Under the shining lights
Horns and trumpets blare
Take in all of the sights
This city has come alive

People stroll down the street
Rain splashes on the sidewalk
Tap your foot to the beat
As the music fills the night

Get on the floor and dance
The sax man does his thing
This could be your chance
The swing band's letting loose

finally
after days of dark, threatening clouds
and anxious birds tracing signals into the air
and trees waving back at the lightning
while the thunder rolled around this valley-

finally
it rained

the sun fought against the sky and lost,
instead blazing behind the curtain
and turning the sky a dangerous yellow
while the trees accepted the sepia rain
with defeat

i stayed inside and watched their branches
waving lazily back and forth
as if to escape the rain, or maybe
just to dance beneath it, i don't know
but i knew
i didn't feel like dancing

i felt like dancing
when we were alone in an old building
whose walls echoed the tinny swing music
back at us and whose floors were already printed
with the patterns needed to teach you
the basic formation
and we fell out of place a million times
only to fall back in again

if you were here, i'd take you out
into this rain
and dance until the thunder came back
and celebrate the lightning's wrath
and fall out of formation a million times
only to fall back in again

with you, i always feel like dancing

do you remember calling me up in the middle of the night asking me to help you find your childhood and how i would run to your house and how we would race to the playground where you would sit on the swing while i pushed you so hard that you would scream and laugh and exclaim about how heaven was in this very place

do you remember my weak lungs trying hard not to give up and my fragile arms growing tired and my hands with callouses and how i got tired after pushing you a hundred times

do you remember asking me why i kept pushing you when i felt so weak and tired and sleepy

and i told you that i kept pushing because the definition of my happiness was seeing you four feet up in the ground with your cheeks stretched and your teeth and gums exposed in the grandest laugh and that the feeling of my heart beating quickly was the greatest feeling of all

and do you remember when you asked me a week ago why i still stayed with you when you felt that everything was getting tiresome for me?

it's because i want to see your smile and your hands holding tight and because you are that ******* the swing and i would push you until you find your childhood or even if you never find it at all

The iron drips from my fingers.
The man gives out a yell.
The child launches, she launches at me.
Sadly her launch had failed.
I chuckled at her, with no pity.
Her frightened face, what a laugh.
The person she’s crying for isn't worth dying for.
After all,
he was a bad man.
It’s funny, so funny, funny the fact.
The fact, she thought if she grabbed my neck then,
maybe, just maybe, maybe I’d die.
I laughed again and finally, I gave out a sigh.
“Poor child,” I said my voice left unchanged.
“You misunderstood. I shouldn't be ashamed.
Your idol has done so many bad things,
now he’ll pay for his sins of adultery,
in a place which this blind man cannot see.
She fell to the ground befalling her tears.
This was the end of her happy years.
What? Did she think it was a fairy tale life?
Reality is sharp, just like a knife.
I laughed at the fact I took his life,
with just one swing of my most dull scythe.

An old man whispers softly,
Bowing before the old grey stones,
Tears falling lightly on the brim;
Petals falling to the earth.

His fingers feel the coarse of death,
The cold stone, with words so heavy and grim,
Carries with it life, coursing deep in its veins.
A life now forlorn in the earth below.

Dressed in stark formality; his respects for the dead,
He yearns for the warmth in his hands,
The grace of his feet; the light of his head,
One last dance was all he asked.

Now waiting in the familiar silence of years come to pass,
He rested his eyes and let his head fall;
Quiet was the day when his heart followed suit.
Yet, in his redolence a golden tune had filled the yard.


And the gold had spread, captivating and encapsulating,
The leaves the flowers, the stones and fences,
All veiled in a vibrant hue of a time gone by,
Ethereal was the hand that guided him through nostalgia’s sweet haze.

Now vigor had taken him: embodied with life he stood,
The hands he so tenderly held once now returned to him,
Warm were their touch, though living they were not;
He knew this, his eyes closed in reverence.

The gentle tune had guided their sways,
With revived vitality he made his dance with death,
Graceful were their swings that led the ball,
Elegant were the strings that filled the hall.

With reluctance he made his final twirl,
Dropping her deep in a final embrace;
The music crescendos to finale,
Sorrowful, he lets a longing, loving smile escape.

Just as well, she escapes his fingers,
The breeze whispers softly the words of lovers;
Tender was his smile now, he opened his eyes and looked high above,
Not questioning where or how, but grateful beyond love.

He ran his hands on the cold stone once more,
His fingers feeling the smooth of love rather,
Those words now carrying with them the world he’ll leave behind,
As he walks down the green, cut path;
Leaving the graveyard for the very last time.