With every step
I can feel the cloud of heat around me
growing stronger.
It’s been so long since I’ve
heard my own footsteps here.
This is my favorite silence,
light buzz of dim lighting,
a door close every now and then
on the floors beneath.
I retrace every year before me
with the words I carved here.
This is embarrassing.
Every letter reveals a person
I feel I’ve never known,
pathetic in self-pity,
A mirror to my past
whose reflection I don’t recognize.
I’m glad she’s gone.
A while ago I tried to scribble away
some of my stories,
but my marker was so weak.
They are a part of me.
Beneath one of them
I notice a stranger’s replies,
but they are only that:
words of a stranger,
meaningless without an identity.
I remember why I stopped coming here now.
I stopped needing it,
because I couldn’t find my answers up here.
I’m not sure I ever did.
I guess you have to know what you’re searching for
in order to find it.
So, instead of prolonging this reflection,
I descend to fresh, evening air
and breathe in the thoughts
that brought me back to life.
That place only strangled me peacefully.
A gust of wind places it’s palm on my cheek
and utters,
“Chin up, dear,
the world needs you today.”
So, I walk away quietly.

This place is my release,
A white screen in front of my eyes
waiting to be filled with a story
that emerges from the tiniest thought,
the most fleeting sight,
the most faltering emotion.
Whatever shoves me around,
whatever makes me fly,
this place keeps me grounded
to where I am the safest.
And sometimes,
when I don’t know what brings me here,
I just listen to the clicking of the keyboard
held prey beneath my fingertips,
hoping to see the answer reveal itself.
That didn’t happen this time.
My heart hangs heavy in my chest,
held there by cages of bone and blood,
swinging from an avid artery
back and forth,
back and forth,
like the ticking of a clock
tracking the time till I explode.
Have I detonated yet?
Maybe, when the clicking stops,
it means I’m whole again,
without needing to learn of what ails me.
I have nothing to say here.
I have yearnings of freedom
crying through my nerves here.
May they release with these words here,
calm with these words here,
rest with these words here,
so I can go on with the earth here.
Can it stop me from unease?
Will my eyes lift again
to the beat of a heart left floating?
I still hear it,
the clicking of the keyboard
held prey beneath my fingertips,
held pray beneath my fingertips.
Can it lead me out of this one?
This place is my release.

You
make me feel everything,
all at once,
in ways I've never experienced.

I
don't like that.

Only darkness can show
silver collisions in the sky
that we like to think are specs.
Frosty foam greets the shore
with a smile and a hug.
I see nothing but the white,
but I know the waves
are soft enough to sustain me.
This thing called night can be eerie,
but I’m silently complacent.
Please don’t utter a word
so I can live in this.
Not even the sharp sand
beneath my feet
can distract the high
in which my mind
has taken refuge.
I close my eyes,
even though I don’t need to,
just to feel the wind dance
between my fingers,
under my arms,
and up my spine
until it pirouettes around my head
so many times
that the aroma of the ocean
takes me even higher.
There’s nothing I want more
than to have this more often than
once-in-a-blue-moon.
Earlier today
I carved my name in these grains,
through the damp, tired, diligent earth
that never ceases to trail behind.
I etched it ever-so-quickly,
ever-so-deeply,
with merit.
They washed me away.
They splashed my scars,
they showered my skin,
they dove into my vessels
until they could drag every piece of me
into the deep blue.
Yes,
they washed me away,
but they lifted my chains in doing so,
and here I stand in the darkness,
arms open wide,
face to the sky,
life in my chest.

This is what they call freedom.

Erasing me
and replacing me
are two entirely
different ideas.

One
has been proven very easy.

The other
cannot be done.

It's after you've fallen
time after time
from a short wingspan
and a weak leap,
when suddenly one day
your flap grows strong
and the air beneath you
defies gravity,
when you yell behind
at the top of your lungs,
"Look, you guys!
I'm finally flying!"
that,
with a brief glance
and confusion in your eyes,
the silence overtakes you,

because there's no longer anyone there.