor every
Fragment of her movement as he
Traces the camera around her frame,
Capturing the dance.
She’s an actress in every sense of the term,
Her eyes sad yet powerful,
Her body hurting yet beautiful.
The music ends and she stops, breathless,
Her hair that has fallen in front of her face
Flowing up and down as she catches her breath.
“Did you get it?”
She asks him,
And suddenly he’s back to himself,
Back from the world her dance took him to.
“Definitely,” he says, and when
Her dimples break her face open,
The camera is still rolling,
For he doesn’t want to miss a second of her beauty.
She isn’t just poetry.
She is art.

The free box lies in the
Corner of the garage,
Where the crickets and the
Spiders and the raccoons live,
And the doll is slouched in the corner,
With more dirt on her than the garage floor.
Her hair is without color,
Her eyes without life,
As she stares up at the innocent
Garage salers who rarely give her a
Second glance.
She’s in the free box;
Why would anyone bother?
She’s been abused and neglected,
Despised and rejected,
And she’s finally done with it all.
She’s in the free box;
Why would anyone bother?

What I’m craving right now is a
Shot of July,
Fireworks flying high
Over this town that everybody wants to leave
But I will never get over,
Never get over his smile,
Friday night,
Pulling up in my drive,
His voice so full and alive,
Making me want to dive
Right in,
Right into the lake that’s too cold
But I’m too old
I guess, to laugh out loud,
Do something just for fun,
Be happy for no reason,
Be optimistic and cherish hope for a
Better season-
I’m supposed to be already
Battle-hardened, war-ready;
I haven’t reached twenty but I know
There’s evil in the world.
That doesn’t mean there still isn’t good.
I’m craving a shot of July when
I’m not old enough to take a shot,
But I’m old enough to take a stand,
Lend a hand,
Understand,
Witness injustice firsthand
And use my voice to try and mend.
So please.
No more gunshots in July,
No more mothers wondering whether
Her son is going to survive the night,
No more human skin grated against concrete,
No more hospital beds surrounded by weeping,
No more lives lost and priests kneeling
And children screaming for their fathers,
Both earthly and eternal.
What I’m craving right now is a
Shot of July,
Fireworks flying high,
The loudest screams out tonight
Are the children chasing each other with
Sparklers in the yard,
Not yet marred
By the ideas of the world.
So please.
No more gunshots in July.

I am on Mackinac Island,
Lying down on a big white lawn chair
In front of the Grand Hotel.  
The faint scent of fudge
Lingers on the air so I can almost taste it,
And my hair is getting constantly blown
By the wind that flows among the
Chairs, grass, and music.  
The music comes from the direction of the water,
Where an old style jazz band has
Temporarily set up shop,
Creating gorgeous silhouettes
Against the orange and pink sunset sky.  
The purring of the clarinet
Bounces off of me like the waves are
Bouncing on shore,
But even lighter than that,
Even lighter than the
Wings of the seagull trailing overhead.  
The clarinet drops in and out of sync
With the waves as the silhouettes start to
Bounce to the music.  
A distant bike bell dings,
But it matches so harmoniously
With the music that I don't notice it.  
Waves, bike, clarinet.  
Waves, bike, clarinet.  
A constant cycle interrupted only by
The saxophone and drums occasionally.  
Waves, bike, clarinet.  
The sun is set.  
Silhouettes turn to shadows.  
Waves, bike, clarinet.  
Waves, bike.  
Waves.

i. a mother stomping through the house
her feet like a herd of elephants
smoke out of her ears, whips out of her mouth,
love out of her heart

ii. lights flash like a dream
cold surface of the stage lit up
with moving hip hop souls
music reverberates and then

stops

iii. shower flowing as a waterfall,
fists against wall, tears across face,
hair in mouth as the demon takes hold
and the surrender to sobbing begins

iv. the whole town is shut down,
stores closed, championship signs,
sweat in the eye, rainbow bruises
and frozen cheers are captured in time,
in the reflection of the trophies on the shelf

You’d think that after
All this time I’ve spent typing,
That I could spell “the”.

Brain gets going way
Faster than my hands and then
Teh the lights go BANG! out.

I’m in a horror
Movie and I can’t break free, can’t stop
This train of thought from

Moving onward, but
Then my dreaded enemy
Appears on teh screen.

Teh red squiggly line,
Object of my nightmares, bane
Of my existence.

I’m forced to stop, move
Teh cursor away from teh
Train, draining seconds.

