last night
i came home late
to my mother yelling

i tried to reason
to no avail
she didn't believe any of my words

her hand on my arm
her voice high and loud
she tried to push me inside
she wouldn't listen

tired and angry
i walked away
she followed

then i ran
and ran
and ran
and ran

till i could no longer hear the flopping
of her shoes
behind me.

i had to return later
but the feeling of that run
of disobeying
of my heart beating fast
of my small lasted freedom
is still in my mind
causing me
to want to run once more
and never stop
till i'm so far away
even her in her sliver car
can't find me

i want to run
and run
and run
and run
and i don't wanna ever stop

It was a graveyard and overcast sky
and I sat with book and accordian in hand,
hearing the world with its screams
swallow up around me.
The people whom I had loved and lost,
Papa with his silver eyes
Mama her sharp tongue and tough love
Rudy whose hair the colour of lemons
and questioned why, the living and dead,
worlds apart, yet both did not have a choice.
I stood and screamed so that everything shook
the burning rubble and ash and dust
willing my words to bring it all back
but it did not come, and my breath rose in gasps.
Death had looked me in the eye and said,
“It’s not time yet.”
I would shut my eyes to the world
only decades later.
I will understand that there was hate and pain
there was sadness
but even more so, there was love and joy.
I will know that the people I loved had reason
to kiss goodbye
whether it was their own hurt
or saw it as a necessity,
but they were never truly gone from me
always somewhere nearby,
in the thick and thin
frail and worn
of times.
I would learn
to forgive Death that day.
I will understand that
and I will be hurt,
but I will be okay.

~

Not all deaths are sad.
Some, meant to ease their own pain,
Are called freedom.
While some,
Meant to ease the pain of others,
Are called love.

© BT

there are words
hidden in trees
and growing in flowers.
there are words
between people's lips
and in songs being carried
by the summer breeze.
there are words
on our fingertips
and lingering in our ears.
there are words
left unspoken
and there are some
that were spoken
all too quickly.
there are words
in our body  
and in everything
that is alive.
because life is
a combination of words
and we're just trying
to make them rhyme.

At dusk I hang up
a worn blue work
shirt that smells
strongly of love
of dirt of the earth
melancholy, sweat
yesterday's brews
the blues, regret
twenty cigarettes
black breath
of the bone moth
old blood, moon dust
spring pollen, summer
grass, Autumnal ****
winter's cold blast
sea salt and pine needles
mountain laurel, desert air
my dog's hair, I swear
I can't bear the thought
of washing or throwing away
all the stains, the growing pains
the laughter, the sorrows
these history lessons I need
to get me through tomorrow.