There is a language 
spoken only in half-glances, 
in the weight of a pause 
just before someone smiles. 

It’s in the hand 
that almost reaches out— 
then doesn’t. 

In footsteps that slow 
as they pass a familiar door. 

We live so much 
… almost. 

The almost word, 
the almost touch, 
the almost truth 
we wrap in softer sentences. 
 

We are architects 
of unsent messages, 
of thoughts folded neatly 
and placed back into drawers. 

But still– 
the moon rises without fail, 
a silver coin slipped under my pillow
by some gentle universe
that forgives
what we were too quiet to offer.

And in the hush

between midnight and morning,

the heart listens

for what it already knows—

that even the unspoken

can echo

if you’re still enough

to hear it.

Through the knotweed. Down the ladder made of tree roots. Up onto the big rock. By the river.  I stand, mud on my ankle and cuts on my knees. The sun sits just barely above the trees as the sweat sits just above my brow. I look hard through the yellow August light at the water.  The water. The water that holds fish. The water that compels me. Looking for a sign. A ripple out of place or a branch in the water. That is where the big fish are. I clutch my rod. I cast my rod. The smell of worm and sweat and mud and the sound of wind and bird and breath flood my eyes and nose until I can not smell the smell of worm and sweat and mud and I can not hear the sound of wind and bird and breath. Just water. Around me and in me and everywhere. 42.27803683154458, -73.30728374317647 

past the burning day,

at bedtime when I shrug off sleep,

When I've got school the next morning, and I shouldn't be here,

I sit down and press play, and the noise starts, and the colors fly up around me, and cities erect and destroy themselves as the songs start and end.

I fall in.

I fall in deep.

The stars are reflected in the glimmer of the headlamp's light on the snow

And the air is frozen-- it feels like the sensation of holding your hand under water so burning hot that

it begins to feel cold

somehow.

Nothing could be more perfect than feeling air rush in and out of lungs, feeling alive when all is still

I am alive.