Reflections are tricky things
Man didn't create them
Only trapped them
Hung them on a wall for his own vain glory
The glassy stillness of a lake
Was first
To echo reality above it
Distorted
It ripples like a gateway
At the kiss of a stone

It calls, it beckons
l have mystery lurking
What will happen if you
Little you
Dared to pass through
With no intention of return?
One might find oneself upside down
Standing in the sky
And brushing their feet against the stars
Or there might be monsters
Real ones
Which we can touch and feel and fight
And see while fighting
The seeds of monstrous things
Separate themselves from us
In the last few seconds of life
And we see them laid out

Even knowing this
The water calls
To the nine tenths of us it possesses
Enticing us
With the idea of a world
Identical to ours
I think
Have you ever stopped
Looked
Counted the branches?
It would be impossible
So we assume

And as the water accepts you
Feet
Waist
Hands
Shoulders
Hair, drifting like seaweed in the tide
It whispers to you
Just a little deeper now
So you go on
On
Until you discover, or drown

Or
Until you are pulled upwards
Arms grasping you around the chest
As your lungs burn with the ache of tipped scales, the balance within you lost
And you hear the voice whisper
Breath warming your ear

Not like this
My friend
Not like this

The hardest thing
In life
Is not to.

(specifically)

Not to find someone else
To occupy the space in my life
That you left

(when you left)

I did
I think
But it's been years
Years
Years
When I was not

And I don't remember
quite
What being well
is like

I mean
I mean
I am always well
I am
Always moving
Because an object at rest-

I've said this already

So I'll rest when I'm dead
Or I'll die when I rest
And I'm not ready
yet
I haven't made my mark
yet
I haven't swelled my voice
With the chorus of those
who came before me
yet
I haven't heard that note
One note
In a symphony
The glorious harmony
I
Haven't drawn a breath
and
Heard the empty space
and
Felt the sharp ***** of awe
That the gap
Is for me to fill
Little me
Little
Gap

And that
I think
Holds me here
Roots my feet to the ground
To Earth
Because humans
Are delicate
It would not take so much
To flee this mortal form
But
I am not ready
It is not my time
I am secure
Knowing my days are numbered
Measured out
By One
Who does not lose count
Lose thought
Think
All in the wrong order
At all the times
Which are
Most inopportune

It is my greatest honor
It is my greatest humbling

And anyways
I am well
Well enough to sing
To dance
Well enough for joy
To light its fire
Bursting pyrotechnics
In my chest

Except
Of course
When I am not
Not when my thoughts
Take the wheel
And I am caught in loops
Loops
Loops

"Shape without form
Shade without color"
I drift
In monochromatic waves
Clinging to the memory
And hope of hues
Beyond my mind's walls
I drift
In soft piano melodies
And synesthesia winds my senses
In a great tangle
Melancholy tastes like apple
But un-achored
Only smells like dust
Looping and twirling in the breeze
Over the ocean
Invisible
Under the too-wide sky
Over the too-bright sea

Until it hits city
And the city
Brings it back down
Tears it into a million
Tiny
Fragments

They used to be it
They used to be whole
They were once
But now
Not

And just like that
The conclusion
Brings me down
With a jolt and a bump and a thud
Like a plane
Or the clanking chains
Of a rollarcoaster

My stomach is doing rollarcoaster loops
Loops
Loops
I used to be well-
(i've said that too)
-But sometimes
I am well
Now
And I forget
That with a breath
I can be
Not

It is terrifying
But I am not scared
You know
Part of life
Is living it

I love you more
(You'd always reply)

Eventually
You began to say it first.
To start
With a declaration
That you loved me most
Already.
There was never any room
For me to love you
More
Or less
Than you wanted.
Usually
I didn't mind it.
Because I did love you.

Eventually
We fought
For a day
Two days
And then
Seven days
Of silence.

And I realized
I could go on living
Without you
And I heard
In the beautiful silence
Just how much
I had been listening
To you before.

(too much.)

I should have longed for you
And I did
But only
When I was lonely
Low
When I questioned myself

When we spoke again
You told me
With tears in your eyes
And a shake in your voice
That you wanted to part ways.

You cried
On the screen

I cried
Off the screen

Afterwards
When you could not
Change your mind
Out of guilt
And blame me for it
Later.

The miles stretched between us
Like a rubber band
In the hands of someone
I didn't trust anymore

I will never forget it.

There is something so final

About wishing all the best
To a best friend
You will likely never see again.

In the end
It wasn't a question of loving most.
I would have taken a bullet
If it meant you didn't have to.
In the end
I did.

let the race
go on and
be won and
be lost
inevitable
fast
without me


I will be
playing
on the side
of the road
with the daisies
and the crickets
and the wild-growing
fennel
​

a fleeting whoosh
to the rushing
passerby
and they a whoosh
to me

​
as clouds
hang humid
and yearn to
speckle their
summer mist
a-top puffs of
breeze and
rosy cheeks
and
saplings

​
I will be
spending my
sunshine day
with face
upturned and
hair a-mess
and
eyes not
looking where
they're going


© 2017 Adelaide Heathfield

An object in motion
Will remain in motion
And today I am glad
Because even hurtling
Through space and time
At dizzying speeds
Through blinding oceans
Of stars and rings of planets
And meteors and comets
(I always seem to dodge
Last second)
Even then
I know that
If I keep
Moving
Forward
I will not
buckle,
        crumble,
                 collapse.

I am fascinated by the fire
I could sit and watch its dance
Sit and listen
To the snap-crackle song of it
For hours

Something in it calls to me
In the dark places of my heart
Maybe that is why I stay
So far away

Because if I let it
It will take hold of my hand
Crawl its fingers up my arm
And lodge its heat in my soul

Like the sliver of ice
And the poisoned kiss
That made Kai forget
His love
His home
His name
I may forget
That I am not fire too

If I let it
It will set me ablaze
And I will not stop
Until coals and ashes
Stain my feet
And the whole world burns
Around me