kept to myself on silent hill
where grasshoppers used to frolic

eyes that spy don't realize
like-minds in wooden boxes
read their own would be actions

can't rationalize honesty
different strokes in choices projected
pandering in placating platitudes

never did learn how to turn polite
into untruths earning respect
through coddling flattery

backscratchers are unnecessary
when you don't count numbers
to feel worth a ****

broken beautiful even in cracked truth
taken as is wholeheartedly
but wholeheartedly never fit
into wooden boxes

where people polish egos
and truth reads like what you want to hear
unspoken expectations cultivate disappointment

caring is never pretty when it's real
honesty, with no lies, is hard to look at
in reflections of things one tries to bury

it's the beginning of trust that scrounges
for reasons to doubt
running into cradling arms

far from the unknown feeling of acceptance
where bones are broken beautiful
and scars are proof you won the battle

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