The beauty of paper flowers
They never wither

The tragedy of paper flowers
They always remember

Your gentle hands could do no harm
But they could let go

A paper flower never wilted

Even worse

It was discarded

I sip no more.
Not because I quit
Not because it's forbidden by the hands that raised me
Nor because I mind drinking alone.

Though the taste lingers in my mind
Warm, a fire that once danced down my throat
My feet unsteady, lost in search of the bathroom
'Cause the world spun in circles
Laying down became a brilliant escape
And eyes closed, sinking deeper into the aftertaste
Strangely, it all felt so good.

But no...
I sip no more.
The taste fades
Along with your existence.

I wonder if my cat knows
she’s helped me keep going
a few times
by just choosing to sit in my lap

sometimes I wish you could make someone take back something they said
because as soon as they did
the image you had of them in your mind explodes in an instant
they are just like Them after all,
there’s the hate and prejudice and refusal to have empathy for others that seems to flow so freely these days
no where feels safe anymore in a world where the people you love are part of the problem