Autumn, once again
Has awoken this sleepless slumberer,
She drags about to lumber
through her day to day,
Watching herself waste away.
But now, Autumn has returned,
Pumpkin and cinnamon lace the air
Apple cider to prepare,
And heavy coats wrapped tightly
Around shaking fingers,
The warmth, of one last kiss that lingers
And the way the firelight dances,
Whisking memories of frost away.
Sleepless slumberer blinks, cracked skin
Splits into a smile,
Watching the cascade of inferno
Fall from weathered trees.
Each, to its own season,
Like the slumberer, whose reason,
Has finally been refreshed, at ease.
It is Autumn, and she is pleased.

Aged mirror, what have you seen?
What secrets do you hold?
You pause the passing moments,
Keep them, never to grow old.
What darting glances have you caught,
Tearful fights reluctant fought,
Subtle hand slips to another,
One man calls his friend a brother.
Have you caught death,
A life's first breath?
Have you witnessed an idea's birth?
The caroling song of laughter's mirth?
People pass you, pause just to check,
Their hair, a blemish, some unseen fleck,
Then onward with their lives,
Leave some small trace of soul behind.
And so you collect pieces of people,
Some vivaciously alive, some feeble.
Some living to fill the day,
Or waiting for it to pass away.
I wonder what you've seen, oh mirror,
The pieces that connect us.
A small reflective shard of glass,
Its purpose to collect us.

My seams are unraveling.
No, not unraveling,
Simply traveling to another place,
Another time, keeping pace with pacing lines
Lining stitch by stitch as each one falls away.
Another day away and still the fraying corners
eat decaying corpses, trapped sojourners
From another place, another time.
I am fine. And my finely sharpened edges
Carve finely sharpened wedges into the cracks
inside the cracking cavern in my skull.
Dramatics. Call me actress.
These are antics of my mind I call distress.
Call me figure of the stage and of the dress.
But I get stage fright, and the lights that shine for me
are not friendly, they are mean.
They are fakers, takers of light, great figures of fright.
They carve my caving walls,
and empty stalls of shopping malls, abandoned halls
And eyeless dolls who crave my mortal scream.
What can I do but scream?
As my skin peels back like fabric,
The cavern in my skull croons, an addict,
shaking, pulse racing as my quaking hands wave
to an invisible stage.
The lights are up, the monsters creep
How can I dare to fall asleep?
Not so easy, my creeping foe
My stitching fades and we both know
That while fabric once torn can mend,
A mind once broken will still bend.

My mind calls me Imposter.
I rip my skin, letting blood pool on its surface.
I, Monster, lick my wound and cry that I am broken.
I howl in the dread that I am nothing.
Terrified, I scream into the void.
No answer floats up from its depth.
Perhaps it didn't hear me.
Perhaps no sound ripped through my throat, perhaps its raw constriction didn't manifest into noise, perhaps I, monster, cannot be heard.
Monsters don't exist.
I, Imposter, groan and go about my day.

I cannot stand to hope,
for empty hope? Despair.
My two-faced way to cope,
A hope that is not there.

Snap, click, camera.
A moment captured in time.
A poem without any words,
picture with rhythm and rhyme.

Every day the world is running.
Keep its pace, don't dare to lose.
Catch the rush, can't see what's coming,
So I slump to tie my shoes.

Lost in moments, stampede of feet.
Hierarchy crumbles, no glue.
Ignore the poor, fight the elite.
No time to tie your shoe.

Scamper for scraps and match the fray.
Scurry on or pause to die.
Push to the promise, "better day"
With no rush, no shoes to tie.

We're all tired. The fight's too loud.
Look down. See people, broken.
They tried to stop, escape the crowd,
Shoes untied and cries soft-spoken.

It's not done with them, you or me.
The world moves on despite you.
Stop for the broken, hear their plea.
Kneel to tie their shoe.