I don't believe in second chances any more
I gave them so many chances
And still gets the same,
Pain.

I did the same thing I always do;
when I started getting love from you
I hurt you and then I ran away,
afraid of being hurt if I chose to stay.
But hindsight is 20-20,
my regret was strong and plenty.
I came back to embrace that love,
but my mistake, you can't let go of.
So each day, I watch the time drift,
foolishly hoping your mood will shift,
but the weeks keeping passing me by
and still, at night, I lay and cry.
I'm pleading with imaginary deities
asking them to make you forgive me,
asking if they can make you love me,
even a fraction of the way it used to be.
I can't take back the errors I made,
but I'll keep trying to make your pain fade,
until the day you look and see,
the girl you fell for; which once was me.

I sat under a paper umbrella of the reddest hue autumn
and like an apple
I waited for you to pick me ripe
bite, smell my neck
and remember.
I sat on bench of grey weather boards
waiting to be thrown down upon them-
wanting to be pinned down upon them.
Feet on a rug of discarded
leaves, just like me.
discarded but beautiful.
still just a season long
season woman,
can you love me winter long?
Ill meet you on the snowy bench.
white puffs of apologises will float from my mouth.
my toes will shake and the fence we loved for being red
we'll love for being white.
Red will now slither to my ears and you will say things I can't hear.
And the stars will paint the sky too dark so we
can see that winter sparkles.
Spring is full of other lovers, this bench-
lovers that are not you and I.
And the playground is full of candy wrappers and mothers sneakers.
The trees are majestically green stretching and yawning and showing off.
The children bouncing, whining, crying,  finding.
Spring is full of lovers but not us
so she gives my heart to summer
and glass doesn't melt so the places where I like to feel your sweat
are the places where they like to touch my body.
summer makes us reckless and the bench, our bench is being held together by the squirrels claws and the sparrows talons... they wait for us to scatter.
hot you kiss my dampness, damper.
hot you kiss my pain and sorrow. boiling all the past good voyage.
our fence has lost some posts as,
the children love to climb and kick
it will hold on, still.
but it won't hold-out and won't hold-in which is what fences are meant to do.
at least they should... they should choose.
Autumn, yes it's autumn ours. We are autumn lovers
with leaves of the book skittering beneath the empty slide.
We are autumn, smell like the burning leaves of who we were.
Smelling like the fresh cut wood, ready to have her rings counted
Autumn lover, hold my hand and tell me you are afraid.
Autumn lover, holding color golden like a circle round.
Hurry, before she blows me past the red fence,
Hurry before our secrets get caught by the wind and dance around the playground.
Hurry Autumn lover,
Hurry to remember that you loved me, once.*

Shannon April Alice
11/2/14

in dark periods of my life
my thoughts lead me to
seeing my life as hopeless and pointless
I tried to hurry the end multiple times

today, my thoughts wander around my head
leading me to wonder about how
I am still alive
answer: grace

I hope I do not squander this
great gift I've been freely given
and remain grateful
by passing it on

you slowly fade away

like a cut

turns into a scab

but just like that scab gets picked away and opens again
is

like what you do

if it happens enough it turns
into
a scar

is that what you want to be?

Everyone deserves one.
Everyone messes up.
Second chances save lives.
So why am I so worried now?

You asked for forgiveness.
Said it would be different now.
Never leaving me again.
So why am I so worried now?

Second chances help.
They fix what has been broken
Repair what has been torn.
So why am I so worried now.

Giving you a second chance
Is giving me a second chance.
So why am I so worried now?

-E.T