My ivory gave breath to earth as it once gave to me,
How empty and how dismal would my life without you be?
My heart has put my soul to bed and still you cannot see,
How empty and how dreary would my life without you be.
And so my poisoned tears have begged the earth to set me free,
How empty yet how happy will my life without you be.

A sea of serpents slithers dead,
Across an emerald plain.
As children step upon its bed,
It leaves a vivid stain.

Teeth and tails of vipers bound
And buried in the earth,
Holler loud yet make no sound
To weep for what they're worth.

Hush the hissing howl now,
Drink wind and water sweet;
And savor serpents’ scowling brow,
As silent sounds retreat.

The thought of high school sweethearts to me always seemed so out.
You have a life ahead of you
with ample time to scout.
Yet here I stand, my here and now,
not knowing what to do;
not knowing where I'm going,
not knowing when it's through.
I'm seeing now that others are discovering themselves,
and some are putting memories and demons on the shelves.
I wish not to be consort when acknowledging these two--
naivety's a virtue and I know one must be true.
And finding now that time is ever-fleeting of control,
I'm losing sense of what is right while looking for a role.
I have nobody here with me to lend a blushing rose,
A spell upon which mind & will could melt away all woes,
woes which the other fellows, happy now,
have never understood.
That virtue later haunts me when I realize that they could,
no, surely have been tried by this most villainous cliche,
and I'll cry until my vanity is slowly burned away.
The tricks of time are scaring me.
I'm not sure what they mean,
but the time I thought I had is feeling null at seventeen.

It tipped me off to the merry-go-round

under the smiling sun.

The gumdrops stained with honeydews

were taming them for fun.

You quivered under frosted light

just like a Christmas tree,

and twisted in a merry shape

with quiet harmony.

I cannot risk it being known,

however red I bleed,

that standing there before my soul's

exactly what I need.

And so I scribe this turnabout

with flick'ring eyes askew,

As snow falls on my eyelashes

I'm waiting here for you.

One,
I've heard it said that heartstrings can be tugged,
Jostling not only what dignity we may have left
But also the hope that any lies ahead.
A better word perhaps would be something more cutting,
Strings that are tugged can be shrugged,
Mine were nearly ripped.

Two,
As my sanity starts to kick in,
I hear it spoken and I give in.
My heart starts to cry and I want to shout "Yes!"
But they're right by my side and tend not to agree.
And I wish that my life had a storybook ending,
Before grasping the end of the line.

Three,
Again, it's asked of me,
And this time it's almost spoken.
They're beside me again with their smug little grin
Shattering what has been broken.
And I know that in time we may be in rhyme
But for now any rhyme is a shadow.

Four,
I hear those words that trigger the clot in my heart.
And what did I see?
Opportunity.
And they're not there beside me today.
So I whispered to him, with a smug little grin,
"Yes",
The correct thing to say.

Now I'm waiting for five,
But if I'm correct,
It's not even worth waiting for.
With approval of three,
And approval from me,
I feel like we've opened the door.