We spend our lives in pursuit of what we lack
So much time wasted when we look back
On the years we paved roads
And paid what we owe
And what have we gained but old age?

We waved our troubles away
And ignored how our bodies decayed
Until caught in the ragged net of time
Unable to finish the climb
For the mountain of satisfaction can never be conquered.

Unaware of what wasn't to come
Like dogs, we now beg for a scrap, or a crumb
Of the happiness we sought in all the wrong places
Until we are rescued by God's saving graces
And fall from one void into the next.

The morning sky faintly blue
A gust of wind rustling leaves
I don't know why you laugh
At the boats bobbing in the harbor
Your little feet don't reach the ground
As you sit on the bench next to me

I can't believe you belong to me
Your eyes the same grey blue
Standing two feet from the ground
You disappear into a pile of leaves
Already forgetting you don't want to leave the harbor
Your innocence makes me laugh

You reminded me how to laugh
Unknowingly you saved me
From the dark thoughts I harbor
That once made me so blue
I had become someone who always leaves
But you brought me back to the ground

I couldn't watch them lower you into the ground
All I could hear was your laugh
And the rustle of dead winter leaves
The naked trees mourned with me
Their tears made of sap & mine so blue
And salty as the frozen harbor

Why'd you have to go to the harbor?
Is it so hard to stay on dry ground?
It's enticing waters gleaming blue
Swallowed you with a menacing laugh
Taking you away from me
A reminder that everyone leaves

Everyone's child eventually leaves
Sailing across the promising harbor
But not in the way that you left me
Unable to pick myself off the ground
In a delusioned fit I hysterically laugh
At a bird in the window with feathers so blue

I hope the harbor in heaven is just as blue
And while you wait for me I pray that you laugh
That same silly way you did in the leaves on the ground.

Pen ink gliding across paper
Yellowed by the sun for ages
From my fingertips bubble words
I do not yet understand
But they come from the innermost depths
Of my soul, never to be voiced

My words never wished to be voiced
Created to live on the paper
Found only in the hidden depths
Of my notebooks on shelves for ages
No one could understand
All my thoughts strung into words

My head is so full of words
That know not how to be adequately voiced
Themselves they do not understand
As flimsy and fragile as paper
Building up for what seems like ages
Into the sea of confusion they sink to the depths

How deep are my soul's depths
It's distance cannot be put into words
The extent of my thoughts goes on for ages
For ages they'll decline to be voiced
And one day I'll crumple them up like paper
Until they're too wrinkled to understand

I do not want others to understand
My thoughts, that I hide in the depths
Of my pen kept away from paper
I refuse to make words
That fear being voiced
To people of all genders and ages

I wish not to be remembered for ages
Most will not understand
My opinions seek not to be voiced
Before my soul implodes into its own depths
Devoid of all thoughts, feelings, & words
As blank as a white sheet of paper

For ages I'll stay in the depths
Of what I don't understand, the words
never voiced, smeared in ink on yellow paper.

The shards of green glass scatter
About the dusty floor
Ancient messages escape
From the bottle that is no more

Whispers of tales as old as time
Start making their way across
The old man's map, their origins marked
In forests cloaked in moss.

Murmurs fill every crack in the wall
With stories from drunken lips
Of pirates, Kings, mermaids, & ghosts
And giant whales swallowing ships.

Through wallpaper peelings & under floorboards
The messages twist and turn
And as the sun rises, they head for the door
To the bottle they'll never return.

At home we sit at our wooden tables
Writing with wooden pencils on paper
Recalling tales and forgotten fables
About sad old trees turning to vapor

With brutality the trees were cut down
Used for their wood to meet everyone’s needs
A once great forest replaced by a town
And a landscape prepared for man’s crop seeds

Tree dwelling animals without a home
Were forced to move to a place they could live
And humans realized the barren biome
Had nothing to offer, nothing to give

The almighty trees were the key to life
Something to note when regarding this strife.