The sharp-toothed cliff stretched on endlessly  
below me, as I stared down upon waves in throes.
Crashing into the jagged embrace relentlessly
sliced across the rocks in dripping repose.

Each new crest broke from the howling sea and
felt infinitely far away the moment it was struck apart,
the swells rising up, for the briefest moment,
seemed to crash in tandem with the beat of my heart.

It felt like I was sinking. And floating. In a breeze
of acute warmth from autumn's breath — grasping
in a way that left me lost somewhere between her and me.
Nothing, in this light I woke up in, felt lasting.

And I wonder, if through all of their thrashing, each wave
will die down to be swallowed. In a deep, dark, grave.

White feathers of snow tufts
plume themselves upon icy branches
marred by frost's biting advances,
stoicly waiting to be sloughed.

Rainfall in a torrential downpour
crashing upon all of the branches
cascading waterfalls of second chances—
again and again, drop to the forest floor.

Sparking flickers of light through clouds
can only barely illuminate the kestrel
that finds fit to prey on the sparrow I let slip.

Midsummer draping me in a lethargic shroud
swaddled around heart and lungs to slowly settle,
the lucky charm momentarily escapes my grip.

Where in this sea of flowers did you see yourself?
Climbing into it, you weakly pulled yourself into
the blossoming petals, too frail for what you must do.
You could only lie down, and cling to what you held.

You left your heart, long ago, in the mountains,
and I wonder if it ever realized that the soul
it was bleeding dry for had lost all control
and rose like roots, ripped, no longer grounded.

And the sea rose up to bury you with it's swells,
cold and ebbing — it couldn't mimic a lover.
But it was your only embrace in these last rites.
They had not an undertow to rip on what you dwell.
Alone and drowning in a sea you'd wished to discover
that it was in these moments you could see sunlight.

Tens of millions, like each star in the sky,
were the blades of grass that swayed the valley
like a wave in a storm thrashing side to side
buffeted along by this ennui-draped gale.

A far-drawn wind that I know all to well
fluttering, fluttering. Given up only in part.
I've spent every sad song for Summer's farewell
so Autumn may come and stab deep into my heart.

My eyes rested on the dew while waiting for sunrise
as if some sort of light or warmth could rip me
from these tightening and tightening thorn-ridden vines,
as if respite would make up for a heart sunk at sea.

But for every constellation that faded from the night
I saw through mountain jaws into brightest light.

Whispering, through labored breaths to lonely tree
I painfully pour out the last of my heart.
While the dying breaths of the wind-rustled leaves
whimper back laments of their death. Do we have to part?

Tears, down a pallid portrait, lethargically seep.
Each one as impermanent as the piece that they paint.
In a ragged voice, I cry out for what I know I can't keep.
For what I know will break me beneath it's weight.

The river's run becomes stronger than my weakened breath,
who do you expect to comfort here, naive stream?
You sing with the crows and you'll sing past my death
but it seems very well, that you'll also sing with me.

There is a fading set of footsteps in the snow ahead.
One's path dying with each snowflake. I step aside instead.

It felt as if I was endlessly careening.
Spiraling downwards among ripping winds;
my eyes helplessly watched everywhere I'd been
float upwards like they were only a passing dream.

Breath too bated. Choked throat. Unable to scream.
Lethargic and spent, nerves in rapid descent
with hands, white-knuckled, too cold to close when
threads unraveled, began to come apart at the seams.

Springtimes's last blossom is always just as sweet,
even if it's the harbinger of flower's final fears.
Let me land among fresh dew to enter listless sleep.
Like the petal fallen from it's tree I'm now-incomplete,
cascading to a callous ground as winter's jaws near
knuckles too used and weak, to grip what I must keep.

Ice cold winds crashing upon
seas of chrysanthemums
while early dawn evanesces
to frosts's effrontery.

Sparks like stars reflected
in the seas of your eyes
painted drearily along
your placid expression.

But just like the bluebirds, you
will not always come back.
Swallowed deep by sorrow lest
I forgive the sparrow.