I will miss Autumn here.
The crisp days of October, startling the remnants of summer
into hiding.
The homely smell of hearth burned pine and smoked meat
drifting from chimneys built
by long-dead grandfathers.
The battle fields will be beautiful.
Bathed in maples,
harmless blood of leaves, though the earth
still bears streaks
of death.
The grasses, drying, dying, in the cooling air
will whisper to the sojourners passing through,
seeking sites of ancestors
whose voices they never knew.
I will not be here
to slip the fallen leaves
between phone-book pages or
paste and sew them
to handmade paper.
My mother will stare at the tangled thread,
the blank sheets,
left untouched on my desk,
and ask my father
where the time went.

Guarded within the old red wall's embrace,
Marshalled like soldiers in gay company,
The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantry
Wheels out into the sunlight. What bold grace
Sets off their tunics, white with crimson lace!
Here are platoons of gold-frocked cavalry,
With scarlet sabres tossing in the eye
Of purple batteries, every gun in place.
Forward they come, with flaunting colours spread,
With torches burning, stepping out in time
To some quick, unheard march. Our ears are dead,
We cannot catch the tune. In pantomime
Parades that army. With our utmost powers
We hear the wind stream through a bed of flowers.

The sea of fans churn to your voice sounds.
I am the part in the song where it strains,
to hit the note that makes the ladies swoon.
Over the moon, I float,
swishing your lyrical lies in my mouth.
I don't see a thing but the blackness,
and you, the star.
And I can't reach you,
but I can pretend to know you
chanting your words
like a false prayer.
The music is only a street we run on,
our feet pounding against pavement
like a war drum.
And I feel your sprints in my chest,
you're heaving.
But I can't reach you,
and I can pretend to know you
chanting your words
like a false prayer.

I Like many tend to think what I know at the moment is most true,
although I like to pretend I believe I know nothing,
and use the popularity of the thought, That is what I just said
as an excuse for being self-centered.
I've become what I've feared. Just like you
But maybe you won't- as we are allowed to be different. But we're not
I know that I must unchain my mind from my own protections and coping mechanisms, Am I just your coping mechanism?
I am not just I. You are not just you.
We are everyone else who has ever touched us. What about me?
How could I hate you for treating me differently to protect yourself? Simple- people are responsible for their actions!
My hate is just protecting myself as well. That's what he wants you to believe
I have voices in my head I am not just a voice telling me to be stronger than this, Yes? and they're just as juvenile as I am. Trust me
No wiseness of years because they're only as old as I exist. But I'm your friend
They want to cocoon me inside and keep me safe but they do not know. I love you.
I do not know. But...
I do not always know the best answer. Neither do they. Or you.
And this I know to be most true.

Forgotten crosses in the clearance section-
religion has become cheap.

I hope you knew I'd write about you.
I hope.

I like to play RPGs
It's a world that is unlike my own
and I'm a character I've named myself.
Sometimes I save my progress
on a file- safe and undisturbed-
and then I wreak havoc,
make friends I wouldn't make,
experiment for potential easter eggs.
It feels good to know I can just go back
to where I started
unfazed, undamaged, unharmed.
And if I ever do something substantial
in my free-for-all joyride of side quest,
I can always save it to another file.
There are so many memory cards in my drawer.

I find myself living life this way-
but with empty drawers
and only one disturbed file.
of only one fazed, damaged, harmed, character,
that my brother named when I was a baby,
in a world that I don't like too much.
And everyone tells me it's a game-
that we all put our hours in.
I just see the option
of a never-ending boss battle with loneliness,
or a never-ending side quest with friends,
and too much damage done,
so where better to let my thumbs rest?