is one of those colors that is so bright and happy,
yet there's an emptiness to it.
The kind of emptiness, only captured over time.
Time chips it away, as it does most things.
We are left with the hope of the past,
the faded walls or chipped nails of a color
that held so much in it, and lost it all
when we stopped looking.

I fear I am losing him,
to himself.

He is seeing all the things he wants to be.
I wonder when he'll realize,

that version of himself,
might not want me.

the best poems, are
the ones that feel like
a punch to the chest.

they leave you
stunned, for a moment.
blinking.

I work with many elderly people and they all sing the same song.
“Honey, whatever you do, don’t get old.”
They usually say this when a seemingly simple task is too difficult.
Their bones all sing the same the song too.
A stiff tune, no rhythm, off key.
Every movement, an awkward note in a song no one wants to sing.
It makes me realize how little my body has lived, and how ungrateful I am.
On the days when I “can’t” get out of bed,
I inevitably end up swinging my legs over the edge,
And hopping up, greeting a day of possibility with grumpiness.
Oh what my friends would give for my bones,
The joints that move them, the muscles that carry.
My body is an upbeat, joyful song I rarely let anyone hear.
I feel as if my body is heavy with the weight of the future on my chest;
Theirs is heavy with the past on their back.
But how lucky are they to have lived such long lives,
Lives full enough that their body can’t recover.
And how lucky am I to have one before me…
And though they can’t hop out of bed,
I cannot count the number of times they’ve danced with me while I am holding them up.
Can you imagine? Loving life so much that you’re willing to risk extra aching and pain,
All for a second of pure joy.
Just for a second, of two perfectly imperfect melodies, harmonizing.
Just for a second, two young souls,
Dancing.

The weight of everything I am not
sits on my chest every day.
The fear of falling tugs on my legs.

I am stagnant in this life,
and I am so stuck I cannot change it.
I am foolishly wishing for the
universe to notice me,
for a cosmic intervention.

Thinking that will give me purpose.
But I am so frozen,
staring in one direction,
I never look up.

Perhaps the stars are trying
to tell me something profound,
and I will never see.

And I think that is the heaviest,
and saddest burden to bear
of them all.

i love him in way
that let's me love myself,
and that is everything