The nakedness of winter lies heavy upon
the tolling Sunday quietude
Shed  leaves perish into yesterday
and the dream of another
dawning  someday wanes

The  sun ― lay low
the drudging  ashen  skyline  
Barerd emerald moss scaffolds
draw much more distantness
to the pallid shadowed horizon

The evergreens step forth,
roots grasping sacred heart,
soil  and  rock
In the swelling aloneness
you can feel the grain
of  the  heartwood
rooted in your soul

There are no hard feelings
but there's an enduring ache,
like a tree with a rotting limb
languishing  within
its blackened bark sacrifice

It's not just the grinding time
that slips away begrudgingly;
more of the same takes a toll 
as if another unrung belfry hour
in an empty bell tower
without a song rang out in vain,

peeling  reflections
of reluctant hours  c r a w l  by
in the insensible apathy

A so called holiday passes ―
its footprint bears down
hard  and  deep
as if a paling winter rose
grieves its own passing

A dry wishbone unbroken
lay bare the poignant
truth  it  holds;

it takes two to make
this wish come true


.

i breathe out & the world is calm. we are standing waves in the sea. i am a long distance, a collection of lip movements, and all associated aches. you were a fleck of snow i barely even saw, and the ensuing onslaught of winter. plans turn around, often; we stick no closer to 'em than our moralities- i knew what i believed, just some other day: i believed i could roll out of the feeling of wakelessness that i'd thought you endowed upon my eyelids. you were prying them open, though, and i was the one at force. "sleep, my fears and doubts", i would call to myself -round midnight- "sleep and you may escape, or somehow come closer to what you're not sure if you seek".

but my plans, moralities and i, all ambiguous at best, changed. i can't pinpoint why. you said "maybe you can smell my dying, from all that way" i said i hoped not, that i could sense you but you just couldn't tell you were flourishing.

in the heat, i would make out daydreams like dialogue, spread sense like contrails: seemingly cohesive monuments to my bearing, left out to dissipate. snowfields on sunlit afternoons. but you, you you you you you, you stay heavy-stuck to the ground through cycling seasons. variation, only nondecreasing patterns in my everyday thought. inconsistence, only meaningful or meaningless. no pain, just ache all the same.

finally, in month's transitions, i found meaning (or its absence) and realised each was a facet of the other. that all facets were tiny jewels, set into the world, puzzle-piece mirrors set just. right., to reflect the gleaming bright pearl inset upon the other side of our tiny universe, each light another stroke of your portraiture, and i found longing: to find the unknown, through all things ordinary.

and you were, at once, more than a question-mark and the statement of my circles through days. you were the taste of waking, without sharp slice of reality. you were a mirror, hung in front of i, also reflecting; and i saw eternity unfold in us each. you were, and are still, peace on the shoreline. and i was, and am still, drowning, but i can make out sand on the horizonline.

so, i'll just keep afloat, if you can do the same.
so, i just won't go changin',
shine brighter with each passing day.
smile.

you treated me as if my spine was a wishbone