Must catch up with my
Brain, must… I must… I’m losing
Steam… then another

Teh.

My heart’s in lockdown and
I can’t break free,
I wish I could feel something,
Wish I could be me.

I feel like I’m running in circles,
Striving for emotion,
When all I feel is numb
And sick of my devotion

To the voices in my head
Who keep telling me to quit,
“Why not just give up now,
There’s no way to fix it!”

But I know there’s something there,
In the deepest part of me,
Something that still wants to learn,
Love and move and breathe.

So I will spend some time today,
And love that part of me,
And lock down all the saddened parts and
Start to break free.

Chest heaving, eyes weeping,
The tomb blurs before my eyes.
How is everyone else still sleeping
When my Savior doesn’t arise?

Oh, how the doubt roars within me,
His words now seem to me as His rotting flesh,
“I will rise on day three,”
But his body is now stolen, unless…

Dirt clenching onto my dress,
I fling the tears from my eyes,
Trying to decide if… Yes!
There are people by his graveside.

Angels they must be, all in white,
And before I can confirm their existence, they speak:
“Woman, why are you weeping at this sight?”
My anger flares as I try to control my speech.

“Because my Lord has been taken away,
And I don’t know where his body is.”
I attempt to keep my temper at bay,
Turning away to abate my boiling fears.

Then I see the gardener, and a flash of brilliance
Or desperation rises in me, which one I don’t know,
But as I open my mouth to ask about my Lord’s disappearance,
He speaks: “Why are you weeping woman, why such sorrow?”

Again the same question, yet I cannot form
An adequate response; how can one describe
The loss of Him who can calm the storm,
But now has left my world in turmoil at his sacrifice?

My anger reaches the heavens now,
And in irritation I retort, “If you have taken Him away,
Tell me where He is, and I will take him from thou.”
Chest heaving, eyes weeping, I glance away.

But then I hear my name, soft and sweet but firm,
Two syllables, a clear “Mary!”
And I turn
And my unbridled joy at seeing him turns into “Rabboni!”

I ponder for a second what it’s like to feel
Sadness, for in that split second, it’s gone,
It’s been replaced by rejoicing and zeal,
And I resist the urge to leap with the dawn.

How could I have ever doubted?
Of course His words are true,
It’s a reality that must be shouted,
Yet all I can do is stare at him now that he’s in my view.

“Do not cling to me,” he says earnestly
“For I still must ascend to my Father,
And please tell our friends this, for certainly
I ascend to My God and your God, My Father and your Father.”

It was good he said this, for I had forgotten
In my excitement to see my Savior; I’m sure
His disciples must have wondered whether their Lord had rotted:
“I’m leaving right now, my Savior!”

Sandals rubbing into callouses, lungs heaving,
I ran back to town, through the streets that
Once knew me in despair, grieving,
Hardly stopping, for I had no time to chat.

My Savior has risen, he is alive and well,
He has saved us lost sheep who have gone astray,
And although He no longer on Earth will dwell,
He will never allow us to fully decay.

I’m sure when you die he will call your name too,
With a voice soft and sweet but firm and so true,
And you will go be with Him and He’ll make you brand-new,
And we’ll all live forever from our own Easter morning, too.

let’s live our lives
barefoot

let’s live our lives like
small children,
children so precious that their simple presence
evokes tears in the eyes of the most
stoic father,
so precious that the image of them
snoring softly in their Thomas the Tank Engine bed
causes the stressed mother to smile a mile,
so precious that when one of them
pushes back the blonde, wispy hair of the other
the photographer can’t help but laughing as she
captures the moment

let’s live our lives like
children who are not afraid of nails and rocks
in the backyard, but who are
obsessed with finding that elusive
white grasshopper that their uncle
promised was there,
like children who endure countless foot baths every day
in the heat of summer but the pads still blister
and their feet still turn brown
but they don’t care,
like children who have just smelled a flower
for the first time, who have experienced the
sharp pain of a first bee sting,
like children who are in awe as a deer
peeks quizzically at them from above the bush,
tail twitching, eyes twinkling

let’s live our lives like
children who make up odd games that
they remember years later, a complicated one that involves
Patty Cake, jump rope, tag, and somehow
hop scotch and charades as well,
like children who wander away from their house
for many hours, exploring like Columbus,
drawing detailed maps of their small neighborhood,
beautiful crayon stick figures dotting the horizon,
like children who capture and dote on an assortment of
toads, grasshoppers, frogs, moths, and butterflies,
like a child who thinks the worst sin is to
**** an animal that the Lord has made

let’s live our lives like children, with a
loving and unwavering faith in the Savior,
with eyes unaltered by the
whips and thorns of life,
with minds unchanged by the
Judas Iscariot’s of this Earth

let’s live our lives like
small children

let’s live our lives
barefoot

Dancing, you are Spring;
Birds flock to see your song, yet
Night falls and silence-

Silence but for the
Stars and moon who mock us in
Our bed, our Winter.

