When daylight settles onto the back window. Right through the little crack, it tears itself apart into an array of color, splayed all over the hardwood floor. Outside is nice and lovely, winter grabbed its coat last week and signed off on the year. I haven't gone outside yet, I'm afraid that if I do, I may never want to come back in. What if the sensation of a new spring grips around my feet, pulling me toward the soil. What if we accidentally let ourselves fall so far into a new ground, that we begin to root and grow. I stay sitting at the table right beside my thoughts. Someone said something about change once, but my throat tickles every time I try to re-introduce myself. All this to say, I'm not afraid of the spring or what it might bring, or how sweet its fruit. I don't want to open the door, because I worry winter's still standing on the other side. Before I knew it, it would say, "I think I forgot something" and settle back in with us. A fresh sheet of snow clouds would blanket the daylight, and all its colors would fade. I shake off the chill. I guess I'll stay here, and look from inside out.

Lost.
Every child is born lost,
Every child is born alone.

We enter this world crying,
Small hands reaching for warmth,
A warmth we cannot create alone.

Stumbling, falling,
Too weak to stand on our own,
Helpless, dependent.

Molded by voices not our own,
Taught what to say, how to be,
Following paths laid before us,
Doing as we are told.

But as we grow, we begin to change.
We learn to rise without trembling,
To speak with voices that are now our own,

To walk where our hearts desire,
No longer imitating,
No longer afraid.

Courageous, independent,
Becoming our own saviors,
Because we no longer need another to be—
Found.

I watched you walk away,
Like I was an outsider,
Like I wasn't the one who loved you.
Not once did you look back—
Both of us proud,
Not wanting to break
And speak the words
That would turn everything around.

One stop, one wait,
One foot in front of the other,
Would ease the heaviness
Of watching you walk away.
But here I am,
Stuck, standing still,
The world seamlessly
Going on around me.

Part of me is stuck in the shadow,
Everything moving
From one axis to the next.
Another part of me realizes
That when the earth changes axis
And rotates the other way,
No one really feels it.

And here I am,
Stuck either way.
In time, even dust
Has to move

Summer wind hold my hand,
grasp it, rub it gentle  in the  sun
honeyed soothing mother’s touch.

Hide the coughing chimneys up ahead,
the night in the strut of yellow cat eyes,
amber streetlights yielding to blue tv glows.

Coming cold blows my hands into jacket tight.
The star I follow now hidden,  dark,
lost in the arguing noise outside and in.

When you’ve had every chance and all resource in hand.
When you’ve been in good graces and known where you stand.
When you had God in Heaven reach down just to line it all up,
 
and you still found a way to fail. How could that be?
You look back in disbelief, regretfully
and feel like a failure, jinxed by a charm of bad luck.
 
Then you’re forced to ask yourself, “Should I go on?”
You wonder if maybe the timing was wrong,
that if you keep going, this time will it finally work out?
 
Cuz now there’s an omen that’s lurking behind,
waiting to take you down time after time.
It’s hard not to think that way, wondering what it’s all about.
 
But success in a very real sense is defined
as - starting things over again, one more time
than whatever the number of times it is that you’ve gone down.
 
Leave that omen behind in the re-view of life.
Drive off and keep going. Don’t even think twice.
For now, you know better in all things… this time around.

For
My Brother,
My Lover,
My Enemy,
My Friend.
For Someone I’ll Never Forget














I should’ve known. How time changes things. But I’m not talking about how my hair looks different from when I was running around in the school playground, Or how I was playing with dolls and dressing up, and now I keep my eyes glued on my phone. I’m talking about how I used to laugh with you in the back of the class, now I watch you across the classroom laughing with someone I don’t even know the name of.

We used to plan how we would set up our rooms in our future 2 bedroom apartment together, or how we get our first job together, how we would never leave each other no matter the situation. But instead I watch you walk past me without even waving.

I should've known. You would find someone that treated you like a person, they would stay on the phone with you through bad Facebook messenger calls because you never got a phone with service, you would follow them around the school at lunch break because you claimed to have no friends, and you would see a small smile form on their face because that same smile formed on mine when you told me you would rather be with me anyway.

Because I laughed on how your face was all distorted and blurry because we both had bad Wi-Fi, because I walked with you to the teacher to ask if we could sit together, because I buried my face in my hands when you were doing everything to embarrass me while trick-or-treating on Halloween, because I made you sign a contract swearing you would be my friend for the rest of eternity, because I treated you like someone, a person, a friend, my friend.

I should’ve known. That when you called me that night for the first time in months, it wasn’t because you wanted to talk to me about your show or because you were bored. But it was about how you and her broke up. It was about how you loved her. That you couldn’t find anybody because they all just leave. Yet, I still stayed. Listening to you sob and talk about you and her together. The next day instead of seeing you across the school cafeteria, I saw you next to me. And for a moment, I thought I could laugh with you again. But still, I should've known.

Because a week later you were gone again. With her. I should’ve known. All of that laughter and smiles would turn into jealousy and tears.

I should’ve known. You would find someone and get away from the groups of people looking at us in the hallways.

I should’ve known. You would grow up after saying you never would.

I should’ve known. You would walk with someone else to a class.

I should’ve known. I would get a new friend group with you not in it.

I should’ve known. I would call a friend and it wouldn’t be you.

I should’ve known. that the promise we made with each other to always be by each other's side was just another thing

I should’ve known from the start.

We are apart, the frayed red string is broken
One soul now scattered, across two galaxies
The ocean of my heart , with a tsunami can't reach yours
Ego refused to sail the boundary, leaving us with cold memories.

Tinted sky sets with warm sun,
I sit in peace, miss my shoulder with your head
Flowers of Magnolia are, scattered on the field
Your tresses in the air, the beauty you won.

Who will now embellish you?
My fingers , your hair , is now a wide divide.
My smile, your talk, is now faded apart.
My hug , your warm, is now gone from my life.

Is this what you've decided?