water is the kindest, quietest
friend. it clings to the sunlight
that is might caresses you
softly and you slice through it,
cup your fingers and scoop
it out of the way, kick it out
behind you and chopping it
up with your hands. and its
only response is always to
hold you smoothly first,
and to heal itself after. bubbles
rising to the surface, rippling
splashes fading into where
they came from, waves of its
hydrophilic self washing
over it. it can always
heal itself.

it is not worried about scars.

water is the universal solvent
when you need to dissolve

Your soft sniffle
echoes from somewhere
behind you.

You turn around
and look into your eyes.
They aren't hollow yet,
still bright with
childish curiosity.

Naiveté is a beacon in the fog
that your small hands reach for
but instead of light they find
your thin, long, pale fingers.

You hold her hand.

Starlight has weight like water.

With frightened, eager eyes
you look at what you've become.
With hollow eyes you see what
you were.
She wants to grow
up but you want to grow
down, away from the
starry eyes watching you
from the sky.

Don't ******* up there.

The stars don't know a thing about you.
They watch, cold light.
Perhaps light is not the answer.
She flinches, almost to pull away,
but you are not light. Relax.

She is, but you squeeze her hand anyway.
The strange sensation of comforting
yourself,
of really being comforted at all.
She looks at you, questioning.
You tug her hand, pull her close,
your chin on her head.

Hug her, become her,
get her back. Protect her
from herself, protect you
from yourself.

For her sake, your own sake,
you don't want to
scold the sky again.

I'd drive down that road
still laughing at a joke,
with the ghost of a smile on
my face from seeing a friend's
smile,
grumpily silent after failing
a test,
grudgingly alright after a
stressful lab.
always on the road, headed home.
I can complain about the heat
and the south and the suffocation
and the big, impersonal town
till I'm blue in the face
but it's where my house is, even
if it's not home, and it's beautiful
sometimes.

I cross the intersection just as the light
flashes yellow
and in the rearview cars spill out
where I've been not a second before.
the action gets smaller as I get
farther away.
I am leaving, and everything is covering
the ground where I've passed
like nothing is different
because nothing is different.
we pass through intersections
every day.
we have to get where we're going.
we leave things behind.
sometimes we don't come back.
intersecting lines that never
cross again.
parallells would be different;
to not know what you're missing.

members are stronger
in tension than in compression.
once in tension, always in tension.
pulling separate ways
destined to long
from afar.

we pass through.
we cross over.

sometimes we don't come back.

I can't stand that.

dark.
grass, soft and itchy and cozy
an ugly christmas sweater
that you pull eagerly over your
head and snuggle into.

I can reach up and
swirl my hand in a puddle of stars
and wach the ripples of
starlight.

a ladder to the roof,
to the sky
the grass is below,
the sweater is discarded by the
fire — too warm
for it but it is remembered
fondly, its woven green fronds.
energy of the logic circuit burns
everything in acrid scent.
but it's not forgotten.
cozy, off to the side.

I can reach out and clasp my
hands around the moon, obliterating
the light, but it won't be dark.
hard to see,
not dark.

I can let my hands open
and let the orb of light
roll, eerie and slow,
out of the sky

it will have a soft landing
a sweater woven of grass
and darkness

do they glow now?
do they glow with the
light I brought you?

darkness is soft
softly hiding itself
in the quest to hide everything
scary that has ever made us
afraid of the dark.

light asks, softly, to be looked at.