Spring
A young boy runs through the forest, giggling with excitement.  He had been trapped in the house all winter: kept inside by his parents to defend him from the cold.  The boy runs and runs, driven by the boundless energy that children have.  There is so much to explore in this self-reviving wonderland, so much fun to be had.  Slowly, the boy comes to a stop.  He looks up, mystified by the expanse surrounding him.  It’s so large, so incomprehensibly large.  Buds of new life emerge everywhere around him and melted snow drips from the treetops.  He looks down and sees the small sapling of a tree.  The boy studies it, examines every inch of the tree: the small leaves, the tiny, delicate stems.  Fascinated by the simple treasure he has found, the boys sits in silence to admire his find for a short while, then runs home to share his discovery with Mom and Dad.

Summer
A couple, teenagers, stroll through the forest, laughing as they go.  The forest is completely green now, alive, thriving.  Thin rays of sunlight trickle through the cover that the thick canopy above has created and warm the cool air.  It’s mid-morning and the constant, peaceful hum of the forest fills the air.  The couple comes to the tree, larger now, and sits down to rest in it’s small patch of shade.  They continue talking, teasing each other until they run out of things to say, and then silence.  They sit together, hand in hand.  He looks at her and senses something turn deep inside of him.  She shifts and a ray of sunlight illuminates her face.  She closes her brown eyes.  The boy leans in close to her and feels the warmth of her breath on his face.  He leans in closer and feels the smooth, subtle touch of her lips on his own.  They stay that way for a moment, taking in the sensation, and then he leans back: his first kiss.

Fall
A man walks through the forest, his arm stretched out below his waist so he can hold his daughter’s tiny hand in his own.  They walk side by side, her little legs taking long paces to keep up with his larger ones.  They come to the tree and sit at its base, facing each other.  He tells her a funny story from his past that she gleefully giggles at.  The man feels an overwhelming sense of joy when he looks at her happy face; her twinkling eyes and a smile so large it shows every one of her teeth.  He has never been more thankful for anything in his life.  He feels a tear come to his eye but he wipes it away; she is still too young to understand tears of happiness.  He opens his arms wide in a familiar gesture to her.  She jumps into them, embracing him.  They stayed that way for a while, silent, until he tells her “I love you, I love you…”, once for every orange leaf he sees loftily float to the ground.

Winter
An old man walks through the forest, snow crunching beneath his feet.  He takes small, slow steps, grasping the beauty of the forest he has come to know so well.  The air is thin and harsh on his aged lungs.  It bites at his nose and uncovered ears, reddening them.  The naked branches of the familiar trees around him seem to reach up to the heavens, begging for an end to the cruel winter.  The man comes to his tree and studies it, just as he did the day that he found it so many years ago.  “Oh, how we’ve grown,” he says.  He thinks back on his life: his accomplishments, his failures, the ones he’s loved.  He’s had a good life.  The old man sits down, his back resting against the strong truck of the tree: his favorite spot in the world.  He closes his eyes.  In the silence of the forest and with a smile on his face, he falls into an eternal sleep.

It's the smell of a mild summer evening. The grass, an occasional bloom mixed with overheated lawnmower and gasoline undertones. It's simplicity and classic rock love songs; U2's The Sweetest Thing. It is complete satisfaction overall, with a pang of uncertainty niggling at that fact. It's when the windows are rolled down with the wind blowing in your face, buffeting your hair. It's the sun shining through the trees--blinking and flashing like a strobe light. Hurts your eyes. Look away. Headache.
It's hearing beautiful things as if underwater. It's having a great idea but no means When you want to say something, but don't have the words. It's you. It is all of you and thank you.

