i always forget that winter

{poetry}

         does not wait for you.

seeking out the right a
                                    n
                                    g
                                     l
                                     e
                                    weather
                                                  mood
                                                            room
                                                                     pen....

the Sun has gone and winter lights are lost by then.

You're the bitterness in my vanilla,
the wisdom in which a black garden grows.
You hide in my cupboards, jars of flour, sugar and salt.
Your face shines up from books I'm scared to read.
Yours is the voice i can't hear on the phone
answering the questions I no longer ask.
You haunt me with stories that I can't stop telling.
Every rock, leaf, birdsong and star
a word you never finished saying.

Flitter and horsefeathers when I stub my toe
silence momentary pain,
as a deeper one grows.
So many things go on growing
As if none of them realized
without you it's high time they stop.

Frying breakfast and pipe tobacco,
signatures on my heart.
Creaky screen doors, I expect you
covered in clay, sawdust and weeds.

On and on, the common and mundane
compose a hymn I can't stop hearing.
You were supposed to be the grass that withers,
the flower that falls.
                                    
                                   How very like you to question, and appear as neither at all.

caustic cleansers eating away at
caked on ash and peeling dead skin.
silent snowfall smothering wholly
dried up earth, a new, unmarked grave.

dribbling paint slathered thickly onto
walls erasing nicotine stains.
smooth-as-silk milk blotting out brightly
the emptiness of a clear glass.

merciful fluid starkly removes
sins of a pen lost from its thought.
What comes to blank out, smother, dissolve
the murky shadows in my head?

Flesh to heal my flesh
sweet Blood slakes thirst for darkness.
here i stand: Reborn.

I wonder if you would like another child,
even one who is a problem to teach.
It's just that your manner is rather mild,
and patiently forgiving when you preach.
Would you show me the courage in losing,
valor without violence? I wonder
can I love with more than selfish choosing?
Can you help me silence hateful thunder?
I would trade anger for a head that's clear.
Teach with fire, curse words, flowers if you can.
Remind me there are enough sunbeams here,
that you don't mind me much the way I am.
Could you teach me how to live with myself
so that I can live with anyone else?

slogging through squelching mud or
trudging over frozen, terse, tundra or
wandering aimless featureless freeway
where are you now, what do you see?

how's the view?
                    
                                 how should i know? how could i know?
                                                should i know?  why don't i know? what am i doing here?

is it beautiful, this sky, or strikingly malevolent?
do these colors mean roiling heavens
brimming with destruction
                                            or is that just the sunset?

do you tread lightly and enjoy the stroll,
sprintunstoppabledown the ravine
grapple with impossible terrain?
do i climb at all, move at all, progress at all?
                                                                                No. Too Lazy.
                                                                                           Too Weary.
                                                                                                  am i not? what if i'm not? what if i'm just
                                                                                                                  s    t    a    g    n    a    n    t
                                                                                                                                                                 ?
         Dead Weight. am i dead weight?
                 am i dead?
                                                            

The Trees were once beautiful here-
until I feared                                          fungus
rotting on the inside
eating out the inside
retching from the inside
                                         The Trees were once beautiful here.

"Am I at a Crossroads?" how could i know?
                                       i follow where my fear will let me go
                                                                my fear will let me know
                                                                if it's safe to go
                                                                                                                            only safe to stay, don't go.
Fears, Worries trip down the path,
                        strip away the path
                                           heigh-**, heigh-**, it's off to work we go

was the way always so barren?
what happened to my shoes?
what happened to my walking stick?
what else have i to lose?

Though mountain I would climb
glorious stream I would hear
see swooning vine clutch lover tree;

though valiant travels I would make
                                                  --crossing marsh, scaling peak, battling desert, traversing valley,
                                                     fording river, drinking lake--

bind my eyes, blind my eyes
no pathway i may take.

the way is broken when Fear and Apprehension rule the road.