There was once a child
born beneath the sign
of unburial.

She carried too much—
not in arms
but in tethered memory.
Things with no names,
only weights.

A cracked watch
that ticked in reverse.
A button from a coat
that no one had worn
in three generations.

A feather
from a bird
dreamt once
by her grandmother,
never seen again.

She believed—
as those marked by absence do—
that keeping meant remembering,
and remembering meant
nothing would vanish.

Others crossed her path,
offered to help unfasten the straps.
She refused.
They did not know
which talismans bled
and which only looked like wounds.

So she walked.
Through salt seasons,
through bone-rattling frost,
through forests with no floor
and skies that never asked her name.

The bag grew heavier.
She grew cleverer.
Silent.

And then—
on a day that wasn’t special,
under a sun that wasn’t kind—
she set it down.
Not as surrender.
As an experiment.

The earth did not crack.
The ghosts did not scatter.
Her shadow did not abandon her.

She sifted the contents.
Some were dust.
Some were still singing.
Some curled away like dried petals
and begged to be left behind.

She took a key.
She took the bell.
She left the rest
for the moss.

She walked on.

Not lighter, exactly—
but less governed
by the shape
of her grief.

when the rains come
tell them,
tell everyone,
to get an umbrella.
____

it's a field
a beautiful field.
green and green as far as the eyes can see.
It is quiet
and swaying,
and naked.
Wonderfully naked.

I am also naked.
and i can feel it
like worms, digging
within the hollows of my chest.
It is an uneasy feeling.
one that brings my knees to my chest
and binds it all with my arms.
It makes me want to eat myself
and swallow,
swallow till all that remains is teeth.

I am naked
but the grass I sit on is soft
and the sky has a mouth
that he uses to talk of storms.

I am naked
reciting the Psalms of David.
dwelling in the secret place of the Lord
abiding under the shadow of the Almighty.

There is a place that’s hard to find
You won’t see it on any map
Very few have heard it’s name
Even fewer have been inside
Paradiso Consensua

Coconut water falls from great heights
Only the gentlest predators roam
Blunted fangs hunt leisurely
Even the food agrees to be eaten in
Paradiso Consensua

The sun is warm in dappled glow
Between towers of fanning tree
Dancing and shaking plump fruit
In the warming and cooling breezes of
Paradiso Consensua

Tropical storms bring sweet showers
The sound is a symphony of cacophony
Earthen dwellings perfumed with petrichor
Flooded rivers leave fertile banks on
Paradiso Consensua

The natives dance, sing, and celebrate
Around glowing fires tended together
Nourished by joy and compassion
No one is forgotten who enters
Paradiso Consensua

A homeland that few are invited to visit
She can be copied, but she can’t be colonized
Rumor  has it, paradise is lost
But the true ones know how to find
Paradiso Consensua

Living in a dreamworld. Living a little out of touch.
Lose myself in random dreams, that never really amount to much.
Wishing on a shooting star like a little child.
Searching for specific pages in my story only to realize they were misfiled...
Stolen away, lost somewhere, stumbling cannot find.
Searching for a place or person. I cannot remember, have i lost my mind.
Once upon a times and happily ever afters. Did  not teach us about broken dreams and unsolvable disasters!
All those big ideas where are they now?? When never land has faded and you’re a grown up somehow.
When your no longer a boy but still a little lost. When chasing all of those things has had a high cost.
Friends disappeared, loves have left you jaded. The energy and hope you once held has faded.
Barely a whisper but still your holding on, singing out your solo but the words are all wrong.
Isn’t this supposed to be the place for your redemptive arc, but no happily ever after appears and things look a little stark.
I don’t like this story, this sad woeful tale. I don’t want to be a character, think its time to bail!
Who is writing this narrative i angrily ask ?
But then in my hand i see the pen this is my task?

Here ─
In the loquacious silence
Of the white noise in my mind
I knew I wasn't present

My mother was near ─
With her mind withdrawn
Absent to some place
That dated from ages ago

My father would disappear ─
Only to continue being far
Once he was back
Now travelling into the future


And I have gathered a life without
Now
Right
Here