I hate the winter
Dreary skies against dreary skylines
Cold winds over cold streets
Puddles pooling with pollution
A sick city, runny with pain

I love the winter
Dark skies against dark trees
Winds dance in frosted branches
Snow falls in a white hush
The forest meditates on fury

The hug you gave me was special.
I’m a connoisseur of hugs,
So I would know.

It was not the side hug.
What a horrible invention.
The awkward hug.
The hug that doesn’t want to hug.

It was not the friend hug.
A pleasant hug,
But around the shoulders.
Quick and sometimes embarrassed.

It was not the family hug.
Tight and close.
It’s full and comforting,
The best of hugs.

I’m not sure what you gave me.
Not a hug, more like a gift.
Jumping into my arms
Like you needed them.
When it was I who needed you.

Your soft cheek on mine,
Arms thrown around my neck,
my fingers on your waist
like they already knew the lines.

You gave me joy
standing on tip-toes.

Nymphs clothed in white dance out of porcelain walls.
Swirling earth lies below their light feet,
Trying to woo them with perfumed kisses.
The vapors cannot see what love lies below.
I stir the waters with my condolences.

From the darkness you created
and formed me from the clay.
You made me king of all you’d done,
though I hadn’t worked a day.

Your love was overwhelming,
but I was not content.
I fell asleep and you to work.
A rib was all I lent.

Oh what a gift that you had giv’n!
A partner made for me.
Paradise with one condition,
don’t touch the dying tree.

Then the serpent whispered softly,
that death does not await.
He told the lie that he believed,
“Godhood could be your fate.”

So scorning all that you had done,
we chose our own conceit.
What great shame and fear we had felt
at the sound of your feet!

Then we told of our fatal act
in words of wounded pride,
on your faultless back set the blame.
No sin did we confide.

You cursed us all for our hubris;
we walked with heads hung low,
across ground cursed from Eden East.
God, I wish I didn’t know.

But though my sin had sown my death
and you the one I scorned,
you walked beside me all the way
to comfort while I mourned.

I have often wanted to run away
And if you asked me why I'd say
"I can't live within these walls.
I'm tired of pacing up and down the halls.
Ceilings hide the stars at night,
And the sun's replaced by unnatural light.
The lawn is barely nature at all,
The grass doesn't grow over 3 inches tall.
You couldn't find an animal for miles.
Even rats don't like the toxic trash piles.
So down the rope ladder I go
My family will find it still in the window."

But when I topped that first rolling hill,
A crack broke through my ironclad will.
I imagined what I knew would come true,
My family would find out that I flew.
They would cry and be filled with great shame
because they would think that they were to blame.
I gazed out at the Wild without a dry eye,
then turned 'round and heaved a weary old sigh.

Home isn't the place where I can be free,
But it's the place where I need to be.
One of these days they'll come with me, I know.
Then I'll cross that hill, home in tow.

When you're sick and feeling bad,
That's no reason to be sad.
I still like you when you sneeze.
I still like you when you wheeze.
I like you with hair askew.
I still like you when you're blue.
Because you're sweet for my own sake,
Even when your belly aches.
And you will still be cute,
Even if I see you puke.
I'll bring you soup, I'll be your boon.
I hope that you get better soon.