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shades of wrong Dec 2015
I must have known how
to breathe before I knew you
but now I'm not sure
© GEB
All Rights Reserved
  Dec 2015 shades of wrong
Akira Chinen
She had starfish in her eyes
And she was eager and impatient
When daydreaming
About being
And falling
In love
And she gave herself
Freely and easily
And found tears
And heartache
More often than not
But she never did break
And you can always find her
At the end of the ocean
Gazing and dreaming
Through her starfish eyes
shades of wrong Dec 2015
I wish to close my eyes and bask
bask under the warmth of the sun
ignoring the due dates and time constraints
feeling only the warm embrace

I wish to close my eyes and play
to play with the bright reds and oranges and yellows
watch them fade in and fade out.
to squeeze my eyes tightly and experiment
with the different color variations
the tighter I squeeze the darker the reds and browns and blacks
the lighter I squeeze the more yellows and oranges shine through

I wish to feel the wind as well
to feel the wind rush back and forth
throwing my hair against my face

I wish to squeeze my eyes tightly one last time
then open them widely
to see the grass as green as a late June afternoon
to see the sky as blue as a Floridean sea
to feel and see and be at peace

at home
swinging
when I was six

and didn’t have due dates
© GEB
All Rights Reserved
shades of wrong Dec 2015
Everything is you
except me.

Everything is something you've said,
something you've worn,
something you've touched,
laughed at,
tripped over.
Every season is you,
every sunny day in June,
every snow storm,
rainy day,
power outage,
apple crisp; they're all you.

You're every birthday that I don't get a call,
you're every moment I want to share,
you're every secret I'm not supposed to tell.
And songs.
God knows you're every single song.
You span all things.
You are history, literature, art.
You are the sun, the moon, and every ******* star.
You are the undiscovered solar systems.
You are the waves that pull me.
You are the sky.
You are everything that is and everything that ever was.
You are everything and everything is you.
Except me

Me, I am just a shell of what you once made me.
© GEB
All Rights Reserved
shades of wrong Dec 2015
We once swam out so far that we started to sink.
We sank so deep, so willingly, so happily. Sinking, falling, swimming
further and further down
until we found ourselves a comfortable little home
at the bottom of the sea.
We loved it there. Everyday was spent exploring,
finding new beauty in life.
We made plans for distant days,
so blissfully unaware of what was happening.
Slowly the air was escaping our lungs
but if we noticed it we didn't care.
We were happy down there together,
unconscious to the world back on land.

Until the water filling our lungs woke us,
choking us with the reality that we were drowning.
The only thing to do was to leave the depths we loved so much
and swim up.

So now here we float, in shallow conversation,
exchanging "fines" and "greats" and forced laughs.
Afraid of the deep.
© GEB
All Rights Reserved
shades of wrong Dec 2015
He’s warm and soft and tempting.
He even smells warm.

But I don’t have time for this—there’s work to be done.
I know I should take him out, fold him up, put him away,
and shut the drawer
for good.
I know better.

But he smells—he smells so warm
and new and clean and tender and gentle.
He’s beseeching me to climb in, to allow myself to sink
into his all encompassing embrace, to ignore all reason
and carelessly float in his soft-smelling air,
feeling his comfortable warmth all around me.

I know better.
I know his routine, but still
I’m torn every time.

Every time I find my mind wandering,
foolishly entertaining the ideas he proposes.
It could be so warm and safe—that home inside the dryer.
If I’d just climb in
maybe I wouldn’t feel trapped,
longing for room to stretch and air to breathe.
Maybe the hot, sharp edges of his zippers wouldn’t burn me
this time.
Maybe I would be happy
with him in our home inside the dryer.

But each time I dance with these thoughts, the music halts abruptly—

I know better.
His soft, comforting warmth will not last.
In his darkness, he will become cold and wrinkled.

Right now he is tempting, teasing, enticing.
But
I know better.

A person cannot live inside a dryer.
© GEB
All Rights Reserved

— The End —