The wind used to howl,
but now it only cries.
The poignant sting of snow
used to ambush my eyes.

With Fall and Winter in a blur
all year is Summer and Spring.
I used to walk, walk with you
be pushed in a kiddie swing.

The geese were more afraid of me
than I was ever of them.
Oh, Memére,
how I miss the days together we would spend.

The sun still scorches,
but not as sweet,
as clouded with young eyes

You can’t compare a tropic spring
to dusted Autumn skies.

The pumpkins red,
lit up at night,
would glow upon your face.

In winter,
every snowflake seemed
to find its perfect place-
upon your window,
lit up with care,

those glowing,
plastic candles.
They’ve faded as the years have passed,
like sun-bleached, light-pink, sandles.

You’ve been lost,
like an age-pulled button.
Your stings have not held,
Your mind forgotten.

So I dig, I dig, through your sewing kit,
to stitch you back together.
At least for my own memory,
so I can remember forever.

Somehow I’m not as nimble,
somehow just not as quick.
I couldn’t find the seamstress in me
once you’d fallen sick.

I pump, I pump
the metal petal,
to piece you back together.
That button used so many times
in deadly, freezing, weather.

Somehow you slipped,
not just through my fingers,
but in a dreadful way, where the soul seldom lingers.

You just got worse
I cried to find
that stinking button
that was on my mind.

The final piece that would solve the puzzle
fix a confused mind,
your struggle.

Now I see,
now that you’re gone,
that I had had it all along.

The key, the clue, that wretched button.
And then it hit me,
all of a sudden.

Those trembling geese, the Autumn skies,
the snowflakes that had stung my eyes.

Those things are all I really need
to make sure your heart still beats.

Your eyes,
your chin,
your soft, thin hair,
all the answers
were always there.

Now whenever I miss you,
these gems of memories,
they pull me through.

With my growth I leave behind a shell.
A casing of the world I used to thrive in.
The past is no longer inhabitable, but still usable.
I use my memories as a flotation device in the abyss that is recurring.
I rise above my past and transcend into the new crevice that is my present.
I cannot change the past as it is set in bone.
But I can make my future fit me.
I can form my own protection
layer by layer
until all my supplies of DNA paper Mache will no longer stick.
Their glue dried up, exhausted by the length of time I've spent on earth, oppressed by the pressure of the tumulting, black sea.
Waves may break on me.
My knowledge of living my shield against depression, anxiety.
My bone hard shield saves me.
I am the chambered nautilus. I am awake.
But dream I will of times beyond 36.
What lies ahead may only hurt me on the edge because to the core my skeleton is steady.
Its weight growing heavy
Can be lifted with my spirits as if before a feast.
And dragged down to the ocean floor when realized I'm a beast.
No princess in her castle, nor farm boy in his barn
Unique to who I am, and in my niche I fit.
I may blow up.
And fall down.
And spurt salty tears.
You'd never know, my loves, my dreams, my fears.
Upon first glance I am the epitome of my life.
Upon second, as confusing.
Upon third, as painful and funny.
And as irrelevant to others as I am important to myself.
Another rock in the ocean. Another pebble. Another pearl.
Not found
Not searched for
Not hidden.

I am barely a real concept, whose perception is occluded by twinkling stardust and rust clung cogs.
I wonder of stars in galaxies, distant, growing with an untranslatable lull.
I hear my heart beat as a quasar, shifting as predictably as a deer scare.
I see three colors, 10 million shades, and only through my eyes.
I want what I don’t yet know I do not have; 20 more colors, the sixth sense, the seventh, and the eighth.
I am plunged into the vacuum that is utter confusion, are you not?

I pretend nothing. Reality is subjective. Unicorns are real.
I feel like nothing but millions of atoms of clinging earth and mass, holding in organs and bones, while knowing I amount to much more.
I touch other’s lives in a way I will never feel or experience, if only because I have ten eyes and *******.
I worry to awake from this dream of confused, polluted nature, if only because of my fear that a better may await, and I have been missed while dreaming.
I cry to remember some days what I beg to forget most.
I am a cheater of nature, a creator, a manipulator, and a murderer of sorts.

I understand the upside world that is held in the dew kissed blades of warrior plant life.
I say to the world “Be quiet. You’re thinking too loud to hear it.”
I dream of real, unaltered acts, people, and emotions drawn from a plethora of real fakes.
I try as hard as I can, knowing how little I’ve done, and how much I have not yet considered doing.
I hope for the world, as selfish as this may be, that it won’t shudder, quake, and crust over whilst I inhabit it.
I am merely the juvenile, bovine animal that will farm the future. No need to worry. Carry on.