Things had already started trending downward for me and Natalie. We'd talk about new people. Old people. People like old boyfriends. Or a girl I'd met that was different in a way that no girl had been different to me in awhile. And we hurt each other like that. Or by pretending not to hear each other. Or by just ******* when one of us didn't want to, but we felt we had too. Because it was normal. And per usual, we started arguing and throwing things at each other and smoking on the balcony by ourselves late at night listening to the dogs bark and sirens.  And we grew. Grew in cancerous separation. Once it started we couldn't stop it. One day she told me something final, she'd hooked up with an ex, and he had said something about "having changed" and she seemed optimistic. I didn't give a ****. My pride was nicked, but she wasn't **** to me then. I helped her move out of the apartment, boxed everything into that tinyass mini cooper she had, put some of her stuff in my car, and drove her to her new apartment. It was that easy. We hugged at her door. She said I'll call you later. I said okay. She never called me later and I moved back in with my parents. I think that what did it is that being in love is like being a parent, the love becomes the baby, and when two people stay together for the kid and not because they love themselves as much as the baby, then it goes from bad to worse. Then they really start to hate each other. Then they don't talk for years. Don't even talk about that grown-up elephant in the corner ******* on its own nose.

Someone dropped a pen.
His name was Prose.
"Write." Said he.
"Use it to bind ideas
With its tears as the rope."
So I tried.
But my strength
Rattles on his weight.

"Let me interfere."
Said Poetry.
"Scrape what you have done
And let your heart
Do the talking."
So I did.
Now I speak
In deeper linings.

I stumble upon the root of all my problems;
The water-bearer and the fish, I suppose,
But the water-bearer was sliced thinly and eaten raw
I realized, I hypothesized, I anagnorisised;
Now, now, that’s not a word,
That’s an excersize in child’s play.
You’d know better. You’d do bettter not to;
But were I allowed to continue, I’d clarify;
You didn’t say anything?
I smiled.
Well, when you were my age, I was half of yours;
Do you remember me?
I’m not here to flatter you and you’re really begging the question.
Well, when you were my age, I was half of yours, so I suppose you understand?
I’ve never believed in numbers but these are undeniable, would you agree?
How did you chance upon such a place, such a position?
How was your day?
What’s your favourite bird?
Have you even seen a secret evolve?
Where are your eyes and your hands and your ears?
Have you felt me recently?
Dreamt of me?
How was your day?
My love, I’m trying to start a conversation.
*Well, you know I’m not here to flatter you…

It was 2 a.m. The moons rays shone brighter than a diamond in it's showcase. The 'thump-thump' of my heartbeat seemed to echo through my body. The forest was quiet that night. Quieter than it should have been. Not even a crickets back and forth harmony. Drops of sweat began to carve their way down my face. One thought repeatedly resonated  in my mind.
'Where is he?'
I started to question if the fallen tree I had taken shelter under, was hiding me well enough in this lightest of darks. I could see the moonlight dance on the keys of my cab, but if I could see it, so could he.
Snap!
I felt my heart stop beating. The sound was so close. A lot closer than I would have liked.
'Should I make a run for it?'
As I gained the courage to flee, I felt a cold leather glove on my shoulder. The glove yanked me towards him. Fear sank deep within me as I tried to shake free. His strength much mightier than mine, there was no fighting him.
He placed a cloth bag over my head with two mismatched holes cut out of them. They were meant for my eyes, but only my left managed to see through it's designated hole.
I saw my assailant.
He was not alone.
There were three others accompanying him.
All three were disguising their faces with white robes from their head to their toes.
It all came to a point at the top.
I noticed another white cloaked person, a lot shorter, hiding behind the leather gloved man.
That's when I felt it.
It snaked around my neck, it's threaded components piercing the cloth bag over my head, and jutting into my skin. It irritated and itched, but they arrested my hands together with a zip tie, so itching was impossible.
I felt one of the men grab me fiercely by the waist, and lift me onto what felt like my own cab.
I confirmed it by the yellow chipped paint out of the bottom left of my vision from when I backed into one of my clients mailboxes.
They said nothing the entire time.
Neither did I.
My tears were telling them everything that I wish I could scream.
One of the men nodded, followed by the approval nod of the leather gloved man.
He slowly raised his leather glove high into the air, confident of himself.
My stomach dropped.
I heard the cabs horn flare, and the tires squeal.
Gravity made an appearance.
I felt the snap of my neck, yet no pain followed.
The flaring horn silenced.
I opened my eyes. My vision was blurred.
The smell of my mothers pancakes, told me exactly where I was.

