.
                    Time,
                    space
           ­         and everything in between.

                    Heartaches,
                    tea­rs
                    and secrets that don't come clean.

                    Gambols,
                    laughter­
                    and smiles beaming keen.

                    Deep thoughts,
                    aloneness
                    and the dark places we've been.

                    Handholding,
                    carel­ess hugs
                    and ready shoulders to lean.

                    Reckless stabs,
                    impulsive jabs
                    and caustic words we don't mean.

                    Contentment,
                    count­ing blessings
                    and hope we can glean.

                    You,
                    me
        ­            and everything in between.

.

in shallow waters
newly hatched fingerlings
swam with swishing tails

leaves of copper
hung from the autumn branches
as past medallions

a limp body
carried in broken arms
to a funeral pyre
hidden in the woods

tinder, salt-saturated
won't catch
drowning in the perception
of failure

life flows out
and seeps in
healing in unfettered
emotion

exhaustion bleeds thought
cracks fuse invisibly strong
still feeling both less
yet more, somehow

pyre lays unlit
as the heart dreams ablaze
in lost memories
of a life not yet lived

one without the other
cannot exhale
breathing in all the nothing
looking for the only thing

not knowing what or where
but the when is now
as wood sits on the ashes
of what came before

in the jolt of drowning
on overflowed tears
it flows out of each
and into the other

cracks fade
accidental truth is never an accident
too tired to continue
it was found where it lay sleeping

patient and blind
sprouts into the best
of unseen possibilities
the day you carried me in silence