Poetry

it's true, i would miss you.
you wouldn't be a door away anymore, and it would hurt.

Click.

Fawkes the phoenix towers over the Avengers headquarters.
I snap Darth Vader onto Fawkes' left wing.
He laughs.

I wonder-
Has this sliver of light ever felt so warm?

When I was in seventh grade, my teacher put on our desks a pop quiz and question one was hard, but question five was harder (was the colonization of America inevitable?) and I stared at that question because I couldn't stop thinking about my home

I am one…

I am one with the land.

I am one with the sea.

I am one with the animals.

I am one with the trees.

I go through weeks like I do sheets of paper, or hair ties, or poems. 

I use them all up but I can't remember what I wrote. 

Years are like that too. Someone asks what I did last Monday 

Words slip through my fingertips

every so often.

Experiences in foreign countries,

meeting new people, and even falling in love—

all boiled into delusion.

They tell me their stories

All the fun here and there

They tell me their lessons

What they chose to hear

They tell me their worries

The year is ending

without asking if I’m ready.

It folds itself away

like a letter I never finished writing—

corners bent,

ink smudged with things I didn’t say out loud.

The two of them sit on the porch

basking in the sunlight

letting their toes explore the first

frost-bitten mud of spring

Talking about life and death and sex

and little Mika's school play

Fear. Fear is relentless. 

It never stops taking.

It depletes your joy, and takes away from your life.

It’s a constant strife.

Fear. 

December already?

That's what everyone else says.

People ask us at the end 

of every year

to reflect on these last twelve months

that have changed us.

And I honestly never know

“Is that what you’re wearing”

She says

Not as a question

But a judgment

A cold declaration

That I’m doing something wrong