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Tiger Striped Feb 2020
the day after christmas i
took a walk in the woods at
dusk.
i felt a city of eyes
staring, none
of which i could see.
i walked among them,
an obstreperous visitor uninvited.
beneath the rustling wind in the trees,
i thought i heard the
pounding of drums.
perhaps it was the rhythm of nature.
it beckoned me to run,
so i
ran.
i ran not from death, but
toward life.
i did not plan to run,
but i
ran.
i ran until the end
of my path.
i watched the puffs of air
float languidly toward the
sky, and realized
this was not the end, simply
where the path stopped.
Tiger Striped Feb 2020
don't be the clock
who tries to run time
Tiger Striped Feb 2020
This is the story of smoke,
mirrors,
broken fourth walls,
and me.
I
used to play with fire and pretend
I was a goddess, like
I'd created it with my own
fingers.
I once set my carpet on fire
(that's not a metaphor),
and for one brilliant moment I
thought I might have
inadvertently burned down the house.
But I outgrew fire,
grew bored of ice,
and discovered the final frontier—
it was disappointingly tepid:
dull, a bit smoky
from ex-flames that scorched the carpet.
My once-raw lungs are now
jaded and fading.
What is left to grow tired of?
I don't care enough to find out.
Tiger Striped Feb 2020
a summer scent seeps into spring,
the bitter hint of our endings
the years, begun in swelling tides,
now ebbing toward the shores of time.
this summer heat is scathing now;
the sky found wanting of her clouds
and sun the sole tenant therein,
burns with echoes of what has been.

so long ago, she deigned to rise
from darkness to uncharted highs
and now, our greenest life is graced
by torrid waves shone from her face
once lush and verdant, now descend
the lifeless leaves to life's grand end
our feet will find, in passing by
remains of those who knew the sky

so autumn falls, apprising death
and beauty takes a ragged breath,
exhales a gust of frigid truth,
reminds us of expired youth,
then lies down in her crystal bed
as isolation takes her stead
our memories and warmth are lost
'neath blankets of life's lonely frost

we seldom see the craven sun
we crave that fire that kept us young
and full of life's bright, loving rage
but fateful wind has turned the page
it leaves a blank chapter for us,
to our ink-stained fingers entrusts
invention and a flash of time,
future ahead and past behind

where life began, we pick up now
and to the blessed spring endow
an offset to the bitterness
that once beset our eagerness
we suffered, learned, and now we fight
not nature; not the flow of time
but to preserve humanity
to safeguard that insanity
we named love, for we have found
it is all but by time bound.
Tiger Striped Feb 2020
i took piano lessons when i was
five, until i was eight.
we moved states and
i just stopped.
but then a few years ago,
i met you and i
wished i remembered how to play
because you put a song in the back of my mind
and it's been playing ever since,
without your knowledge
or my consent.
sometimes it calms me
or animates my dreams,
and on occasions it's given me
headaches.
but it reminds me every day
of what i could have had,
what i long to pursue
and how
i wish i could play your song.
Tiger Striped Feb 2020
i got a new pen for christmas
and i love it.
it glides over paper
like a cosmic match,
its perfectly pigmented partner.
but i have the same notebooks
and i write the same things
dreaming the same dreams
with a new pen in hand.
at least your name
will be just a little bit more beautiful
as i trace it once more,
tear out the paper,
crumple it up,
and start again.
Tiger Striped Dec 2019
I found you first
in meteors splattered against the
skin of the barren night sky.
I found you  
in the grains of sugar
liquefying joy on my tongue.
I found you next to me
my bleary eyes opened
I blinked
you vanished.
Now I search for you
ripping out every page of my favorite books
stripping away the keys of once-grand pianos.
Now I search for you
I pass the days lying in the street,
looking for a face like yours
through the windows of
cars that drone mindlessly by.
I don't sleep; someone must
scrutinize the sky
in case you make your fiery homecoming
but every second without you
steals you further from my memory
and sometimes, with my eyes closed, I wonder
if you were ever really here at all.
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