imprint

when you leave, you take this part of me. and all that i have left is this imprint where it was supposed to be. i wish just once you would not just drift into my life, but stay. but now we're older, and my life is getting bolder and the world is turning colder, without you. and i wonder, once or twice, whether this is it. whether you will leave and drift away as free birds do. i think of me without that piece you hold, and think of me as a flower without its petals. you hold the beautiful parts of me. so now, if i ask, would you stay and close your eyes as we run in the rain, and try to feel once again? if we could weather any storm, we could weather this. don't fret, i know this time you'll leave, and this time with one last kiss. maybe in another time, i can tell you that i would have brought you the moon back, if you gave me your love as exchange. i would have burnt my hands holding the stars, all to see them glow in your eyes. maybe in time, the imprint you've left behind will no longer be a shadow, but a soft corner, like fond, cotton-like memories in a dream.

shaking hands

you speak, in a room
full of no one and every one
and i can see, in truth that looms
all the shaking you cover up
pressed under skin like a hiccup

i can see you now, you tremble,
hear the jolts of your heart ignite
feel your words, in the air, fumble
and i wonder who you see out there
when your eyes stop and stare.

i hear your self deprecating humor
the laugh that hides the face of you
and the pain that quietly murmurs
that travels through you and into
the sky, reflected in its mirror
all the fears that you so feared.

if i could, i would kiss your trembling lips
and soothe those fallen words
until i twist and break and flip
them to mean what you mean to say.

i want to step beside you, calm

the tremor, take your shaking hands in mine

and let you fall apart in my palms

like a landslide coming down.

but i would find you again, 

in the crumbles of you, 

in the avalanche, and begin

to hold onto to you until the earth 

stopped trembling with

your shaking hands. 

weathering the storm.

cool winter calms me down
ice smudging lines of expression
leaving behind a hardened impression
so, now i'm at a very peculiar place
and there's a world of room and space
between us now, and i hope i'll be alright.

i try to hold onto the thoughts of you
when the ice storm comes around
clench my toes in the snow covered ground
and hold on with all my sturdy might
as the wings of this celestial night
chase away echoes of our broken bond.

we are at the precipice of our souls
looking over the cliff at the sky below
our feet, shivering and shy like a doe,
inch forward and fall into the fallen night
and i feel the tides move in and fight
to pull me under, leave me to blunder.

we walk into the ice, into the light,
as the sun comes up, everything is broken
and there is not a word to be spoken
as we walk into the ice, into the light
we split paths, moving apart, but alright
now that we are alone.

now that i took back the pieces of my soul
that you callously kept away from me,
and i carefully connect the edges,
making them touch, again making me whole.

away from the sun.

At night, I run out from the house barefoot. I feel the cooling grass under my feet, slightly wet and dewy from the afternoon rains. I feel the damp soil of the earth beneath me, curling in between my toes. I feel rooted then, in this moment, with just me and the moon and the damp, damp earth. I imagine myself cocooned within a tree, wrapped in wispy twigs and the brittle old bark. Encased in the solid oak trunk, feeling more condensed as the number of rings of bark increases with age. The roots, thick and branching, reaching into the cooling earth for some relief from the balmy air of the night. I am bundled, nestled, held, nurtured -- away from the world in this one moment to myself. I can think clearly, I can see clearly, and I can feel without any boundaries. I often think I see the world through different eyes. When I see the stark oak in the expansive field, I do not imagine running freely in the grass. I picture myself as old as the tree, standing still and silent, through storm and tempest, through mother nature's wistful cries, through mother earth's sorrowful trembles. I am rooted, bound, and an innate part of the wondrous world.

The leaves, both green and gold, are reaching towards the sun, but I, I am always looking away from the sun. I much prefer the inside of my sturdy tree, cool and calm and collected.