January 5th, 2001
4 years old I am sledding
A day filled with fun
My parents they smile
My baby sister she laughs
All together so happy
But it just couldn't last

A phone call, so brief
Told of death in my home
My best friend, my uncle
Had died last night, all alone
Overdosed they say, ****** hits hard
His mother crying and crying, begging to God
To bring him back please, save him just once
But God plays no favorites, and what's done is done

Poison in my veins, I can feel it when I breathe
The blood of an addict lives on inside of me
Pills and cigarettes, comfort in pain
Unable to escape that nagging in the back of my brain
Because the man I knew so long ago seemed happy
Or so my younger self was told
And though I swear I know better I can't help but dream
Of giving his life a go

The shadows of love become the ghosts of the past
Found only in the smells trapped between your sheets
Friendships fade into nothingness leaving so little trace
You can hardly believe they were real
Times do change and people grow up
But every so often, someone gets left behind
Cigarette after cigarette just biding their time
Until they can again find meaning in life

9:57
Vinyl Morrissey on the record player:
Window down,
Hair riffling in the breeze.
Guitar in hand,
strumming patterns guaranteed to relax my shoulders.
Crinkled papers line the floor
Covered in unused song lyrics
And scribbled what ifs about the girl you used to love.
For a second the sun hits your eyes and you look
Fragile.
Sensitive and vulnerable like myself.
Drops of rain shoot from the sky and kiss your window sill.
I slide my hand toward yours,
Stroke the outline of your fingertips
Until morning came,
and changed your eyes from blue
To gray.

Pleasant surprises never come to me and
Pessimism is how I learned to survive
So forgive me if I show doubt my darling
I haven't felt this happy for a very long time

The wind howls
outside my bedroom window
shaking me
my heart; my soul

it screams
while you sit there
drinking sweet-smelling coffee
a baby boy in Africa
cries of hunger
and aching ribs.

while you are curled up
under warm and soft blankets
an old and lonely man
wanders the darkest streets
looking for warmth;
a home

while you hide there
surrounded by light and family
with an aura of ungratefulness
you are lost in the rays of your technologies
with a frown on your angelic face
when a weeping woman
shakes and prays
for her gone children to reach Heaven happily
but you dare forget God to a screen?

my house shakes
from Wind's agonizing words
and a streak of cold
trickles into my haven
along with the words
"what am I doing?"

somehow
my stiff legs reach
a window
and the arms in front of me
pull it open
to reveal no sound at all

where is the wind?
did he leave just as
he touched
my heart; my soul
making me waver?
or does a gust not howl ,
speak,
and isn't heard?

no
the wind was here
for how else did the once-twinkling snowflakes
suddenly freeze
and lose all of their beauty?

no one but Wind
would take the innocence
of such young and beautiful white specks
just as they landed
in this cold,
dark world

no one but Wind
would flare you with reality
enough to make you cry with obliviousness
for this wind; my Wind
he is the voice off all those
who have faced
life's stinging brutality;
him
instead of
hiding under covers
and whispering morbid lies
that
everything is okay