Winding up a short pack blanketed in pink orange pine needles
Beams of shadows dancing across their fragile surfaces in the misty sunset
Into the swallows of green life where at first glance
Each sprout bristle and tree appear flawlessly the same
But there's that one in the distance that my fatigued eyes of hazel
Always incline towards until the apprehensive tension of wondering
If I'll find it this time settles into this serene surety
With everlasting green needles high above and a wide scalloped trunk
And a little dent in the ground where I've spent hours
Gazing at the trickling flakes of snow on leaves
The winks of the petite bluets and zinnias that soak up the sun
The never-ending layers of homework and relationships and
You and me and her and him and them and tomorrow and yesterday and then
Catch a ride on each soft wisp of breath I offer before dispersing into the ether

 

It's nearly midnight
But it's only 11:57
Soon, it will no longer be
Which I don't really understand
How one thing can be so here
So vivid, and the next
It's gone

Like how it's 11:58 now
And I suppose I'll write until
That notorious midnight
Screwing the present
Because it's really just the
In-between

Until it's 11:59
Which is even moreso the
In between of today and tomorrow
And I don't understand the exact
Moment when there really is an in-between
If there is
But how could there not be?

It's midnight
It's tomorrow
It's confusing
It's bedtime
Far past it
 

It's nearly midnight
Nearly that time from the stories
When the clock chimes and the
Notorious evil emerges
From the shadows

But not here, in this too-large bedroom at a disturbingly aesthetic vacation rental home

Here, nearly midnight
My not-at-all tan fingers clack on the keyboard
Hushed taps and rattles
For I'd rather not awaken the world
With my endless click-clacks

Here, nearly midnight
The eerie house pretends to sleep
When in reality, we all lie awake
Soaked in our own grief and confusion and mourning
Or in my case, words

My words are composed of
Utter resentment and truly weak fatigue from
One who's never even pulled an all-nighter and
A heartaching hiraeth for the place I call home
Not the clanky old house that I do adore and I sleep and eat in
But the pondering forest and harmony of tears

The silvery blue comforter than looks like a drip of liquid from the moon adorns the wide bed
Outside the thin window rock music and hammering drums blare all too loudly even though it's past ten
Even the Jersey shore's late-night swimmers have driven home in their perfect city cars
My sister---my sister-friend that's more like a sister; we bicker constantly---wants a nice perfect car
She wants a perfect beach house with a perfect husband and perfect children and perfect clothes
But she would never admit any wishes specifically of perfection of anything of the sort, because I guess that's just not what teenagers do
Instead her home is somewhere she never wants to be, so she busies herself with soccer and biking and road trips
Her home is dusty and cluttered to that tipping point where the floor is nearly invisible, and short gray cat hairs coat the imperfect furniture

If I could run away
Leave my battered crocs from 3 years ago
Crumpled at the ornate stone doorstep
Feel the prickling grass and the occasional
Sharp stick and stone on the scarred
Soles of my runaway feet

If I could fly away
Sprout wings like the fuzzy robin that was
Abandoned when I naively poured hot chocolate on it
Yet I would soar uninterrupted through the
Ether and rest on thrones of magic clouds caressing
The cotton with my flyaway arms

If I could swim away
Bear the mermaid tale from my old
Halloween costume that rises to reality and
Lose my worries in bubbles that pop behind me as I
Only float forward into the blissful blue splashing the
Whole of my swimaway legs

If I could fight to stay
Rile up an ounce of courage like all of the
Heroes that I am not and do the right thing and
Make a change in the present rather than

To the 16-year-old girl who
Lived five miles down the road, not too far,
And knew, accepted mistakes of her own, learning from them,
Because she was not ready to be a mother

Now she will unwillingly suffer through birth
Not to mention the potential pain of offering her child up for adoption
And if not, a poorly parented, rough, unwanted childhood.

To the 35-year-old woman who
Was a friend of a friend from a neighborhood from college
And no matter how old, never wanted to be a mother,
With a choice, knowing what was right for her

Now she will unwillingly suffer through birth
Not to mention the potential pain of offering her child up for adoption
And if not, a poorly parented, rough, unwanted childhood.

To the woman struggling to make ends meet who
Lives in a cluttered apartment in the near city's avoided suburbs
And wasn't in a stable position in life to become a mother,

There's no storybook good and evil
We've all got a little bit of good, a little bit of evil
And yet we cease to grasp the fact that
Denying that drop of evil is what sparks even more to awaken

There are a million little communities out there
Flags of black and white stripes and proud bold letters
Every shade of the rainbow and respective triangles blanketing some

Because they're there for us
Even if we don't know it
Even if we deny it
Even if we don't show it

Meanwhile for years that only piggyback on the coming years
We are locked away in this damp, rusty no-windowed cage

Perhaps for our skin color
Our disabilities
Our identity
Or even our pure vulnerabilities
Or even our voice---
Our bravery to speak out against what we know isn't quite right

They relentlessly shut us down
Muffle our bravery, our voices

As a new dawn awakens may
The sun shower potential upon this new day
Shedding light upon grayed branches of slayed sprouts
Terminating their growth for the sake of
Economics and finances and appliances
Constellations scintillating upon
Only the gas that rises from our cities
Surmised to pick and peel away
Layers of the atmosphere day by day meanwhile
Schools ensure these pools of safety
19 innocent children and two teachers fell
For in reality we inevitably lack this tranquil safety
We built this world of fallen and risen
Now on the tilt of crumbling under our own weight as
Forests, friends, foes fall driven by our own hate
Like this broken masterpiece of a world we create
Has become our fate but
We are not destined for doom
We are destined for whatever world we create if only
We could see that it's never too late to
Redirect the carving of this path we tread, together

A painting for a birthday