If you look over your shoulder,
you can catch the deep sunset's orange
and violet rays in the crisp, autumn leaves
as they prepare to gracefully fall from heaven's trees
and on to people's humble feet.

If you trace your hands over the
lovely spines
of worn, bent paperback books
you might hear the faint murmurs of
tiny excited character kinsmen,
the heroes and heroines of lost worlds, conquered
universes, and empty bleak, realities.

If you steal a quiet glance at the
person sitting at the table across from yours,
leaning on an arm, hair ruffled
in a dodgers hat, a sweater radiating warmth
and loneliness,
cradling a steaming mug of black coffee,
you'd realize that they are forever willingly
waiting for someone precious to appear
in their lives.

If you somehow find a clean, unpolished mirror
in a case carrying abundant duplicates
of filtered cameras, if you can find the courage
to bring the light up to your face, and if you trace
the lines, freckles, and pinches of red you discover
scattered throughout,
you would know that you are utterly beautiful.

If you hesitate before taking a single step
in your daily routine, if you stop and open
your mind before the flow of words can
overwhelm the space before you, if you can sing
to yourself rather than console a lost soul's cries,
if you can paint specks of color on your fingertips
and draw a smiling, gray sky,

you would find yourself
cradling the midnight blue, obnoxious,
but so sweetening and simple world,
as if it were a lost child who formed fists
to hide its crystal tears...

as if it built a well defined, unyielding
shield, to suffer the deep marks
left behind by the blows
of an insurmountable sadness.