Dear Autumn,
I feel that with the arrival of you, my favourite season,
I have found myself on a path that I wanted to never again tread.
Whilst your leaves are falling, they do not crunch
like they have in the years that have passed.
And it's started to rain, Autumn. The novel that is my life,
it detests the pathetic fallacy you provide.

Last week your wind forgot me, forgot to fill my lungs
with life and hope and I still struggle to breathe.
I did not shake because of the cold, Autumn,
but because of this cave, full of puppets and shadows and -
Autumn, I am not rooted any more but I'm not free.
And I fall, Autumn, like the rain and like the leaves.

My daughter called today crying, and said
"I miss you daddy, when are you moving closer?"

Any other day

I would just tell her "I'll be there soon, baby"
but those words seized up in my throat
and refused to pour from my lips

On most days, I would tell her
"Baby, Sometimes you have lay the foundation,
before you can build the house" and her
sleeping on the floor and giving me her bed to sleep in
or giving me the 5 dollars that she had saved from her allowance
isn't a viable option (though a heart like her's makes a father proud)

but today

Today I was three seconds
from melting down, the process
signaled by tears that formed like lava
quiet pools meant to renew, gathering at the corners
of these weathered eyes, and it took all the strength I had
not to curl up in the fetal position and close my eyes
until the world turned black

I held everything inside for a few moments longer
just long enough to let her know
that I love her and to say goodbye
I realized at that moment that I had waged this war far too long
and losing a battle like this was not the end of the world, so today  
I held up a white flag in surrender, and gave in

There's something about crying, it's like hitting the reset button
it buys you a few more days before the next breakdown
before the next time life tries to break you
So I cried in my car, alone....

*because today she needed to see strength
and not the cracks in my armor.

It's when I'm tired, sad, and lonely
The thoughts come creeping back
To destroy me at my weakest

"Surviving solely
On caffeine and nicotine
Hazy baby
Crazy maybe
But I am a being
Forever being."
- The way I use to describe my daily muse

Terms are the worms of the garden of expression;
Words must be chosen in the utmost discretion.
Through the rhymes, walking the lines
Between Romantic and pedantic.

Simple semantics-
There is no such thing.

In humanities we learn about semantics
(among other areas of expertise).
There's no humanities without semantics (among other areas of key).

The instructors instruct,
"It's easy, it's simple, it's breezy"
But the instructors don't conduct
How semantics can never be easy.

It was not in the road
that took me there
but the way my heart
always remained the same
rushing through college corridors,
open dissection tables,
woodwork poetry breathren.

Indestructible construction
of these cerebral plates
left me the mind of a surgeon
and the heart of a poet.

In the cold operating room
they cut open his chest-
blood gushing out and I could
see why sometimes a little hurt
could cause a lot of noise.
Ventricle, atrium.
A nick that ricocheted,
a word that spelled
goodbye.

There was a rhythm in his heart
and for once I could feel
synchronicity was never so beautiful;
almost teary-eyed
I could find those verses
lost between the veins,
quietude pumping out slowly.

Lost in the mistranslation
of his chest
till the nurse said

"Doctor, your patient's dying"