escaping birch tree
reverberates, ferryboat
ponders redly, gray

time walks.
giant steps
carving
an absence,
a heart shaped
niche.

time walks.
rosary stones
ground
into nothing.
not an echo
nor a breeze.

believe me
i’m not dark
actually, I’m quite frothy

like foam that teases your lips
when you take the first sip of coffee

or the bubbles that catch your eye
when a nymph child plays

ivory keys that your fingers caress
as you make music out of me

or the decadent glimmering of a crystal
that creates kaleidoscopes in the sunshine

i’d melt the icing on a cinnamon roll
and lick it off your nose

or say your brows are caterpillars
and giggle myself silly

i’ll tickle your kneecaps
and poke your sides until you collapse

the child coalesced with the woman
the medical student coalesced with the artist.

Beautiful hybrids.

I don't know what to say
Now that everything's not okay
I'm just sitting here wishing I could
Drink the pain away again
One more time
But it never helps fix anything at all
Just the thought of what's gone wrong
Makes me so sick I could run
Take that one way escape
And never have to look back again
Wouldn't that be easier
Than facing what I've done?
So say what you will
And do whatever you want
I know I'm so good at making life
So difficult
You don't deserve it
And I don't know how to fix all my faults
So now I'll tell you I'm sorry
And then we'll hang into promises
I just can't get your head to a place
Where you will worry less
Please forgive me
I'll do anything I can to right this wrong

Transform me, dear child
Show me your visions
Help me find Hope in my name.
For I've been listening
To Peacelessness in my veins.

Your time here isn't done
Battles rage without a single one won
The Lies reach past fingertips
And Truth is painfully shy.

Please restore my faith.
Say those kind words you always manage to say.
People crane their necks
For leaders left and right
But you and I know
Leadership moves forward
With flashlight eyes in the night.

I'm standing where a tree once stood,
It's branches, leaves, and roots weren't good.
Perhaps they used it for a rood,
Down in Alabama,
Where skies are lit with flames,
And chants are raised to holy names,
As though they understood.

In the park, an empty swing
Is twisted by a changing wind;
I cannot hear the children sing
Of lambs gone to market.

In the class an empty desk
Draws one's eyes to stare and rest
On a sharpened pencil
That scribbled with regret,
The names we'll soon forget,
For they have gone to market.

What was here,
Now is missing,
It's as if no one's listening;
And it began with our christening.
Like a ship I too am listing.

Here's what they'll say of me:
*He stood once like a tree.

And maybe it's a bad decision, but also, maybe it's a good one.

She leaves a cold scar where she treads
icicles hang from her teeth fall shattered
deep into the flesh of the valley sheltering
trying to find a reason to keep on living
while the remnants of her passing settle
the whoosh of her wind a dark spell of winter.