I carry baggage all over my body;
under my eyes
I don't sleep much anymore,
nerves eat at my stomach.
I carry baggage in my gut,
it's filled with guilt and despair.
I carry baggage in my heart,
it's getting heavy, and I
will have to set it down soon.
I carry baggage in my mind
with all the thoughts, unkind.

Pale red contours her frame
vivid red shames the sky,
the eyes of potential glorify her.
He puts his arm through hers,
patriarch guidance, she glides into the hall.
Eyes of innocence lock with eyes of dominance
mental math done to calculate their happiness
and their obedience.
Thousands of candles light the hall
all the decadence makes her nauseous:
the champagne, the oysters
the love, the lust.
So she runs around the hall, blowing out candles
dimming vision.
She's caught now
as their eyesight goes, letting them all see clearly;
true laughter and smiles ring.
But the blind caretaker
heard the commotion,
the thrilling emotion, and re-lit the candles.
The daze wears off
their "vision" returns to normalcy.
They slit her throat
and resume their dance.
The caretaker laughs.
Her bravery is forgotten.

I can't physically comprehend
our reality; its space-time rhapsody,
the fourth dimension is abstract to our eyes
yet we can see it pass us by:
one long day or infinite moments,
we age the same,
gray comes to dominate us.

We forget how to walk
we forget how to talk
we forget how to hear
we forget how to fear,
numb to our end.

We forget how to worship what's above,
jaded from life's scars.

We forget how to love,
our cherished memories are lost.

We forget how to feel
but we lose immortality,
because we forget how to heal,
and we forget it all too soon.

A sweet crunch of frozen grass
the acrid taste of decaying ash
like gray snow, coming down
and airplane engines making horrid sounds.
The war worms its way into your weary heart
as you watch the children tearfully depart
toward save havens far from the train station.
God seems to smirk at his messy creation:
desperate babes cry as they're torn from their mothers
weeping sisters find little comfort in their stoic brothers,
who fight back tears to make absent dads proud.
The chugging trains are far too loud
for tender good-byes to be properly made;
children's innocence is too far gone to be saved.
The youngest of them have never not known fear
a dark world is that which they see most clear,
a bright world would burn their infantile eyes,
better to watch motionless as their universe dies.

One young girl will not see her father again,
she'll hear it soon, from the soft chirp of the wren.
For now she stands still and watches her world burn,
and asks her mother, "Do we ever really learn?"