i.

she leans into the wind, and he runs his fingers through her hair, kissing her tear-rosy cheeks, blowing the salty drops from her eyes

she closes her eyes and wishes she could fly, but

there are chains around her neck, weighing her down with a thousand sharp-edged insecurities, fears, anxieties, doubts

after all, "you can't fly, child. you don't have wings."

ii. 

she watches the birds swoop and soar, dark-clad ballerinas on a cerulean stage. they are so free; she is envious

she runs her hands over her cold heavy chains, forged year by year as the bravery of childhood fell away - it is a great tragedy, growing up. realizing the world is not so beautiful and innocent

as at first it seems.

with humans and the earth, it is always love at first sight.

the children remind her of birds. they both run and laugh and squabble. they are both still in those heady honeymoon days when life is still lovely.

iii.

chains are heavy, and one day she

breaks under the weight.

and she goes to the cliff and gives her bleeding broken heart and her ocean-flavored tears to the wind,

and she runs into his arms

(wind cannot hold girls with chains around their necks)

she falls

falls

falls

but then she remembers her wings.

she throws her chains into the sea

and spreads her wings and

flies away into the never-setting sun.

v.

in peter pan, only the children remember how to fly

"you could fly, if you didn't think you couldn't."

the sun did not melt icarus's wings - his fear did

vi.

she is brave and free and beautiful,

unchained, and winged like the birds.

she remembers how beautiful the world is:

she has fallen in love with life again.

the house

we were on the water and there was this house

on the bank, and it loomed over us

and we drifted silently past but it took so so long

and the windows were boarded up and the

wood was peeling. paint flakes twirled like snow,

four months too soon

and i went home and wrote a story about a family that goes

to a big, grand manor

and then they die.

but they tore the house down last year

until there was just a chimney standing lonesome at the water’s edge

like it was missing something

it looked bare in the cold, sometime-in-november-air

so i drifted past

then the skeleton of a new thing arose from the ripped earth where

once someone screamed until their throat

shattered

(or was that part of the story?)

and the highway behind was loud

the signs came up afterwards with tape that tore quick

and danced into the lake

quick streams of CAUTION CAUTION flickering through the new year

until the plastic settled on the glassy surface

and the drunken circles spread out and out and out

and somewhere a wave lapped at the shore

i drove past in in stages

going to camp

coming back from the beach

going to school

coming back from school

going to 7-11 with somebody i didn’t like, and we tried to buy snacks but

she was broke, and i didn’t want to spend on something i’d forget in a week

going to school

coming back from school

going to the doctor

coming back from the doctor with a underlying sense 

of unfulfillment (they leave you with that, every. time.)

going to school, back and forth

every time the asphalt burned underneath rubber speed,

it was changing

like a butterfly, metamorphosis leaked into the lengthening days

the cocoon burst with the cardboard printed

SOLD

in red letters

and the boxes came in truckloads

they finished in late may, every nook & cranny filled with countless memories

of someone else

but the house was unoccupied

with its sharp-cut angles and the

wooden paneling the hidden things that only someone who saw the past

could understand

because who else had waited while the house

stilled? and the sun rose and fell and rose and fell over the ever-spreading ripples

on the glass that spread endlessly onwards from the docks

so i drove down the highway still

until there was a shiny-bright city car that reeked of modern family living magazines

and oil companies

so i stopped looking out the window when we drifted past

I knew a girl in first grade who could run the fastest in our class.

she had curly dark hair and a freckled nose and bright red sneakers. 

I haven't seen in her in ages, 

probably wouldn't recognize her today, 

but I still think about her sometimes. 

there was a friend I had when I was seven, 

who taught me words in spanish and had the prettiest art style I'd ever seen. 

she must have moved,

because I remember her being there one day and leaving the next. 

I wonder if she remembers me, 

or if I'm just another faded memory of her past. 

there was a blond haired boy in kindergarten. 

he had a house surrounded by trees, 

and I still remember the pink pinata at his birthday party. 

he'd send me notes in class, 

and our parents became friends picking us up from school.  

he didn't stay here long, 

though, 

and his notes gathered dust beneath my desk. 

I like to think they haven't forgotten me, 

but my silent self has never been very memorable. 

maybe, 

though, 

there are other teenagers out there writing about a girl with two braids and brown eyes and freckled cheeks who sat in the back of their kindergaten class. 

The ledge lies ahead of you

What do you do?

Are you filled with fear,

Head spinning from the height?

Are you thrilled, ecstatic to see

What adventure this experience may bring?

Are you consumed by dread,

Or stabbed with pangs of wistfulness?

Or do you feel the wind whisper

Through your hollow shell of an existence,

As dark and empty and desolate as the chasm before you.

What do you do?

How long will you wait?

Do you really have a choice?

~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry for the bleh-ness, I've been in a pretty dark headspace for a while. Just thinking about stuff, and how everything lasts for a little too long, but is so short at the same time. Is it bad to wish the end would come sooner than later? Then certainly could be assured. Or should one just force oneself to blindly be grateful for the time one does get? The world tends toward the latter, but... Why? Seems very pointless and tiring.

all i will ever be is nothing at all.

I used a poem generator and got this: 

Whose bowl is that? I think I know.

Its owner is quite happy though.

Full of joy like a vivid rainbow,

I watch her laugh. I cry hello.

She gives her bowl a shake,

And laughs until her belly aches.

The only other sound's the break,

Of distant waves and birds awake.

The bowl is clear, solid and deep,

But she has promises to keep,

After cake and lots of sleep.

Sweet dreams come to her cheap.

She rises from her gentle bed,

With thoughts of kittens in her head,

She eats her jam with lots of bread.

Ready for the day ahead.

why is it so hard to admit that the scarlet staining our shirts is from our broken hearts instead of errant cherry-flavored koolaid?

we prefer sugar to blood, even when the former is a lie.

we'd rather be greeted with a smile that was painted on than with true tears; hear a chipper "good morning!" instead of a salty-tasting "I couldn't get put of bed this morning because it

suddenly occurred to me that we are miniscule, insignificant beings on a swiftly spinning planet who will die before we ever learn to live (or love)."

we'd rather they say "great!" when we ask "how are you?" than a broken "I feel really sad and I don't know why."

we'd rather they say "small coffee, thanks" when we ask "what can I get you?" than "a tissue, I think I broke my heart and it's bleeding on your

persian rug."

it's more polite to be cheerful, even falsely; more convenient, more easily fit into neat little boxes.

but we are broken, laughing, crying, nihilistic, hopeful, foolishly clever humans, too sharp-edged and irregular to be shorn down to neatness. however terrible it may be, truth is what makes books and poetry and art and life and people lovely; without it, we are only

yellow-painted masks.

We ought to forgive;

Forget, they say.

What lovely way of thinking,

But I refuse to accept such a notion. 

We ought to forgive,

But these scars and tear-stains 

Document a life and misery -- agony,

And you want me to just forget? 

Forget they say,

But monsters still exist --

Escaping hasn't magically solved all of our problems

And we are still haunted by the living spectors they present as.

How can we ever let go of the aching in our bones,

The prickle of tears, tightness around our necks?

Why should we be expected the laugh it off and love,

Act like nothing has happened at all, when it has?

I, for one, shall not release my wrath peacefully. 

There shall be carnage and not a shred of guilt shed.