I tried folding a paper crane again the other day
  and  it didn't turn out right

tracing back my folds,
I knew I missed somewhere

unfolding, re-creasing, refolding
just tracing my fingers back

fingers
    feeling the paper
and beyond

A three-minute fold
times 10 now

Even if I needed to do other things,
I paid no mind, determined to fold that crane

I had to get this right.
I had to.

Almost there...

As it turns out,
I only missed one step,
--something to do with its wings, I believe...

Amazing how a single step
could be so important.

Stretching its wings now,
the paper crane
soars proudly on my palm...
So beautiful.

In refolding this paper crane,
I hope I never forget...

Amazing how easily things slip from our minds,
but more amazing
is when our hearts Do remember.

We remember,
   and then we Do something...

...I have hundreds of paper cranes yet to fold,
it may be taking me far longer
than what I had initially planned...

but yes, you are in my thoughts,
   you are in my prayers...

and I shall continue folding these cranes.

...I revel in the thought, for that moment,
when I can send them flying towards the Sun...

burnt morning. the breakfast was gone so I had coffee. The details of dolphins were the bathroom mantra; turning the eyes inside out.
Refolding the socks I realized a smell I hadn't in "years".  The gas must have been avoiding me. A smell of butterscotch. Why I haven't been able to smell butterscotch is unknown to me.  
I remember a turquoise flame when the bonfire burnt the old tire. No one was around so the fire was for me and me alone. Me and me alone.  
I used to force the ***** down my throat and it seeped out my eyes in paint thinner tears.  A faraway howl of a wolf--how bad ***.  I was like the very-peak of a glacier come to reclaim me stomachspot in the Wild.  Fortunes came and went and I began to melt.  Ice cream in the hand of a toddler. Pink icecream in the hand of a giant who wouldn't take care of the courage when it looked so mediocre and small.  It's about time the dark ghosts come to reclaim their nest, so come on, I'm waiting.

Her kind of lonely wasn't the kind you just feel
It was the kind of lonely she went searching to resolve

It wasn't out of the ordinary to find her roaming around
looking for traces of him in the dust on the china cabinet
or in inanimate objects around the house

it wouldn't be peculiar to hear the lull of his favorite love songs playing through the thin walls of her one room apartment.
or to see her wipe away a tear as she opened the door
and invited you inside

It wasn't a rare sight to see her folding up the clothes he had left behind
Or typing paragraphs upon paragraphs of things she wished she would've said
Unfolding his clothes
bunching them up
throwing them in the corner

I can still see her hiding that stuffed animal he won for her at the fair
stuffing it in her closet
burying it under a pile of clothes and her own broken promises
entombing it deep enough to forget

Similarly, I still see her hiding the guilt she had found
I see her shoving it under her pillow
burying it under stardust and her own nightmares
keeping it close enough to remember

It wouldn't be bizarre if you caught her refolding his clothes
just 'one more time'
Putting them back in their drawers
Texting him
deleting the text before it sent
debating throwing out his old toothbrush

I remember quite clearly a time when she drank twenty bottles of water
all in succession
just to feel full again
I remember her holding her breath
until she'd turn blue
claiming she missed the way he took her breath away

Her kind of lonely wasn't the kind you just feel
it was the kind of lonely that drove her to insanity.

Crisp clean enlightenment rushes over my body
The things I once knew are but a distant silhouette within the winds of my past.
A swirling vortex of human consciousness is unfolding and refolding within itself before me,
It is time to come home
a voice whispers from within.
I step to the edge of the cliff
I leap.
Going into a free fall,
Billows of emotion rushing past me,
hitting my mind with the force of a million bricks.
Memories of the other world,
of Their world.
I continue to fall,
the stress of the other variables intertwined with the equations of my life are quickly diminishing.
The guilt of wanting something more turning into dust that coats my body.
I slip weightlessly into the clear waters of salvation,
washing from my body the grime of the day before
awaiting the renewal of the day to come.
My obligations to others and the sins committed to my soul are washed down the stream
I emerge anew.
This is my birth right
my bliss
my Shangri-La
I am home, at last.

