Brisk bones bend in the wind,
           as frail memories
fall beneath me.

Every one in a moment of decay.

No longer apart of me,

  but a skeleton figure

                         of a past,
brighter and full of life.

If today,
To grow
We must destroy
If to feast
We must parasite
Or to plant seeds
We must plow down

I'll gladly sit a moment
In sweet sunlight
And soak her up sat still,
For once.

Timeworn,
"she was weeping, banally, in the moonlight"

We, in some strange power’s employ, move on a rigorous line

Our thoughts broadcast in reverse of linear time

Laying down fresh electric cable so our minds can again spin webs and half-eaten threads

To stand ready for launch from
Cape Canaveral

Young astronauts, and cultural fallout, spun in exhilarating swirl of places and vividly half-described incidents

Experiments explored in zero gravity

Starlight, starbright
first time I apogee tonight

Impaled upon the high temples of Min
flowered in the sun

A collective come undone

Circumferencing quicksand
as worlds tilting badly off-center

In the death ovens  
they go spiraling down into driftglass

the tree grew in rocky soil -
now its fruit is decaying.
its seeds fell into
the same rocky soil,
sprouting into trees
with the same decaying fruit.

these trees feel the decay.
they know to spread their seeds
where the soil is fertile.
and the resulting trees
will bear ripe fruits
for future generations.

I wish I had your eyes. I really do. I wish I could see all the colors that you seem too. The vibrancy that I've been missing for so many years...

He looked up. Same walls. Always the same. Gray paint, chipping away. Water damaged brickwork. He glanced upward. Same energy efficient lights adorning the same stained and faded ceiling tiles.

One thirty am.

I wish I had your mouth, I really do. Wish I could string words together like you can. I wish I could find the rhythm that your heart beats too.

He looked up at the furniture placed carelessly around the room. It's sparse. The room feels almost empty. A bed tucked away in the corner, half hidden in shadow. The sheets are wrinkled. He hasn't bothered washing them in a while. He's been sleeping on the couch. The cushions are getting threadbare. They were already worse for wear, over a year ago. He remembered what it felt like to drag it inside. How he almost pulled a tendon trying to get it through the door.

I wish I could fly away from here, like you did. Cut all my ties, burn all my bridges. I wish I could embrace the unpredictability like you have.

He looked up at the walls.

I wish I could clean all the filth off my hands. You always did have such impeccable hands.

He looked up at the walls. Same cracks, same cracks. Looked over at the can of paint. It'd been there since he'd put it there. He'd left it there the week before he'd moved in. He'd been meaning to touch up a few spots.

I wish I could rid my mind of these festering insects. I wish, I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish.

It was quiet. Too quiet. Always with the buzzing static filling up the endless quiet, never quite masking it. Always with the static, ringing in his ears. It was always quiet, so very quiet.

I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish.

It's so quiet. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't think straight. He looked up at the walls. Sixteen strings, dangling down, one fragile spine impaled in a back that it won't fit.

I wish I could see through your eyes, hear through your ears.

It's so quiet, he'd never hear a thing again. Sixteen candles blown out in the breeze. One untouched ice cube left in a glass on the coffee table, so mundane, so unconcerned with the sun soaking in through the window.

I wish I could be as hauntingly beautiful as a raven perched on a telephone pole in mid November.  

He looked up at the walls. His hopelessly outnumbered little diatribe barely holding its own against the cascade of static, swelling, thriving in the void left behind by the silence. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

If only I could enter your mind. Swim through your deprived notions, your sensations of pleasure you derive from nothing good at all. Things we all keep hidden.

He looked up at the printer. It's sitting on an orange crate in the corner opposite the bed. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

If I could wish at all, I'd wish for this eventuality. It's harrowing, you know. Wishing for things. Knowing that all hope has so carelessly been squandered on things you couldn't care less about.

He'd left a soda can sitting on his desk. He picked it up. It's still a little sticky.

I wish I could be as free as can be. I want to be free. I want to be as free as a bird. Not a sacrifice, please.

Cobwebs
Stagnant water
Lightless
Hopeless
Useless

The mere sight of it made our angels above recoil in disgust.

A festering wound that poisons the well. Meandering procrastination. Birthed hate and envy.

It is rot.

It is decay.

It is a promise.

It is inevitable.

It is home.

perhaps i’ll just long for you, forever,
and perhaps, i’ll die with decaying flowers,
knowing to love me, and to leave me,
must‘ve been only a  moment for you.

What if when we grow old
we rotted the way fruit does?
What if, as we crinkle in on ourselves,
we earn soft spots
where the mold has eaten us away?
We are plucked from our trees so young,
but we are ripe for so long.

What if when we rot
someone larger and grander
who can fit us in their hand
smiles as they throw us into the woods?
We hit trees and gain triumphant cheers.
We befriend the leaves
and we rot together.

What if when we grow old
we grew new life?
What if, as we crease and hunch,
we grow down and down
until we are rooted in place?
And we can be tall again
and beautiful.