I am scared most of the things in the fall
Of the things I can’t recall
Of the darkness in the hall

And I am homesick for a bed
in which I can no longer lay
Because my feet hang off the end
And I wake to stiff to play

I’m teaching lessons to the horses
In the sunny cloudy fields
Teaching them their choices
Teaching them to feel

I tell little mare Ann Mary
To forgive her brother Jack
Because such a friend he is to her
That she soon will want him back

I show soft and gentle Bluebell
That he must learn to stand up tall
He’s growing sick from all the beatings
He only gets because he’s small

And calloused old buck Rusty
Must stop fighting for his pride
Because under rough and darkened skin
We are all pink and soft inside

And my cats I have nothing to tell them
Because cats they are creatures of habit
They only do what they know will soon please them
Their claws carve a track through the carpet

The grass holds the secrets of seasons
It speaks as the air cuts between it
I hope if show I care for it
It might share all the fears I forgot

Light shines through the clouds like a keyhole
The land is an old sleeping Angel
In the heart of my home lies the answer
But I’d rather talk to the horses.

Spit out the blood
Sniff your snot dry
Wash yourself in the greywater behind the jungle gym
Try not to cry

Silent son of lady atlas
Lays on the cold bedroom floor
Staring at his arms
Red and raw

His sides are bruised and ugly,
Shades of blue purple and yellow,
He asks his mom for blueberry custard
She says no.

Sometimes I like to catch the mosquitos that hum about my room, sending radio signals to headquarters,
One handed, ****** them out of their whining arrogance,
Squish.
Sometimes when I open my hand again, to bask in my tactical victory, or find out it slipped between my fingers, it rises slowly out of the fist, and into the night, alive.
Pride. I caught it.
Frustration. It got away.
Awe. It survived.

Lets start start with the better half: I love you.
Like the songbirds love the trees that they rest in, and the trees love the winds that course under their arms, and the rocks love the shade that the trees dust across the forest floor, and the soft moss loves the cool rocks in the shade in the forest with the birds in the trees and the trees in the wind.

I love you like human error, like a sun-lit memory of an overcast day, like silent laughter and holding arms while we walk. Like a recipe that anyone else could follow, but always tastes the best when you make it.
I love you like a framed photograph, like bad art on the fridge, like buying a bottle of expensive wine even though I can't taste the difference.

I love you like starlight, an ineffable awe and inspiration, a thought for every galaxy in every cluster, that somehow we are the same, though lightyears away. All the stardust in the universe finds a way back to itself, and when we touch it feels like a scattered constellation from eons past reuniting.

And God, I miss you.

I miss you like the clouds miss the lakes they were pulled from, and the lakes miss the oceans they flowed from, and the oceans miss the shells that wash to shore, and the shells miss the ***** they once held inside.

I miss you like buried sediment misses the sunlight, or the flowers in the grocery store miss the bees and the meadow. Like a lost button misses the jacket it fell from, or the birthday kid misses the cake after it's eaten.

I miss you like the camellia misses the moon as it waits for it to rise, I miss you like winter misses green leaves and grass, like a friend of ours misses november.
You are the wool in my sweater, and when you leave I am pulled apart. And I never notice how cold it is without you until you are gone.

And when I see you again the rains will pour from the heavens and I will shower you in all the adoration I can pull from myself, I will pray you feel the waves crashing in to tide, rising to take back it's sands, the storm will flood the lakes so the land becomes the sea. Spring will unfurl in eruption as each bud blooms and soft grass sways with the wildflowers in the wind at our feet. And earth will tremble and split open, and sun will shine upon layers of earth turned to marvellous canyons. And my arms will be back in yours. And the pieces will fit together as they always should have.

I love you, and I miss you, and I want to wrench those phrases apart so that they don't have to stand next to eachother anymore, so that I just love you.

The air ripples and waves with heat,
The way cords on a bass guitar bounce and float,
The way water can dip and climb without curling and crashing,
A quiet hum of a movement that has its eyes closed and breathes slowly.
The world is not dry or humid, but it is boiling,
It is melting and hypnotising,
A fever-dream in its heat which seems to pull you down into a deep, tired, yawning, sweat.
The sky is a rich blue,
Not electric, but just as bold,
Yet chooses to be still and silent.
The grass is dry and alive,
Tasteful like bitters in an ice cold drink,
Moving like an evening stretch in the temperate breeze,
Coiled trees stand in paralysed contortion,
They stare into the distance,
Content in being relic and quiet,
Swaying slightly, picturesque in their verdure.
Animals sprint in panting silence,
Like thin arrows through the thick air,
Or softly, statically, dozing into the summer embrace.
Sounds are muted,
The air is suspended in amber,
Time is held outside of itself in the pocket of earth before we categorized it as history,
When it simply was,
Untouched and uncontextualized,
Observed only by those who had no tenses or constructs only here and now.
Breathing air which is made of auburn earth,
Drowning in the deep arid ocean,
Submerged and embraced,
Sleeping, serene and tranquil.