Something as simple as refolding your sweater.
Pulling the grey fabric close to my chin.
When I put my cheek right up to that sweater,
I can feel it all.
Every single hug you ever gave me.
It breaks me down,
I have to take a break from reality
Escaping to a quiet, private room.
I sit down and I can feel.
You in this moment are here, so incredibly close to me,
In this moment I want to give you a million missed hugs.
There is so much I want to talk to you about.
So many things I want to ask you.
So many memories that you would have loved to be there for dad.
I wish I could have seen the look on your face,
At the end of Azlyn’s first dance recital?
She was our perfect little show stealer.
I would love to sit with you again.
Coffee in one hand, and a smoke in the other.
We could look at each other, with the feeling of succeeding.
While we smile the most genuine smiles
While we are filled with pride.
Staring at that amazing work of art,
That I can’t believe is my first baby girl.
She was your everything,
Please know Dad, you loved her well.
I am glad she saw papa, that she had you in her life.
The dad I remember, the amazing one with MS
That wasn’t quite so sick, wasn’t losing his strength.
That I didn’t have to help you with things.
Things you wanted to do, but you couldn’t anymore.
I am glad to know you trusted me more than anybody else,
After yourself.

I hold the sweater to my cheek and I close my eyes again.
I see my dad’s shoulders shaking, holding in a laugh.
When he knows the hilarious ending to a joke and no one else does.
I can see him once again ordering 56 pies individually delivered to his truck.  
On Saturday afternoons, while we sit out back.
Playing in the water,
Then I make you play market with me.
We **** some snails, as you laugh at me
I am in a flower girl dress from my cousins wedding.
I see us on saturday mornings at 5 am,
Watching rockin rhymes fairytales.
It was the only time the show was on.
I watched a taped one once, instantly hooked.
Then you spent the week reviewing the entire week
using the tv guide.
You found it for me.
You were so excited to tell me,
That I could watch my favourite show,
I loved our Saturdays together Dad.
We would watch the show,
Then listen to the radio show.
That would have the cartoon trivia call in contest.
Dad, you always knew the answer and we won
So many things, one sticks out the most.

We won tickets to Canada’s Wonderland.
I wanted to go so bad, I had never been anywhere like that.
Rides, actual roller coasters, a water park.
In places like that though, you would be stuck.
You would be left out just because of something as simple as a door frame.
But you were there, watching me
Maybe not the best view,
Probably not the way either of us wanted it.
But you were there dad watching me.

So when I held your sweater tonight I knew.
You are still watching me Dad,
With love and care in your heart.
It may not be the seat you wanted to have.
I know I wish that it wasn’t this way.
4 years after you died.
Folding a large grey woolen sweater tonight.
I felt you there with me, I got a hug from you.
I cried and you were there with me.
For the first time in four years I felt whole again.
Safe
Special.
Like I had a family again.
Someone believed in me,
Appreciated who I was just the way I am.
I love you Dad, and thank you for being in my life.
It was great seeing you again Dad,
Seeing your face again,
Hearing your voice,
Comforting my anxiety.
I was reminded that you are always watching me.
Just not from the ideal seat.
But then again it never was.

You seemed to bear a grudge against
Every paper crane that left my hands.

Reverse origami, you said,
Gleefully unfolding my creations.

"An examination of purpose —
An exercise in deconstruction!"

Big words, I thought, casually refolding.

Small man.

If I describe to you this dream of mine,
could I distill sorrow into drops of sweetness?

Let me write you one last story:

High summer, our heroes are apart but speeding
together at 250 km/h
(the average speed of the ICE 599 Berlin - Stuttgart)

Image the sweetest, deepest blue sky day of your life,
how the warm bath of the air flows over your skin,
and that is this day.

Her face is pressed against the train window.
She wears a new blue dress that matches heaven,
her hair is a halo of golden sunshine
and everywhere she smells a
field of honeysuckles.

She’s holding a scrap of paper
on which the names of several
German towns are written in pen
(the stops where she will stand
waiting on a platform looking west
towards you)
She is folding and refolding it in her lap.

And you, buying cheap train station coffee
at a kiosk because you don’t want her to know
that you barely slept last night.
Willing the golden face of the clock in the lobby
to speed faster towards noon.

You wait on the platform, hands in your pockets,
contemplating another cigarette (your fifth or sixth)
Wie Vorfruede!

An older man breaks custom and lightly asks
if you have a Liebste arriving on this train.
You smile that closed-mouth smile of yours
and he nods then falls
quiet to his own reveries.

She drums her fingers on her knees,
unfolding the paper one last time,
and asks the women beside her,
wo sind wir?

The city comes into view, greengold trees,
People walking along the river,
old stone arches of the train station.
Everything becomes very quiet; she steps
down and looks left then right.

The train heaves a heavy sigh and rolls on,
the breeze of its wake rushing first through her hair
and then through yours.

Every desperate song and poem and
cry in the night are filtered back to sweet water.
The winter has never been and will never come back,
the birds sing of you.

