The tree with a hundred years goes
Fires, wreckage, wind and snows
And bears so well it can't be heard
Not by men, beast or bird

The tree gives as a giver should
It's beauty among us and faithful wood
And the tree, silent to our woes
Stands tall when after all else goes

And the tree with patience practiced as an art
Lives better than us without a heart

1538

Follow wise Orion
Till you waste your Eye—
Dazzlingly decamping
He is just as high—

I am slowly learning to disregard the insatiable desire to be special. I think it began, the soft piano ballad of epiphanic freedom that danced in my head, when you mentioned that “Van Gogh was her thing” while I stood there in my overall dress, admiring his sunflowers at the art museum. And then again on South Street, while we thumbed through old records and I picked up Morrissey and you mentioned her name like it was stuck in your teeth. Each time, I felt a paintbrush on my cheeks, covering my skin in grey and fading me into a quiet, concealed background that hummed “everything you’ve ever loved has been loved before, and everything you are has already been,” on an endless loop. It echoed in your wrists that I stared at, walking (home) in the middle of the street, and I felt like a ghost moving forward in an eternal line, waiting to haunt anyone who thought I was worth it. But no one keeps my name folded in their wallet. Only girls who are able to carve their names into paintings and vinyl live in pockets and dust bunnies and bathroom mirrors. And so be it, that I am grey and humming in the background. I am forgotten Sundays and chipped fingernail polish and borrowed sheets. I’m the song you’ll get stuck in your head, but it will remind you of someone else. I am 2 in the afternoon, I am the last day of winter, I am a face on the sidewalk that won’t show up in your dreams. And I am everywhere, and I am nothing at all.

We don’t take in the best parts.
Never satisfied,
Never being enough.

We don’t take time to observe.
Pausing
Only for a moment.

We don’t spend time enjoying,
Little things.

We don’t allow them to consume us.
Fill us up.
Breathe them in.
Take us over.
Control over every move.

I know,
Because I’m the worst offender.

I hate nature sometimes.
Like sugar plum fairies
We dance
Around each other
Waiting for something to happen
Over power. Over woman.
Falling to our primal instincts
We are better than that
We are more than that
I hate it.
The way we are stubborn.
We are too busy fighting.
Fighting time
Fighting fear
Fighting death
Fighting each other
The hands of the clock ticks away
Death wraps its warm arms around us
But that I suppose is why we dance

I've learned that happiness
cannot be found in the form of a little
purple capsule.
I've learned that Pisa will have to wait until next time.
I've learned that the third mushroom
held in my sweaty palm was not as
big a deal compared to the other two opening my mind.
I've learned that a part of me
died that night where we ****** in a
room with no furniture.
I've learned that life is work and that
the molotov cocktail of Dubrah and eay mac
that came spewing from me left an orange tang
upon the floor.
I've learned that pain is better than numbness
and that jabbing a sewing needle repeatedly in my arm
was an educated decision.
Most importantly I've learned that together we are better than alone.

The setting was stately

Overweight, stationary, smoking
she was totally content

unaware of the vibrations
which to me, were uncomfortable

television droned

I wished it were turned off, unplugged

But she did not know

She was dead to vibrations

Please forgive me if sometimes I'm not myself

I try to put my troubles on a shelf

But every now and then I fall

When pressed against the wall

I become the darkness in us all

The troubles of this world

Sometimes become unfurled

And lead me to a place that has no name

But I try to keep in mind it's just a game

And focus on the light from whence we came

To which, we will make our returns

When the gentle flame of life no longer burns