The man was leaning back in his fancy wheelchair
So much that he was almost parallel with the ground,
And while everyone else who was
There for the church service was freaking out,
He was as still as a gym before a free throw.
His left leg was not present, his right one at an unnatural angle,
And my mind started to conjure up a bomb
That had thrown him through the air,
Away from his friends, his commander, away
From his life as he had known it.
He had large homemade, not quite mittens,
But knit sock-like articles over his hands,
Alternating orange and black yarn with only a couple of
Cute errors where orange touched orange or black touched black.
A slight grunt, a swift motion, and the mittens were off,
Revealing a left hand twisted into a fist and a right hand
In a white cast, hanging limp at his side.
His soft peppermint scent, large wrinkly face, and wispy
White beard was reminiscent of Santa Claus in the mall,
Though Old Saint Nick was never that far back in his chair.
His assistant was a frantic college girl who looked like she had lost a child at the park
And was trying to decide whether to ask for help or
Continue to struggle helplessly on her own.
Each turn of a dial or press of a button pushed the man farther down,
Until his feet were almost higher than his head.
Yet on the man’s face was the type of smile that a grandpa has
When he’s about to checkmate his grandson in a game of chess;
Triumphant, knowing, loving.
He must have seen me openly staring at his cruelly funny dilemma,
For he turned to me and grinned,
“Don’t worry about it; makes life interesting.”
I smiled back, not knowing what else to do.
As suddenly as a pitcher throws to first,
The man jolted upward, and his chair returned
To its normal angle.
With the crisis averted, church
Began, and although I tried to focus on the preacher,
My eyes and mind kept wandering to my veteran.
His one leg tapped to his own drum,
His strong voice belting out the melody on the hymns,
And a hard “Amen!” was heard every other sentence.
Happy.
He was happy.
He had one leg, two useless hands, was living in a place away
From family and friends, with much of the joys
Of his youth over, past, gone,
Dead.
But my veteran was happy.
His frantic college assistant seemed very pleased
That his chair didn’t have a repeat episode on the way out
Of the chapel after church.
He shot me a quick nod as he was wheeled out,
His wisp of a beard bouncing on his chest.
Perhaps he would have been a Santa Claus at a mall
In a different life, one without war, sadness, pain, hardship.
Maybe he could have been a more active grandpa to his grandkids,
If he had them; he could have played football catch in the yard,
Secretly baked cookies for Grandma with them at two in the morning,
Get on the roof and scare his kids hanging Christmas lights.
Maybe he could have done and been all these things, but for the
War, sadness, pain, hardship.
I know what the veteran would say to that though:
“Don’t worry about it; makes life interesting.”

She never failed to mesmerize,
The poetry girl
With the rich maple eyes.

Her jungle of hair flourished on her head,
Contained by a green scrunchie
While the bangs on her forehead were spread.

A bite of the nails, a twist of the hair,
A brush of the bangs,
And her voice echoed like a call to prayer.

She goes to IHOP every weekend, knows the menu by heart,
Lives on pancakes and unlimited coffee,
Although she has been known to dabble with egg tarts.

She pulled her knees up to her chest,
Two Crocs, one green, one white,
Her gaze as stalwart as a tree in a forest.

When she spoke, her thoughts came out like trails of smoke,
Littering the room with her personality,
Those scraps of beauty as powerful as a thunderstroke.

She never failed to mesmerize,
The poetry girl
With the rich maple eyes.

