She’s a tragic prodigy of her time, hammered nails and spring posies
Playing peek-a-boo to keep the cards from running out
Beautifully highstrung forming charts out of tomorrow

Ghosting sunsets waking up with clubs and spades
What is the the horizon but a roll of the dice, 1’s and 5’s

She’s cloaked with grey roses spun out of lace

Stars tell the future reflected in the dewdrops resting on her pillow
Fashionably awkward and impeccably immaculate

Swansong embodied

Drinking hollow words from a hollow cup

You call me a cynic though I’m not arguing whether the glass is half full
Just pointing out not all the contents happen to be water

Giving the sword hilt first to my shadow only triumphs in gutting myself
Feeling a tad bit like Tantalus constantly grasping at straws
Always coming up short but never able to go under

Venture that fruit tingles the tongue bitter-sweet
Going in blind’s my stumbling block speak first think last

Clumsily running into walls because what’s two inches behind my heels
Is far more important than five feet from my face
Crafting kingdoms out of rock slides just to watch them crumble

Trying to head away with the fairies but too painfully observant
To drift away with the clouds but too easily swept afoot

Blisteringly blunt my mouth knows nothing but forward stutter
Spitting venom’s second nature but it burns just as bad when swallowed
Agonizingly apologetic knowing what I mean can’t cut the haze

The pesky smokescreen that conceals the landmines scattered
Always two steps ahead one step back

I once knew a girl with hair the color of oxidized bronze
We rowed in flimsy boats made of ***** newspaper
Sticky-glued together with stories of better days
Paddling upstream against the current of denial
With oars whittled from promises of brighter tomorrows

She always smiled like sunshine cutting across a storm
Laughter doves slipping from her lips
We’d hide satin rapped secrets in the trunks of apple trees
Out of the way for the prying eyes of adults

Believed if we grinned wide enough laughed hard enough
All would be forgotten swept away with the breeze
She did everything best even when she didn't want to

Push forward wanting to pull back

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In my minds eye she’s a ballet dancer
Bourréeing, pirouetteing around the demolished dreams
Fragmented mirrors her mother dumped at her feet
Imprisoned in ribbons stronger then steel

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We had a refuge none knew of “off limits” “sanctuary” “ours”
Six feet by four rusty tin protruding from the cliff magic carpet
Snaking river far-flung below our feet bubbling oh so softly
We’d sit there in robed silence like queens on a throne

Getting ready to walk a gilded tightrope, grasp at a rainbow
One will ask the other baited breath “Do you want to fly today”
Small faltering whisper replies “Tomorrow sounds better”

Holding onto the edge of the world just to see whats on the other side

Maybe tomorrow we fall