The sea is still today
It's cerulean blue and gold
I think of the thoughts it carries
Within its hidden folds.
Its touch is soft and gentle
It soothes the ache of years
But I wonder how many waves
Are made from fallen tears.

It is the silence
between strikes
of lightning
that gives
thunder any
real meaning
but that does not mean
you shouldn't speak

I fell in love with you
the way the sea fell in love
with the shoreline:
relentlessly trying to reach it
but
always being pulled back
by the tide.

I used to be a Glock 40,
my aim impeccable.
I made the decision,
I pulled the trigger,
I hit my target.
Lately, I've been a musket shot;
unpredictable,
and somehow even more dangerous than usual.
I miss the center and wind up somewhere in the corner of the paper.
Dust flies from the shrapnel
where I used to have a single trail of smoke indicating the bullet, crumpled but whole,
placing a hole where I wanted it to,
and one unbroken shell, slightly charred,
dropping near my feet.
But here I am watching people take cover
as my pieces go flying, destroyed by my own chaos,
tearing anything and everything apart in its path.
I used to be deadly but precise.
Now I'm not sure what I am.
I'm certainly causing damage,
but more to myself than anyone else...
I confuse and startle people more than strike fear in them,
and that's insufficient...
I want to be better,
but I keep going off without warning,
and people avoid me to avoid getting hit,
but they're not scared,
they're simply learning,
and I don't know how I feel about that,
maybe I'm not a gun anymore,
maybe I'm the target,
I certainly feel like a piece of paper,
flimsy and vulnerable against the onslaught of lead,
blown to bits and drifting off in the cloud of dust...
maybe I don't want to be a gun anymore.
I certainly don't want to be a target.
Maybe I don't want to be a pistol
or a musket
or a bow or a knife or a clenched fist,
maybe I want to be a person.

My father walked me down the aisle,
But my mother held my arm.
He went with me,
But we went not towards the altar,
But towards the door.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And the ***** rang through the church,
Humming through the elaborate crown molding,
Carved by my ancestors.

He went,
Not beside me,
But before me,
And I watched,
As he was illuminated by the bright,
Overbearing,
Texas sun.

My father walked me down the aisle,
But I did not wear white.
My father walked me in silence,
And I shed tears not for a man standing at the altar,
But for the one I would never see again.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And no veil obscured my face.
All eyes were upon me, but not for my pristine beauty,
Instead for my clenched jaw and furrowed brow,
Severe and fierce to distract from my glassy eyes.

My father did not leave me at the end of our walk to sit beside my mother.
She clung to me for support and sobbed breathlessly,
Loudly,
Unavoidably,
And I carried her with one hand,
My sister the other,
And walked towards my future.
A future family,
Not one person more,
But one person less.
I walked,
One final time,
With him.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And I will never forget it.
Hundreds of eyes isolating my family from the crowd,
Slow and muffled sounds drowning in the deafening beat of my heart,
Blurred faces staring,
Black heels clacking against the cobbled path from the church,
The anguished wails of my mother,
The whimpering of my sister,
And the wooden box that glided before us,
Pulling,
A string tied to our patriarch,
The pin key of our family,
Pulled taut and then snipped with the slam of the hearse doors.

My father walked me down the aisle,
Before I had a chance to grow up.
He walked me,
Out of the church,
Away from the altar,
Never to be walked again.