I can hear the accusing tones downstairs,
Muted yelling from below,
Can’t make out his words
‘Cause the pitch is too low.

Wincing at the thud of something hitting the floor,
Stomach twisting at the sound of tearing paper,
Pulse quickens as I hear him slam a door.

I shouldn’t have directed him towards her when he came to pester me.
Now everyone in the house is on edge,
So I’ll busy my hands and mind by keeping the kitchen clean.

Stop touching my sides
Just because I let you touch me like that once before
Doesn’t mean I’m yours

I wish for misty drizzle days
Instead this dusty smoke,
A cheap replacement for petrichor.

Longing for the cozy hug of a droopy sweater or flannel shirt around my shoulders
I find comfort in soft cloth.

Waiting for late mornings,
Cups of steamy tea,
Or frothy cider with warming spices,
Faded book covers and stretching knitted blankets,
Gray dawns and wordless smiles.

Because I am a mouse,
Who munches on crunchy orange and yellow leaves for inspiration.

Who admires the fluttering and faintly glimmering spiderwebs,
Adorned by tiny drops of diamond dew.

Who loves dripping,
Just barely ripe apples
Ones with pieces that tear away with a juicy crunch.

Who hides her soul in towering, curly fern leaves,
Surrounded by ghostly green tree moss,
Wispy strands hanging down like ancient whiskers.

I never believed in love at first sight.

It was always something that happened slow,
With the one I least expected it to.
Falling in love always took time,
But before I knew it I was in over my head,
Drowning in it.

I always had too much,
And they never wanted any.
So I had to drink it all up,
An ocean of it,
Every last intoxicating drop,

Until my chest ached from it, about to burst,
Throwing up onto white pages that could barely soak it up
Leaving a trail of hastily combined words,
Love, pain, anguish.

So this time I decided to just let it out,
Let it run out from sound instead of tears,
Let my less-than-eloquent language blur
With colloquial words,
Let the feelings flow with my tumbling speech,
Falling upon her ears instead of a page that she would never see.

So now sometimes I look up from white paper
And see a cotton sky,
The same color.
And I realize, it wasn’t love I had drowned in.
Love fills a comforting space,
Warmth on these silver and cotton days,
It was hope,
And lack of hope leaves an empty space,
One that fills with rain.

Crunch of gravel, conveying a mixed beat
Of some brisk and some merely wandering feet,
Rushing fountain in the distance
Gliding cool water slips silently beneath.

I lounge comfortably under this tree,
Gaze wand’ring from blocky buildings to sky,
Wearing playful cologne and expensive shoes,
Completely invisible to the passerby.

A muted flush of cherry-blossom clouds,
Reminds me of a time not so long ago,
Of wishing you were here to walk with me in this lovers’ park
Yet once again finding myself here alone.

Laying outside on a creaky old balcony,
On our backs, tangled up together in heavy blankets,
Rubbing our hands and ears
Because they’re getting numb
Thankful for the summer’s gentle night

I drew my eyes away
From the graceful Venus in the South,
A lone golden light shining wistfully
And I finally found the shape of the Big Dipper.
I stare at its lowest corners’ bright star,
An unfathomable size, and even greater distance away
Making me feel infinitely small
Infinitely calm
I trace with my gaze its tail
As icy white sparks fly lightning fast
Through the dripping-ink sky
And burn out faster than a blink,
Barely caught by our drifting eyes

The three of us talk, I sing, maybe to stay awake or maybe to pass the time
Bohemian Rhapsody’s bittersweet melody never sounded so pleasing to me as at 2 in the morning.
Our chatter of secrets is punctuated by gasps
Of us pointing out those bright streaks

We all make wishes,
For love, for luck, for answers
As celestial raindrops keep reaching across the sky
One bright orange jewel with a lavender tail
Burns beautifully by

I wonder why people make wishes upon something that’s dying,
Though spectacular, at the end of its life
“People wish upon things of the heavens”
Is your beautiful reply.

How oddly comforting it is to live in a place where we’re never alone,
Where a friend to talk to,
Or perhaps a long-since past captured moment
All live inside the screen of a phone.

Where we seek momentarily vibrant entertainment,
A single click away from any form of instant gratification,
Thirty seconds of an advertisement are too long a wait
To listen to an empty, hollow song.
There is no more journey, only destination.

Teased for anything that makes one stand out,
Young boys and girls are taught to be vain.
Flooded with images of perfection
Who needs uniqueness when we can all be the same?

Neon signs, boastful words, glimmering lights,
“Progress”, we call it,
Conceal the smoke and grime,
The poisoned seas and wheezing forests.
Yet we never take the hint,
Even when it’s plastered around, a collection of signs
Pushing our problems on the next generation to solve,
We’ve made it this far, so we’ll never die…
Right?

Society is split,
And it was greedy hands that cut the cake,
Making it look like a chart,
Of the pie variety,
One of the ones that has one vast, delicious chunk,
And the rest is so small
That the figures are written off to the side.
Just crumbs left to eat for the frightening numbers of those
Born below that line
Such twisted irony:
For the one of the cheapest foods in the store
Is flour.

No happiness for the ones at the bottom
Except for patriotic half-truths.
“All men are created equal.”
So are bricks I suppose.
Except that in a pyramid, most are destined to lay
Close to the ground,
Worn, chipped, and dust-covered,
And but a few gleam in the golden rays of the sun,
The few on top, bathed in wealth.
But without its base, the system will crumble.
At least that’s what they say.

So we let ourselves be told how to think,
Never looking outside our bottles and bubbles for the source of reasoning.
“She’s a sinner, he’s just lazy.”
Such cruel things about unfortunate souls
The crowd can say.
But why?
“Because they chose to be that way.”
It’s simple of course, when only the individual
Can be to blame.

Society’s sentencing
Replacing the need for a God in a way,
Chains of morality, while amorphous through time
Have always been and will always stay.

And we judge without stopping to think,
Who told us that this is the way to think,
To think about why it is that we think
In this way.

Floating inside our bubbles and bottles,
Too steeped in others’ thoughts and words
To lift our chins,
Look around
And think of our own.

We’re ever marching forward,
To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
Effectively staying in place.
Though the landscape around us ebbs and flows
In our nature,
Essentially we never changed.