If everything that is dreamed or told of and never chosen
exists in parallel shades set side by side,
than in some world you and I are walking towards one
another through the dappled summer light
forever.

The End.

Eyes lost
in waiting,
Silently
looking in vain,
Despite it,
He kept them
widely opened,
Carefully,
Silently,
He put it away
on the old
wood table.

Carefully,
refolding
his courage
lifting up
ferrous arms
stripping
Carefully,
a tinny piece,
rolling himself
in still noise
a cigarette of
Powerful
low-graded
rustika,
a variety of
great purge
hunger
killing
good reason,
one pack a day
helped.

It helped survive
the cold,
and everyday
toil when
soldiers and ants
starved,
Makhorka,
insecticide
of freedom.

Silently,
looking in vain,
Despite it,
He kept them
widely opened,
Carefully,
Silently.

In what form is love?
- spirit, they say we affirm, we
readers of poetry and fantasy, they
thee common literate audience ******
religio politico industrial always right,
on the side of justice, as it seems,
to the minute, did I remember
to meet the grandchildren at the busstop.
NO,
I did not, and would not have but, their
grandma called their grandpa to remind him,

be cause he as been waxing more beamused,
made afraid for the moment, mind
time pause, now, we think, how say
the sages past, must we treat
with care for fear of proud wrath,

encultured hero worth, a weight
in the bag we measure worth with,
Jungian *** archetype old guy, no powers,
patiently refolding complex islands of mysteries,
never needing to have been, all spread out, trust me,
we uns stretch it always out, just smooth
as touch in rest in time to think. True rest./.NPC
compressed rest, as time accelerates and few guess,
we were the missing energy, we few who blew our minds.

We revived in many old ties to whys too deep to reason
directly with, we had ****** shames of lives we ruined,

we all felt it was wrong when we did it, but the boss
said god said, how was we to know, tsalhearsay, here

we say.
Stop and let the money makes its answer, lovelessly.

when you die in your head
you only think about the things you once said
not
the things you are saying not the things you are doing
not the way you are being not the things you are seeing
it is about the old days on rewind
chapters folding unfolding refolding
always on your mind
always on your mind
but you lost it long ago
so why is there an ache where there used to be thought
why is there an ache where there is supposed to be no feeling at all
why is it light and heavy all at once
foggy light still clear enough to blind you with
and you thought you were staring at a savior
but you were staring at a thing that would prolong your longing
to go back to the old days
this time you're blind this time you're dizzier
this time you don't know any better
but you can remember that you once did.
isn't it weird to make a mistake you used to know to avoid
is it a mistake if it's intentional
is it a mistake if it's intentional
is it a mistake if it's intentional

Nimble fingers upon sharp corners,
she'd fold herself into whatever she desired.
A paper plane for the freedom craved.
A paper boat, always staying afloat.
Behind every crease and every fold,
hid memories and stories untold.
Unfolding and refolding,
the smaller and more delicate she seems to be.
Creases become wrinkles,
sharp corners, dog-eared.
I haven't seen her since then,
but I heard she remained a paper crane.
The symbol of hope and peace,
I hope she finally found serenity.

The projector is a woman
A human
A dreamer
Made out of jumper cables and breadcrumbs
Your thumbnails are tumbling
Head over heels to meet her
We see the sharpened glass
And as fast as we can cash out
We make a run for the patio
A ladder up the stairs
With hatred in our hands
And nothing left in our hearts to sell
We are accompanied by monkeys
And men in tuxedos
A loose cannon blooms
And shoots through the wall
A canopy collides
With a visually challenged individual
How are you so full of persuasion, she asks
A mix of liberation and a margarita
I am dreaming of the ocean
A perfect place to lie in the sun and dry off my shoulders
With common purpose
We surf the sound of metaphors crashing
In flashes of crayons
And wet paint sprayed haphazardly
We explain our philosophy to the gravediggers
We keep waking them
Until our hourglasses need fixing
We are shifting in our sandals
And refolding our blankets every hour
The old magic is tangled in your hair
And I just can't stop staring at you
Are you really even here
I hope you don’t mind
That the winter is alive with the sound of nature
We are naturally blinded by infrared romantics
Yet bound to find our souls in the middle
Our blood is equipped with spit and spirit
And it fits right into our heart
We are shifting stratospheres
For there was a lonely place here
Even before the earth appeared, forever naked
We are infiltrating the epicenter of the universe
A purposeless poem
Lost in the wind
Folded to begin with
Now we are unfolding
Opening
Unraveling, traveling
Our trembling fingers tenderly touch
Yet we must not rush
Or we're likely to make a mistake
We're better off avoiding