the magic of poetry.
is that it makes everything
beautiful.
it fills your lungs
like air.
it turns your soul
into a sky full of stars.
your heart
a field of wildflowers.
you.
into a poem.

The future scares me;

So I live each day separately.

when death is transition
you are always journeying
(until your final destination)

Dread crawls up my spine,
originating at
the small of my back
and leaving
penetrating
residue
on each
vertebra
as it climbs.
It sneaks
into my heart
when I'm
not looking
and POUNCES-
its incisors
clamp down
and its
venom
ejects
into my chest;
paralysis begins there and races outwards right into my limbs and brain until I can't think or move as the hallucinogens take over my mind's eye and play me a reel that boils my stomach.
Loss and
loneliness and
heartbreak
flash before my
eyes in a
sickening torrent.
I feel a
W  A  L  L
of irresistible
time behind my
back,
pushing me,
heels digging in
and pleading "no, no"
the whole way,
slowly, but inevitably
towards the end of everything I've ever known,
and everyone that
I've so
recently
grown to truly,
dearly love
as my friends.

So many around me
are counting down
to that day,
bound to the
same force as I,
but feeling it
instead
as a leash
that will only let
them go
inch
          by
                inch,
                      ­   day
                                 by
                                       day.

For them, a prison break;
for me, a life sentence
of aching for
the people
I've only just
claimed as mine;
among them,
the boy I've held on to,
just starting to become a man,
whom I love
with all my
bruised
and scarred heart.

I don't want to leave.
                                     .
                                      .
                       ­                .

Peace, happiness, security-
we reach for these,
but they often
slip from our grasp
as life
             wreaks

                         its

                          havoc

                           ­    on

                               our

                             hearts,
                             and we hit bottom.

Chaos                         around
              flutters
our
                    heads      ­             bats
                       like

worries crowd in and fill our ears eyes and lungs until they're our every waking moment and we can't breathe as they surround us,

and loss,
coming and going in a flash,
takes us out at the knees,
rips someone from their place
in our hearts,
and leaves us
b  r  o  k  e  n
on the ground
with no way out...

Until

a still, small voice
beckons you
out
of your pain;
the whisper
of a Father who
promises
love,
peace,
and an end to the darkness.*

His arms encircle you,
His presence fills you,
His love hushes your pain,
like a mother quieting her child,
changing your tears
of heartache
to those
of awe
that this kind of love
should not only
simply
exist,
but be given to you.
And on the heels of love
comes *peace.