Toddlers can put green crayons in the freezer without
Anybody questioning them and I
Have a problem with that.
I have a problem with the fact that toddlers can put
Green crayons in the freezer and tell their parents that they are
Preserving
The Earth and that they’ve been learning about
Animal adaptations and conjunctions in school
And that they
Love
Their friends.
I have a problem with the fact that a
Toddler’s idea of
Beauty
Is a butterfly landing on their finger during
Recess, a snowflake on their tongue, the
Grogginess of  staying up past 8:30,
****** snacks, Dora the Explorer,
The satisfaction of scraping the
First chunk out of a tub of butter, the
Giddiness and fear at your first sleepover,
The one where you had to timidly shake your
Friend awake in the middle of the night because you could
Not for the
Life of you find the bathroom.
I’m not ashamed to admit that
I haven’t said I love you in a time that
Lingers like the smell of burning.
It’s always love you or love ya and I’ve
Forgotten what it feels like for those words to
Caress my lips, to guide my heart
Out of its cage into the
Stale air.
I want to be considering beauty like a
Toddler.  I want to be watching Dora and
Learning about conjunctions, but instead I’m
Crying because I can’t fit into my jeans right and I
Don’t know how to do makeup.  I want to say
I love you and let it
Ring in the air like
Frozen music
But I can’t
Because you’re
States away and instead I brush my hair
So many times for people who don’t even like me that
There’s no personality left.
I have a problem with the fact that you
Moved on so quickly and left me with the
Loves me not flower petal and that
Dora the Explorer is not on Netflix
Anymore and the price of Happy Meals goes
Up everyday like the age of my
Heart  
And that
Toddlers can put green crayons in the freezer without
Anybody questioning them and say that
They
Are preserving the Earth.

I was bleak
Dying upon the floor
I wished I had sought
The lost
The rare and radiant, the angels

Here

Untied shoelaces,
Untied heart,
Her words flowing freely from
Her mind,
Her black boots tapping a rhythm
Known only to
Her.
Her eyes bloomed like
Orchids
When she blinked,
And her chocolate fountain hair
Spilled over her gray graphic tee,
The messy bun
Unraveling
As her thoughts slowly
Unraveled
Themselves onto the page.

Her creamy chocolate hair
Flows down into caramel,
And the ends tickle her rosy lips
As she bites them in concentration.
Her Ticonderoga taps anxiously on her cheek,
And the wheels turning in her head;
Almost visible.
Maroon sweater against ivory shoulder,
Caramel hair against a black bra strap.
When she talks, the room melts away
And all that is heard is her accent,
The way she creates music with her phrases.
Her smile radiates sunshine,
And her eyes are a kaleidoscope,
Always changing,
Green and gray and amber specks
Colliding to make a sweet mosaic.
Poetry girl,
The universe can’t wait to hear
Your words.

I was withdrawn,
Sullen,
Angry,
Then to my forest edge you came one day,
Sailing in on a
Bed of clouds
With a rainbow smile.
Although I tried to climb the trees,
Your bed of clouds was too high,
And you didn’t dare go down into the forest,
For fear your cloud would break.
The sweet pang I felt as I watched your
Rainbow smile ascend on your bed of clouds
Would not be soon forgotten.
But as I awake from my dream,
Your memory fades
As the wisp of a cloud.

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas
Presents, presents, presents
Is that the definition of Christmas?
Cookies, cookies cookies
Is that the definition of Christmas?
What is the definition of Christmas?
Family, giving, love, and most of all
Christ.  This is what we should think
Of when we think of Christmas.

In my dream,
I walk alone, and it’s
Cold,
Windy,
Harsh.
No voices but the wind’s.
The wind begs me to sit,
And I find a tree and sit
On its roots.
A bat flies out of the tree,
A black shadow against an even
Blacker sky,
A dark heart in a dark soul.
The last leaf in the forest stirs,
And then Winter arrives,
Cold,
Windy,
Harsh.
I try to hold our memory in my head,
Of when this forest was green,
And we were new and fresh,
Warm,
Still,
Kind.
In my dream, you appear
And I meet your eye.
But your memory is absent
Quicker than it came,
And I am left alone,
Cold,
Windy,
Harsh.

There is thunder in our hearts,
Lightning in our souls,
A pounding in our chests and a
Quaking in our bones.
“Our time has come!”
The cry arises,
“Our time has come!”
We charge forward unafraid,
Into life’s tantalizing parade,
Our colors waving high
As we ride on to the sky,
Chasing our dreams and visions,
Decimating anything in our way.
There is thunder in our hearts,
Lightning in our souls,
A pounding in our chests and a
Quaking in our bones.
“Our time has come!”
The cry arises,
“Our time has come!”

You left me at dusk,
Gaunt and sad and gray,
And when the morning glow arose,
I could find you not.

The night before was faded
Like a withered rose, and
I could scarcely recall your smile,
Your sunflower smile.

Why were you taken from beside me?
I hope there is a reason, as the time
I’ve spent since you left has been
Measured and is of little worth.