Instead of going out on that Friday night
she got out her old suitcase
and filled it with every memory
of the one who broke her heart.
She gathered every picture,
every love letter and poem,
every baggy band sweatshirt
and gently packed them away.
With her warmest scarf and mittens on
she hauled the baggage
down to the taxicab
and gave the driver an address.
"Here you are, miss
did you need a hand with that bag?"
She kindly refused the offer
and stepped onto the pier.
The suitcase grew heavier
and heavier by the minute
as she drug it all the way
to the edge of the dock.
Waves crashing against the wood
and the wind ruining her hair
she took one last look at the bag
and tossed it over the edge.
A single tear streamed down
her rosy red cheeks
as the tide took away
the suitcase full of broken promises.
She ran back to the cab
and asked him to take her home
where she could finally exist
without the burdens of love.
There is no moral to the story,
no real point to be had
Except that I am that girl
and I put you in that bag.

There's a really heavy typewriter on the shelf above me.
It's old. It's broken. It's beautiful.
"I wish I could use it." is always my first thought when I stare up into its under-carriage of prongs and teeth.
It doesn't fit on the shelf, and it surely doesn't belong there.
My first thought should be "That may fall and **** me at any moment", but I think I avoid that thought because I kind of hope it does. What a way to go out. Not intentional. I didn't put it up there with the intention of it becoming some sort of Medieval time-bomb, but the symbology behind that accidental death would be enough for me to be satisfied with the ending of my life.
If you manage to banish the senseless fascination with your imagination's speculation of what people will think of you if you do THIS...or when THAT happens...then what's there to fear about failure? Failure just becomes progress at that point.
There's a really heavy typewriter on the shelf above me, and a part of me hopes that it falls and bashes my skull in.

They claim I can lead, that they can look up to me.
That in a time so bleak, it's nice to see someone so strong.
I am a very weak person.
I am fragile.
My immune system is shot.
Any passing pathogen is free to stir me up.
My walls are cracked and peeling, they are a poor defense.
I've lost control over my feelings, and nothing makes sense.
The world ends every day, yet, I remain in tact.
I'm a cockroach scuttling through the motions, taking orders from rats.
No one seems to think about the life of the insect, that putrid little pest,
After the fact...
After the blast, conflict is presumed to have passed,
But life is not as we're taught it is in History class.
Sure, I can survive; I've gotten by.
Haven't I prevailed over all of the ants and all of the flies?
Still, I wonder why...
Why? wonder...why?
I don't feel like I've tried?
At points on the line I thought I had died, or at least wasted my life.
Still, I stand here, watching the others pass by.
Expressionless faces filled with blood that's run dry.
The only reason I'm not floating on is because my hands were not tied.
I'd have drowned with the rest of them if it weren't for where I lie.
The ground on which I was born is comparatively high,
Though the guilt instilled upon me is pushing me lower to the scene of the crime.
Their lungs filled with water,
Mine with wasted time.
With feet barely wet, and my knees still dry, the guilt presses harder...but I still haven't tried.
If I am strong, then this world must be wrong.
Oh, so wrong. And for how long? How long must a man pretend to be a king when he is Kong?
My legs trembling...twitching...I can barely move.
I've been broken, burned, battered, and bruised.
Don't look up to me as if I peer down on you.
My friends, my enemies, you're all becoming confused.
If it is my help you seek, I'm sorry, you fool.
Can you not see? I am no better than you.

"If you don’t have it figured out by the time you’re 21 then you're part of the plan that snuffs itself out.
Hopefully they’ll drown themselves in liquor just like their fathers did, just like your dad is doing", that ******* said to me as he lifted his watered-down poor man's scotch to his cracked reptilian lips.  One more thing I get to internalize. One more swing I have to restrain my ligaments from hurling. Don't let him see you sweat.


“Do you think that to be wise?”, I croaked.

“No, I don’t think it to be anything, and I believe that’s why I love it more than all the wisdom in the world”. What a ******' *******. "Look, I only know I am right because of how often I’ve been wrong" What an infallable argument.

"Look, you can only hope to do things that you don't understand, the only way to do the things you wish to do as you want to do them is to understand.  The only way to understand, is to learn.  Not to be taught, but to be learned.  The only way to learn is by doing.  Going into a new situation blind without any information is not a desired way to start a task.  Researching is the key to removing frustrations that may prevent you from persisting with your original intentions".

If this ******* tells me how to write one more time, I swear, I'll lobotomize the whole operation.