I dipped my toe in the Atlantic
and wondered how long it would take to get to England on a rowboat
or to swim there outright
as if I would be so inclined in either fashion

I've seen **** and Jane through many trials
all the running, jumping, and frolicking
never really seemed book worthy
but I read on dutifully hoping they would surprise me

Eventually, I stopped reading the adventureless series
and grew into darker theories of life
that have lead me to ponder the distance
across the ocean to Neverland in ways that I couldn't actually attempt

Safe in my unathletic prestenses, yet vulnerable in my dreams
I remember the snowbirds that chased me
through childhood summers
I remember the accents and crystal blue eyes

I will remember your face... always
but I no longer remember your name

Cradle me in your arms
and sing me into peace
drifting into lyrics and flat B's
love never sounded so safe

Invited into Dreamland
with love stories serenaded
in tunes familiar
connected through time

Lost in times gone by
begging another with restless moans
soothed into slumber
by music that still makes me smile

Millenia a moment
wishes on all the starfish in the ocean
wouldn't make Wilcox happy in love

Indivisible divisions
infinite wisdom where math and science
will never meet God

Did science create a universe or simply define it?
Where beginning meets end in pinpoints of minutia
that by definition and design will never actually meet

Cradle me in your arms for nanoseconds
each holding an eternity
If only time could be held by more than mere memory

Maybe, everything until the now that is never the now
can touch a moment
that can never be broken into its smallest parts

I found my grandmother the night she died
The room filled with mourning tears
My mother slapped me
because I hadn't cried in two days
At 18 how do you emotionally process a body that once held a life?

Disconnected from my thoughts
I felt neither pain nor love nor loss
How could I say that, without feeling defective
but I couldn't get past that shell with empty eyes
that stared at me until I noticed they weren't smiling

When the body turned to flesh
she was gone and I was lost
in those empty eyes that seemed to
hold a universe of nothing
and if I stared too long I'd disappear in that void
where her light used to shine

**

Too soon, I held my mother's hand as she passed
and watched the life leech out of her skin
The eyes were the last part of her to fade
I stared at her
Willing with all that I am that they would
spark and reignite the fire of who she was
But her skin ran cold the second the light ceased
So cold, yet so very soft.

Two days, and a blended family to hold up
Even with makeup, dressed to the nines
It didn't feel less... wrong
She was beautiful, but she wasn't my mother

I couldn't escape the knowledge
of invisible sutures
As I held her face and fixed her hair
I cursed those television shows I once watched with her
The ones that taught us how things worked
The ones that burned the knowledge of
the sutures into my memory
a memory I couldn't escape

Four days and two shoulders heavy with tears
Too busy with paperwork and wishes
to bleed tears of my own
Thankful for things to do
So I wouldn't get lost in her empty eyes
that stared at me whenever I closed my own

I sit here, grown, wondering how to
emotionally process a body that once held a life?
Praying that she will slap me for not being able to cry
Just so I could feel her

With tired wings you still soar
with a Grace few can ever muster
Sleep, my love
and dream of the days
the garden was full of flowers

Orange blossom sweet
and jasmine sultry
you will always glow like a gardenia
on a summer afternoon

Your nest, so filled with love
will warm your coldest days
keeping you forever beautiful
as you have always been

Fly with the angels on waves of peace
this world could never offer you
Every flower-filled breeze
will be like kisses filled
with memories of you

i.

melted ice cream afternoons
bogged down

rising from asphalt
in magical mist
that transforms
the day into
a test of endurance

even dusk offers
no solace
in frozen watermelon bliss


ii.

smoke permeates fabric
hair and every surface
with peace and grit
wafting over
the crispy
edges of predawn

begging sleep
to the most stubborn
insomniac

rotisserie style dreams
till morning


iii.

there's less death today
waiting in line
in candy store nightmares
begging silence
from the jubilant

but the sky turned up
a dream state

in that beguiling beauty
is brilliance


iv.

in shadows
the earth falls silent

rustling through
tall tales
the moon births

images in hidden corners

evening strolls
turn adventures

and every day
burns quick
to be reborn slowly


v.

the weight of hell
in short tempered bites
**** will with a proficiency
unseen outside
a viper's silent hunt

ready for war
with fists losing
responsibility

breaking triple digit
pressure


vi.

Incessant banging through walls built faster than I am strong enough to demolish, cradling lace so it won't rip on my forked tongue. There is only so much care left to handle perception just trying to breathe through a smile.