It's cold out.
I'm clinging to my wit while the cold air hits my body.
my skin feels dry, cold and frosted.
My head is filled with tired thoughts.
My heart is beating slower and slower.
My bones feel fragile.
It all doesn't feel right.
is it just me? or just the snow?

in a silent madness;- lies a lie like a gloomy past,
my eyes become a patch of crimson under a calmy vast
expanse of solid white -every tear was like frozen milk,
stirred by the coldness of a night.

the bitterness of an unfeeling presence, like a shadow
that invades my room; my unrest continued as daylight
darkened into night.

now dawning a forced crack of smile, like the winter
cracking the night’s skyline. the trees were so upset-
frost-shocked; swinging pieces of ice tears from the
winds upsetting cries- out loudly.

the frost in my veins freezes the time I have with a
jolt; it jars at my bones- like an endless fall into
tides, all rushing away, swept into my eyes.

for even when I close them so strongly, trying to
imagine warmth -I can still hear the harsh coldness
of this cold night.

Seasons change
Just ask the jay
Whose plume is blue
As the sky
After a fierce rain
Inundates the land
Bringing with it winds
Whose currents lift the jay
To dance among scattered clouds
Waving a final goodbye
To the warmth of summer sun
Setting past falls forward
Into winters grasp
Whose chill shocks the jay
With visions of ice and snow and frost
A sign to migrate to warmer climbs
Where fall has fallen backward
And summer sun rises anew
Challenging the changing season
To remain sunny and blue

Cold days are over
Shades on the Orchid’s petals
A gift from the Sun

The title speaks it all so clearly, unlike I who slurs my words
To write down what a handful will see, but phrases never to be heard
From obligations to congratulations, it all starts to feel the same
How petty it is I blame everything, how I must feel ashamed

Things I said to prove a point
messages left on read I wish I never sent
The cold is blistering, so are my fingers
Tell me how you can forget yet for me it still lingers

People go on with their lives, wishing for the summer
While I sit hear wishing I didn't think everything was a ******
Its so easy to appreciate the little things in life
But so hard when you feel teardrops turning into ice

Everyone says to seek help, that it gets better as you grow
yet almost a decade later I have nothing to show
Spreading positivity, have no certainty
Of the people coming and going, who matters and who closes the curtain

Future careers, games, girls, what I fear
Further encapsulating that I barely feel like I am here
Stuck between adulthood and being a child
Stuck between a mild nature and a wild imagination

Stuck between what games to play, what role to play
Which school to pay and which job pays better
Payment is engraved in my mindset, my parents make sure of it
Little do they know I hate adult life and I am sick of it

Crushes like a giddy child, in this darned freezing weather
Is it sad I feel better alone, or I feel alone and barely any better?
How ironic my words contradict each other
but thats what we were to one each other

Am I just ranting over you, this existence, or the future?
Is this in general or has my heart finally ruptured?
This barely makes sense, and neither does this life
Play, work, pay then get a wife? Is this why samurai always held a short knife?

Bound
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15

Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground,
I have lost what I once found
in your arms.

Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes,
I have remade all my chains
and am bound.

Published as “Why Did I Go?” in my high school journal the Lantern in 1976. I have made slight changes here and there, but the poem is essentially the same as what I wrote in my early teens.

Golden Sunlight unfolds herself from the cracks of the frozen earth
Like silk, her fingers warm and soft against my cheek

She stands herself gracefully from among the glittering frost,
Tending to the falling and calling for the lost

She softens the scrape of black trees against the thin skin of the sky
And offers forgiveness from the endless nightly cry