"Where are your gloves?"
A man with watery blue eyes,
And steaming black coffee asks me.
I almost cannot hear him over the brutal wind,
The city taken by storm.

He leans closer and whispers,
"They are giving some away,
Under the bridge."
As if I know exactly which bridge he is speaking of.

Winking,
He continues past me on the street.
Homeless,
But fortunate in his kindness.

At first I felt so small
As the oceans in her eye sockets
Threatened to tidal wave

At first I wanted to be charming
Then I wanted to be funny
Anything to stop her from breaking her bay
and anything to keep me from drowning

Whatever man has been here before
and whatever man will be here again

Do not let him speak for you
*now

We're faking.
Happiness lasts but a second.
That fragile fleeting moment before the click of a shutter.
It fades away after your eyes stop stinging.

Sometimes, the sky is so blue that it hurts.
I can't ever reach it with these hands.

I wonder if we were ever really happy.
I try to capture your smile.
But this camera is old, slow.

We're breaking.
Photo frames slips off walls, non-existent.
I hide inside corners of doors, my hands shielding my ears.
Angry voices shake the foundations of this house.
These photographs were only a mere second of our whole lifetime.
But they aren't exactly telling lies.
We were happy once.

You can say you fell in the bathroom
Or you ran into the door
But the thing is
Your excuses are so transparent
No one is mad at you for lying
And no one blames you for the way things turned out
Yet you refuse to let anyone in
Not even your closest friends
Who want nothing more but to help
Sometimes I don't think you're hiding from them
I think you're hiding from yourself
Because the second reality hits you
It can only get worse
You convince yourself that life is okay
And that it's not a big deal
But that's just another lie you're telling yourself
To get by one more day