Today marks one year since you’ve left the ground
Things have changed
For the better… or for the worse
I wonder where you are now
United with nature? Or absorbed into another world?

I wonder if there will finally come a time
Where regret will not come knocking
When I think of you
And your unconditional love and untold stories
I regret not using time to our advantage.

And wherever you are now
Do you see us and smile?
Are you proud?
Do you miss us?

Because I miss you.
And I wish I could have said

Good-bye.

Bright plastic colors
stand out sharply
from the earthy brown and greens.
They don’t blend in
cleanly to the forest
foliage. Faded from the
sun, slightly sunken
into the ground
with age, the playground
hides in the shadows,
yearning for new faces
and fresh excitement.
But when the wind
blows, the old structure
shudders and groans,
whispering of ghosts
of children past.

My mind is never empty

Like those days with clouds moving in different directions
a foggy landscape,
zombie weather, my brother claims,
but with particles zooming in all directions
or so my unfinished chemistry homework says.

Calendars filled with graphite lettering
stacked upon piles of papers,
discarded months swept into heaps
of forgotten leaves, neglected notes.
Ink bleeding in sporadic shapes,
lines of fatigue that never begin or end.

Faint melodies
trickle through the crisp
autumn leaves, vibrantly yellow against
dark, damp bark,
distantly elegant, distantly cheerful.

Winter winds whistling,
sharp and painful,
hurt, most definitely
torn arguments and shredded papers
and tears and grief and hope and defeat and anger and frustration.

And suddenly,
nothing.

I’m just trying to get some sleep.

from the shadows, the attention is deafening.
overwhelming.
suffocating.
in the shadows, the dark is calm,
welcoming,
away from the bright lights.
spotlights are only for those who seek them.

In the midst of the excited chatter,
I almost miss her
quiet, lost,
She fades into the background;
The charged environment engulfs her.
This was home to me,
a world she does not understand.
Glinting brass instruments
shoved back into unassuming hard cases;
Black and white uniforms
untying and loosening;
The cackle of finished water bottles
tossed into waiting bins;
This is my home.
Dimly, I hear her call
my name, almost begging
I turn, and she is there.
And then I see a tear
slowly sliding down her face,
one special moment
of actual understanding.

When I’m in a Mood,
my desk becomes my haven.
My creaky chair makes all
the noises I cannot express
I turn the mirror away
So I can avoid looking
Directly at myself.
I turn off the light
And sit, tracing the indented
Patterns on my desk.

One day, I will build
a home made of cardboard,
a small enclosure
set on the vacant lot
located at the corner of
Fate Street.
Pedestrians will pass me by
as they gawk at my home,
a spacious two square foot mansion.
It might be slightly drafty
in the winter,
or perhaps need a fan
in the summer,
but no one can deny
if I will be happy –
perhaps a cardboard box
is all I need.

I wish
     that each day would
     pass faster
            so that we’d watch a collection
            of sunrises and sunsets,
            hurtling towards things unseen –
            shadows of temptation and dreams
            extending tendrils     (there’s hope!)

            I watch the clouds during
            the day and the stars at
            night and wish I could
            one day
            fly among them
            (instead I sit on the floor
            under my window, feet
            tucked under, and watch, thinking
            of roads that lead to dead ends
            and those that lead to forks
            (and the split roads and split thoughts
            and all things that lead to divides called
            options.))

But yet –
at the same time,
I wish
     that each day would
     pass more slowly
            taking time to trace each
            dizzying circle and elliptical,
            numbers that leave me behind
            in lessons unheard –

            because for numbers, some stories
            end, and some never end,
            infinities that stretch beyond
            paper lines and minds alike,
            and maybe we all fall in
            someplace within the stories of numbers.

            At night the wind picks up
            in shrieking wails, and the
            little voices creep in, wondering if
            the day had been used up
            like each drop of sunlight
            had been worth it, the darkness
            squeezing out the
            value of it all –

and maybe then the room will stop spinning.

You think
Too Much –
The comments fly,
sting,
punch,
bite.
As if you are always
Worse than you are –
You are Fine –
Fine?
What defines Fine?
Average, the usual –
The arrow’s slow trek
around the clock,
unblinking, relentless.
Endless.
Too Much?
The water is rising
just over the rim,
peeking at me,
daring me
to spill over.

call me - crazy - ******      insane!
     but I believe in the rising sun
          the hidden secret     a gem     (the necessity)
     as it scales the sky - expansive  space - each day
     and maybe I     alone     hold on to the stars
          the plastic shapes that glow     in the dark
          clinging to the ends of the sticky tack
          so old that they've started to fall down     ((shooting stars -
          do my wishes count?))
     or the fireballs of gas so high up there     in the world unknown
     they might as well be theoretical
isn't everything theoretical then?     if theoretical is just the next uncertainty?
how I wish there were answers to the theoretical     then there'd be truth and validity and reason and rhyme -

but no.     they call me insane,      after all.

Gray skies frown from above,
Watching the sparse, frozen ground
Scattered with ice, snow and salt:
The remnants of a winter storm past.

A fallen tree lies among the ice
Branches sagging under the weight
Of Death, threatening to overtake.

A snowflake falls,
Small and delicate
Swirling through the air
To settle on the branches
Of Death’s tree.

It begins a trend
With more following suit
All flying through the cold air
Drifting on the wind gusts
And landing softly, silently,
Next to the first,
Blanketing the tree
Death has claimed
And covering the evidence
Of darkness from the world.

In the warmth of the rising day,
leaves, golden yellow and shining,
sparkle with mirth, laughing
as the newly sprung seeds
dart off into the distance,
eager to start anew.
Roots stretch and extend
helping limbs and listening ears
to the secrets of the Earth
And the wealth of tales
that accumulate like rainwater
stay safely locked away
within the tree.

Sometimes
I look up at the moon and pretend
that you're looking up too, smiling back
at me, like nothing ever changed.

- that you still only remember the good
and laugh at the funny, your aftershave
lingering on my sweater after
you pulled away

- that you'd still brush the crumbs from your lap
of the cookie we shared,
bathing in the morning sunlight
of the park the quiet morning,
telling stories that
mingled with the rays

- that you look back at the drafts of
the letters you wrote me,
six neon pages of painstakingly
handwritten loops, and remember my
giggles when I had read the letter
a hundred miles away but hearing your voice
so closely in my ear, whispering
each word

Tonight the moon is no different -
He doesn't know how things have changed.
But I do, and yet I pretend,
staring intently up into the night sky,
like nothing ever changed.

Fell in love with a curse.

In the night
Darkness swallows things
Whole,
And it's cold
Everywhere.

In the night
The world is empty,
A cruel place
Of hardship and trial

In the night
No living creature stirs,
And all
Seems to have been
Painted, in a frame
Of a life not created
By a trembling hand.

In the night
Silence flies rampant
Teasing the tendrils of
Dreams
That spill forth,
The effortless product of
Imagination.

In the night
My pen comes to life
Perfecting its
Loopy handwriting
Under the cover
Of a tiny light.

In the night
I listen for the
Rampant silence,
Broken only
By my raspy breaths,
Sharp inhalations
Of harsh, forced,
Vital air.

In the night
I am alive.