Life 
Is so busy sometimes.
My brain's a muddled mess,
Confused and confuzzled,
A twisting knot of fraying yarn
Batted about by expectations,
as cruel reality 
Sinks her menacing claws
Into my thoughts as she pleases.
I hope my mind of tangled yarn
Is being knitted into something beautiful.
I'll check when I have time,
But until then, I'll simply dream and sigh,
trying to wind my way through life. 

 

When your head hangs low
And expectations drag you down,
And your shoulders sag sadly
Mirroring your discontented frown,
How you do keep going
When you feel so tired?
How do your feet plod on
When you're uninspired?
 

Winter is beautifully cruel—
A glittering knife 
slicing hope in half,
wild winds battering, smashing,
tearing shingles off rooftops,
hail smacking icy pavement
and shattering car windows.

Winter is so elegant, a dancer on pointe
Gliding on tip-toes, leaving a 
trail of frost,
yet also dangling icy daggers on the 
edges of roofs, stringing them about town
as tinsel placed delicately on trees.

Winter is deceptive; I go outside
and take a breath of fresh, freezing air,
my eyes open wide and snowflakes hold my attention,
twirling down, down, down to the snow-covered ground.
I take a step of jubliation, but fall right through—
Down, down, down, sinking lower and lower,
trapped in the beauty I yet admired.

The icy crystals were so wonderful,
so perfect and glimmering, so prettily arranged,
they left me breathless 
under the weight of my admiration,

Hi. Do I know you?
I feel like I've met you before. You seem 
So familiar, yet so far, out of reach—
Do you remember me?
Oh—I've only just seen you once, I think,
In a documentary. You're a refugee. 
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I whisper to the screen.
But you will never hear me.
You might never make it beyond the fence,
Or beyond the next week, for all we can tell.
From halfway across the globe, I've realized
People treat you differently, yet we could never be
More similiar—both trapped inside
The world's perception of us, our cultures both
Forced into boxes, while they categorize us as well.
Someday I want to meet you, for I see stars in your eyes.
Your eyes which shine so bright, so gentle, so kind.
Someday perhaps I'll meet you—we'll be two stars in the sky.
 

Pencil to paper
Paper to thought
What music is it I
Can and cannot

My mind is the paper
When inspiration comes by
It grabs it swiftly
And imagination flies.

My foot is the drum
Tapping on the floor,
My pencil the viola,
My heart the piano chord.

I feel a melody
Rising in my bones
My voice bursts forth,
I need no microphone.

The songbird within me
Glides down to my hands
My fingers grip the pencil
And make their demands

Graphite on paper
Recording my thoughts
The rhythm, the lyrics
The rests and the notes

I tie off the end
With a flourish and bow,
Signing my name as 
Only I know how.

My new piece completed,
I sit back in my chair.
The verse may have ended
But in my mind, it's still there--

The music keeps ringing
Throughout my whole mind; 
New inspiration--

The first hot chocolate of the season
Warms me up from head to toe,
Conjuring up images of candy canes and snow
As I sit by the fire this cold Autumn night.

The first hot chocolate of the season
Made with a recipe only I know:
I can't tell you all, but I will say though
That melted on top's a huge, fluffy marshmallow!

The first hot chocolate of the season
Keeps me warm though outside it snows;
People still trading Halloween candy 
While I race to find ribbon bows.

The first hot chocolate of the season
Is perfect; I sip it slowly from a Christmas-themed mug,
The fireplace glows beside me as
I dream, wide-awake, of the Winter to come.
 

When the autumn breeze 
Blows leaves away, 
I know it's time to go.

When the sun disappears
Behind screens of rain,
I know it's time to go.

When the first snow falls
And the ground freezes o'er,
I know it's time to go.

When people pick pumpkins
And rejoice in harvests,
I know it's time to go.

When people gather firewood
And find their coats and mittens,
I know it's time to go.

When people sing carols
In early anticipation,
I know it's time to go.

When I feel the call of those before me
And yawn in mimicked response,
I know it's time to go.

So I curl up in my cozy burrow
Down under the freezing dirt and snow,
And sleep, dreaming sweetly, through the time
People sing and feast and have winter break
and oh, who knows. I'd rather hibernate!

When the sun shines again 
And melts the snow,

It was raining
The day you said goodbye.
Raindrops streaked down windowpanes,
Turning the once stable ground
To mud,
Just like how
The world seemed to slip out
From under out feet.

I was crying 
The day you said goodbye.
None of us wanted to say
What we knew was all too true, or
What the likely outcome was.
Words stuck in throats,
Strained silence became overwhelming
As we choked, alone, on our 
Own pain, finally realizing inside that
Everything was not going to be okay.

You were brave
The day you said goodbye.
You couldn't speak, as none of us could,
Yet the gentle squeeze you gave my hand
And the last hug we ever shared
Expressed all the memories, the heartache,
The joy, the sadness I knew, you knew, we all felt.
Then the door opened,
And closed,
And you were gone.

Goodbye can mean many different things.