i.
you are older than the stones beneath your calloused feet, but somehow you feel young, still childlike in your naivety despite the fact that the world has conspired to throw you to the rocks below. the waves crash over your broken form, but you are still gazing up at the diving birds.

ii.
give this beach a washed up body, these waves a soul to caress. give these fish some bones to nibble, these seagulls some remains to harass. broken and battered, bloated and blue, they'd find you on the stones with the surf soaking your skin. a gift to the sea and whatever deity of death that would come to claim the spirit left behind.

iii.
alas, if only oblivion were such an easy acquisition. you crawl from the seafoam, reborn anew in your silver-skinned glory. they are distraught by your survival, but they should've known that you will not die until your time. you cannot. there are still things you must do before you are granted your end.

h.f.m.

i.
i'm always just
a remnant
of what i used to be
hollow hands holding
grains of sand that
slither out between
these cold fingers

ii.
they say we're made up of
stardust
stars that burned bright
and burned out
'till their only
remnants were
echos of light

iii.
i've changed
and changed
and changed
many times
in the years of my life
whittled away
bit by bit
like a wood carving
'till i'm the perfected form
and the remaining
shavings on the floor

iv.
spring to summer
summer to fall
these roots turn cold
and these fruits
of my year's labor
fall to the ground
to feed the worms
and i am a brittle
stick-like thing
waiting for the sun
to dispel this dismal fog
that clouds the
remnants of this mind

v.
eternally temporary
that's how it is, is it?
i won't be here
but these atoms of mine
cosmic space-specks
will remain
i will leave behind
my legacy
if not my
memory

h.f.m.

i.
You thought that the kitchen lights were almost high-beams on a freeway. Colors were crisp (too crisp), vivid as if the world were a high definition television, one with everyone scurrying around on fast forward with the volume turned up, blaring louder than your ability to comprehend. Everything was too much, too fast, too loud.

Everything was, simply put, overwhelming.

ii.
There was a word for that, you thought. A word for that feeling of detached, surreal immediacy.

Dissociation? No.
Derealization? Maybe.

Whatever it was, it couldn't possibly hold this, the whole of what this was, how it felt, in this moment, in this moment, in this—

iii.
You realized you were spiraling.

You pulled out, sharply, sharp enough to cut yourself. You looked at the blood beading on your wrist like ruby spheres of light. It was beautiful, entrancing. You could watch it forever...

iv.
There is a knife in your hand.

There is always a knife in your hand, you think, even when there isn't, when your hands are empty.

It means you're always ready to hurt someone, even when you're not, when you are empty.

v.
The world is normal again, after that.
Slowed down, quieter.

vi.
Kitchen lights are just kitchen lights, after all. How could they possibly make you think of driving? Driving fast, and furiously, reaching the speed limit and still flooring the pedal, seeing how far you could go before you ran out of gas or crashed gloriously in a blaze of light and sound and sparks and sirens—

vii.
You've forgotten where you're going with this.

viii.
You've been gone a while, you think, in that state.
You're pretty sure you're back again.

Now?
You just want to sleep.

h.f.m.

i.
it is in the nature of grief to cause pain, to burn like a candle wick from the inside out. it's fore-bearer, loss, is a gnawing hole in one's heart. passion has always been give and take, but you feel it has taken more than it has ever given.

ii.
'all is fair in love and war' they say. but what of this misery is fair? 'it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.' a seed of love had been planted, and took root, and the roots took the soil with them when that love was ripped away, leaving only a hole. such bereavement cannot be comforted with such cheap words.

iii.
love is a many splintered thing, the edges cutting even as the euphoria sets in. you planted flowers in your chest, so that it may become a garden to harbor if they so chose to reside in your heart, hopeful flower child that you are. alas, the writing was on the wall, and they only grew thorns. they torched the roses and reveled in the flames as your heart withered. ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

iv.
now is the winter of your discontent, just staying one day ahead of yesterday. the ocean of your salty tears is deep, and you are barely keeping your head above the water. time is meaningless here, in the seas of your despair. your barren soul is the land that time forgot.

v.
now you know that crows are black everywhere, no matter the beauty of their feathers and the shining gifts they bring. your infatuated delusions were a far cry from reality, and you can only mourn your innocent naivety from when you believed in miracles.

vi.
you wash your hands, sloughing off garden-soil, flower-ash, and sea-salt stains. you pluck the glossy feather from behind your ear and watch it spiral to the ground. you remember. you remember. you remember. and the fiery memories swallow you whole.

h.f.m.