"I could live here,
In the mountains,"
I say,
Any time I go anywhere
with mountains.

The words are involuntary.
No spells have been cast
Yet I am enchanted
For better or worse.

"I could go there,
Anywhere,"
I say,
Any time you say
you want to go.

Burn Area.
Take quiet, reverent steps
through the charred steeple spires
and listen to the roaring echo
of an event so fierce
and nightmarishly tragic
that we must soothe ourselves, saying,
"Everything in its own time," and
"This ecosystem needs fire to grow."
But systems are merely products
of their conditions,
and nothing needs lightning.
Life doesn't thrive on tragedy -
It exists in spite of it.
Just as we are not born in space
and yet we hurtle through it,
So too does bright fireweed spring
between these spindly, blackened corpses.

The Sea of Tranquility descends tonight
into waning, gibbous shadow
As I bear witness to the sight,
I can't help but wonder -
How many moons
have I waited and watched,
And which cycle signals
the end if this working?
My rituals greet phases
full after new
Celebrating faces
both blood red and new
Eclipsing even the sun
from full view.
It seems by now
the spell must be sown,
And perhaps it has been
For while I was waiting and watching,
I certainly have grown.

The poisoning isn't always painful
like a rattlesnake or arsenic.
Sometimes,
it is a whisper,
soft and sweet,
like a lullaby that sings "carbon monoxide,"
a bit too much fun too quickly
as you slip into a black overdose,
a poppy-soaked dreamland.
Sometimes,
it is a fragment of reality
that was real once
but exists now as some new non-truth,
the thing you want to hear
picked out of the words spoken,
a misguided make-believe.
Sometimes,
it is a song we both love
the night we heard it
and the memory I built around it,
a cloying clawing
corrupting with a buzz and haze,
a saccharine toxin to the imagination.

We are ADULTS with AGENCY
and the power to manifest our desires
if we can only be courageous.
Therefore,
Why not do so?
They have called me
Crazy, Foolish, and Daring
for sharing my poems and passions so freely,
But I am simply unwilling
to waste time lying.

He's a rare kind
With rare kindness
So he'd never
In a moment
Of electrostatic tension
Close the gap
Between our lips.
And truthfully,
It has been so long
And I've learned so much
About consent
And ruined friendships
That I don't remember how.

Even in my dreams
We just run around
Being stupidly clever
And when you leave
I still turn around
Wearing a stupid grin
As if to say
To no one in particular,
So that's him -
Isn't he amazing?