I glance behind my shoulder
people whom I've known since 4th grade
but now don't know walk on by
I look up at the skies
see the same sky and sun
but different structured clouds
with airplanes dragging in the distance
people who are leaving for a new start
or coming home to rest or fight
I unlock the front door
same door but different lock
and same old house but
different beds and rooms
addition of paintings and flower vases
because I can appreciate art
something they couldn't ever do
I stare at my hands
they're the same but
so very different
young and vibrant
now knotted and dead
like the blades of grass
and flowers and stars
and the hair on the forearms
of someone's skinny
fat dark light tan arms
they will continue to grow on and live
while I along with the human race
will be wiped from the face
of the Earth one day
with a longing so persistent
in my heart that my soul
will bear on the way to
a better world and a better person
I dream of that other world
because I failed in making
a difference in this one.

II.

there’s a boy kissing your neck in his car in your driveway

and everything is warm.

you told yourself to never do this again, yet here you are, and all you feel are his hands brushing your hair away.

the sprinklers in your front yard keep turning on and pummeling the windows with water, and

your mother is on the other side of the front door

and your breath is heating up the windows.

it is summer. you’re twenty and irresponsible, wild and reckless. you’re hanging off the cliff by the tips of your teeth and you keep on losing the moon.

there isn’t much time to think past split-second decisions and sometimes you find yourself

curled up on the kitchen floor in the early hours of the morning: clothes rumpled, makeup smudged, shame wrapped around your shoulders

like an old blanket, like a machine you hope could fix something.

the clock on the stove is frozen and blinking, green light casting strange shadows in the room

and you’re so tired, and you’re wondering how you could ever make him understand.

I bowed before the grieving wind,
Screams streaming through the ranks of sodden planks,

Each encrusted with numb, brass plaques,
Fervently recalling every loved life lost.

I trudged over those memorial boards,
Guiltily treading on the grief borne by each grain.

Then I laid fresh brine into the insatiable mouth of the Severn,
While my loss and I contested every callous grey wave,

But we were beaten again.