TRYING TO EXPLAIN HUMAN
LONELINESS TO INANIMATE THINGS

stares at the wall &
cries & cries & cries:
the wall doesn't understand

lonely  basement flat
the 5 o'clock train rattles
the broken teacup

apple on table
your smile bitten into it
you...no longer...there

Time melts away like
a Dali painting,
and my mind flies north;
a Canadian goose against the
loose gray sky,
freer than any man's ever been.
Yesterday, I was a
melancholic little one, feeling all of
Seasons in the Sun, on the radio.
5 years old, in the
backseat of my mom's black Plymouth.

Mom's gone.
Dad is too.
I'm getting old, but I will
never stop searching for that
gold in the heart.
I'm finally the simple prairie man that I
always longed to be.
I smell the autumnal night, and it's
nothing but cattails and bass from here until
that big orange fire paints the
west end of the lake.

On my journey to my grandmother’s, the landscape holds my attention with subtleties.
Muted hues of soft lavender, pale brown, and ashy green painted outside the dashboard. Everything peeking out from a gentle coat of dust.
Yellow weeds and thistles dot the golden hills.

This corner of the country feels like a cherished family heirloom. The color palette resonates with my only sense of familiarity. Maybe it is my fixation on the colors themselves that buffer any sense of grief I carry towards instability.  None of us in my family have claimed permanency in structure. Yet, my grandmother’s home is a sanctuary.

CROSSING THE BORDER

I smuggle you
despite your death
across Life's borders

here I hide you
between the in-
breath & the out-breath

hidden in
the silence
between note & note

the space
between
word and word

so death will
never find you
ever again

the sunset starting dimming
and i thought of you.
i thought of how you weren’t going to last forever.
i thought of how you were a fleeting moment.
but i can’t help but admire the beauty.
i can’t help but admire how perfect you were.
how perfect we were.
even if it was just for a fleeting moment.

my tears look prettier
falling for you.