The reflection of a star
Shimmering on the night-dark water
Born in the heart of a fierce sun
A million years
Jostled by his neighbors
To reach the surface
Then - free at least!
A hundred years more
Through dust and meteors and comets
To find a tiny planet
Then reflect off a quiet lake
And improbably die
In the rods and cones
Of my insignificant eye.

Do you believe in ghosts?
Because I swear I’ve seen your eyes before.
And your laugh haunts my ear drums,
Cutting my heart up raw.

This house is built for Phantoms,
No one can get over things,
Always bringing up memories,
That make my old scars sting.

And the faces I remember,
Never seem to look the same,
They appear gaunt and tired.
As if they’ve been consumed by shame.

Your history will follow you,
No matter how long you last,
Just make sure you remember,
You can never truly escape the past.

Drop of flame stood tall,
holding its own against the breeze.
Said,"Until there was no candle,
no reason to be on its knees."

Sometimes I lie awake at night and imagine
oozing blood from the inside out
more peaceful than I have ever felt
lying there
dripping from every possible crevice
feeling it seep beneath
absorbing the fabric underneath me
like lighting a paper on fire, burning up all at once, evaporating into thin ashes, until it becomes
nothing.

Is this what being an adult is?

Staring at objects and them staring back at you
Thinking only that you don't know if you have enough energy left
To put that away, do this, do that

But, somehow, doing it anyway
Because otherwise you know nothing will ever get done

Because it is only you here, by yourself

Is this what being an adult is?
Being too tired to weave feelings into poems
And so listing thoughts out in hollow fashion

Just so you can get to sleep

gone heaven's blue palette,
pocked with whiffs of white cloud,
her last day, the sky wore only winter's grey,
she a gossamer gown, soon her shroud

an ancient arterial breach had filched
her gift of speech--her hearing, too, had
yielded to the years, though her sight was still keen,
and memory’s vault stored all she had seen:

a world at war, a man on the moon,
a child born and leaving her nest, too soon  
a husband in the cold ground, she yet longing
for the sound of his voice  

now her daughter sat vigil at her side, stroking her
ethereal white hair, her plum veined hands: her touch,
her smile, the last language she would know,
completing life’s gratuitous circle  

her final thoughts returning to her child in the cradle,
a pink, round innocence, when she spoke the same to her
with a mother’s soft touch, the easy curve of her smile  
so few suns ago, it seemed, so few