Palm trees and mountains occupy my mind.

You are all palm trees,
neatly lined up in a row,
swaying together,
adapting when needed.

I am a mountain,
plastered against the sky,
only noticed from afar,
an unchangeable monument.

I observe the palm trees swaying in perfect unison,
and know I’ll forever be a distant sight.

I get us each one more scoop of ice cream.
You’re full but try to eat it anyway.

It’s things like this I’ll miss,
you shoveling in food simply because
it’s the last thing we’ll eat together.

As I’m shutting the car door,
my mind screams for me to stop.

I scoop out the thought and leave it on the pavement—
along with my fears that you won’t come back.

All I can do now is trust that God will protect you,
as my heart is scooped, clean out of my chest.

Does a cactus understand it’s prickly?
Does a pencil know it’s writing lines?

Does a sock realize it’s being worn,
Does a teapot know it’s boiling over?

Does a cloud understand it’s floating by?
Does a brush realize it’s painting strokes?

Does a coin feel its journey in someone’s pocket,
Does a door know it’s opening or closing?

Does a match know it’s sparking flame?
Does a pebble realize it’s part of the path?

Does a river know it’s always moving,
or does it simply follow the current,
without thought,
just being?

Maybe it’s the not knowing
that makes us move,
that makes us be,
each moment unfolding
without question.

or maybe its 3:16 a.m. and I’m just going crazy

Love is a river, a sliver of light,
Curling and swirling in the silk of night.
It slips like whispers through canyon walls,
Echoing soft where the moonlight falls.

A clock with no hands, it bends and it breaks,
Ticking in rhythms that the heart remakes.
It’s a thread in the loom, weaving shadows and fire,
A stitch in the storm of untamed desire.

It’s the taste of rain on a tongue of stone,
The scent of a garden where wild things have grown.
A flame that shivers but never dies,
A flicker that burns beneath winter skies.

It’s the ache of the shore as the waves retreat,
A dance unfinished, yet bittersweet.
The hum of a chord that hangs in the air,
A note unresolved, yet painfully rare.

It’s a trap, it’s a freedom, a tangle in the tide,
A ghost on the shoulder, a force you can’t guide.
Both prisoner and prince in its velvet cage,
An eternal story on a fleeting page.

So sail it, inhale it, let it bury your fears,
Let it carve your soul through laughter and tears.
For love is a river, unruly and deep,
A current that carries what you vow to keep.

There was a time I knew sadness,
There was a time I knew pain.
There was a time I knew sorrow,
There was a time I knew shame.

And then I saw her;
Not like a dream, not like a hope,
But real, alive,
A spark in a world that had forgotten how to burn.

She didn’t speak the same language as my grief,
Her words were light,
But they landed heavy,
Like rain on a parched land.

She smiled, and for the first time in years,
I didn’t feel broken.
I didn’t feel like a collection of wounds
Held together by fragile skin.

She held my hand once,
And the touch was like a promise,
A promise that maybe the weight I carried
Wasn't mine to bear alone.

She took my sadness,
Took my pain,
Took my sorrow,
Took my shame,
And replaced them with warmth
I didn’t think I could feel.

But then one day,
I looked into her eyes.

And in that moment,
I saw it—
All the things she had taken from me,
All the things she had quietly held,
Lived there, in the depths of her gaze.

And for a single moment...

There was a time I saw sadness,
There was a time I saw pain.
There was a time I saw sorrow,
There was a time I saw shame.

Love’s a splinter, a shimmer, a shiver,
A quiver of gold in the gut of a river.
It’s a thief in the rafters, a laughter that lingers,
A bell in your chest rung by merciless fingers.

It slinks like silk, like milk on a wire,
A flick of a wick set to shadow and fire.
It gnaws at the edges, it etches the air,
A puzzle of pieces that were never quite there.

It’s honey and venom, a rhythm of stings,
A tangle of feathers, a choir of wings.
A howl in the hollow, a swallow of sun,
It’s begun, it’s begun—and it’s never begun.

It’s a lock with no key, it’s a sea without end,
A ripple, a riddle that you can’t apprehend.
It’s ink in the veins of a dream you can’t write,
A fight to the marrow, a flight through the night.

It’s a scaffold of sighs, a cry on the wind,
A hymn for the lonely, the holy, the sinned.
It’s the orbit of chaos, the storm in your chest,
The claw of a hawk in a silken nest.

Love is a hive, a dive into flame,
A shape-shifting shadow with no face or name.
It hums in your bones, it moans, it conspires,
A waxwork of whispers, a cathedral of fires.

Love’s like venom in the vine, a pendulum in time,
A crescendo in your spine when the heavens misalign.
It’s a shadow on the shine, it’s a dagger in design,
It’s the chatter in your mind that you never can define.

It’s a glitch in the glow, the itch you don’t know,
A pitch too low, but it hits you though.
It’s a spark in the freeze, a bark in the breeze,
A lark that you seize, but it’s dark in the trees.

It’s a pull in the tide, a lull in the ride,
A skull that you hide with a smile full of pride.
It’s the crash, it’s the climb, it’s the hash of the rhyme,
It’s the past that you mime while you’re grasping at time.

It’s a thread in the seam, a dread in the dream,
A head full of steam that’s about to scream.
It’s the war and the peace, the thorn in the feast,
The beast you release when the hunger won’t cease.

It’s a reel that won’t cut, a feel that won’t shut,
A deal that you struck when your steel turned to gut.
It’s the tear in the weave, the air that you grieve,
A snare you believe but can’t quite retrieve.

It’s a hex, it’s a hymn, it’s the vexed in the grim,
It’s the text in the dim when the rest starts to spin.
It’s a maze in the spark, a haze in the arc,
A blaze in the heart that decays in the dark.

So twist it and take it, resist it or break it,
Insist it’s mistaken, but you’re stitched to forsake it.
Love’s a rhythm that rewinds, a prism in decline,
It’s a prison, it’s divine, it’s the venom in the vine.

the clock marks twelve with a
hollow chime.
in its wake, the air thickens, heavy
with absence.
shadows ripple across the walls,
shifting like thoughts half-formed,
dark and untethered.

the corner stretches, widens,
becomes something deeper,
a mouth that might swallow me
if i meet its gaze too long

the ceiling groans softly,
its beams contracting
as if under the weight
of something unseen.

i sit still, breathing shallow,
watching the shadows watch me,
and wonder if the clock
will ever strike one.