.
I'm slipping...

Winds from the past had blown hard.
Heavy clouds have returned.
Bearing gifts of broken shards,
memories discarded and mementos burnt.

I'm falling...

Footfalls fail as they sink in clay.
Fingers tremble as they grab at nothing.
The words are lost and the voice couldn't say.
The pills seem to have stopped working.

I'm regressing...

Into an all familiar territory.
A place I thought I had left far behind.
But I feel reconnected to a mirrored me.
The part I've missed since a new state of mind.

.

I do not enjoy the
busy highway.
So, I take a slow ride
on the frontage road
on my way to work
tonight.

Thin wisps of
dark blue clouds
curve over
a turquoise sky.
Then the day fades
and nightshades
are interrupted
by lightning
off to the left.

Past the gas station,
where buildings become
fewer and farther between,
glow worms work
the fields of grass
blinking like
stars on earth.

Tears work
there way
past my solitary guard
as I recall
an old yard
of childhood games
and familiar family faces.
Too many of those faces
are now specters
planted in a deadman’s field.

No time for nostalgia,
no signs of weakness,
I beat this melancholia
with exercise
and caffeine
before my coworkers
can ever see me.

I imagine you're disappointed in me. I can't say I blame you. It is not my fault that I didn't become the laborer you dreamt I'd be, split palms stung by sweat.  It is my fault, however, that I became nothing at all.
  
  Our family was defined by a cardboard box. Your job was to move them, hundreds an hour. My brothers and I were raised by a box that puked The King Of Queens and censored 90's dramas. My mother buried Polaroids of frozen dance moves and eternal smiles, under fake jewelry in a cheap cherry box.

  And when I carried the box that ate my grandfather, I showed no stuggle, tucked in my shirt, not wanting to embarass you.

  And when I forgot the Sea Bass belt, I promised not to **** myself with, in a box at the ward.

  And when I carried the box that sealed my grandmother.

  And when I burnt the box of letters she wrote from far and away; trying to erase who I was.

  I think I have let you down, father. I can only offer myself the way I'd offer a box: disappointing on the outside with a chance of beauty in the inside, if you're willing to open up.

Slowly
I will unveil you
Like the peelings
an onion,
bittersweet juices
flowing with each
layer

I will,
as if a handmaiden,
Be there
To remove
the armor
of your battles
Ceremony-like,
In gentleness,
without hurting you
and lead you to the bath.

I will coax you out
Like a delicate stamen
From the petals
That surround your
Aching heart.

If you retreat
I will give you some space
For I know that
You will come to me
Like a fragile night creature
Afraid of the sun
I will persuade you
To check the air
To realize that your secrets
Are safe with me

I will encourage
You to come forth
And take you
Into my arms
No matter what
secrets you hold
Whether dark,
twisted  or lost
I can take it
For my heart is warm
And I am wise beyond my years
Come now, hush
Let me help you
Release your fears

Today I pondered Oblivion. If the stars will collapse on themselves, if the nothingness between the asteroids and the dust lining the moons and the inhuman complexity that is Time will all convolute and dissolve into existential chaos, then what is the point? If space time does not have an infinitely stretching edge like an anti gravitational sea eclipsing the earth, then neither does humanity. So Europe and America and Africa are tiny islands in an everlasting ocean; single ants in an interminable universe. So my home is even more exponentially tiny: my state is a mere indention in an all-embracing dirt path so I am a receding footprint in a fossil of human existance. My poems are specks of dust on a planet of amorphous matter.