On the horizon is nothing,

But change. 

And this is a nothing

That encapsulates

Everything.

Looking to the future,

The sunsets are a cold

green and blue and purple 

Instead of a fiery

Orange, red, golden, and pink

The feeling of comfort

Is replaced with a distinct unknown

While excitement

Is being blended with 

Nervousness.

It’s like looking at a filter

Where everything is upside down,

Colors are distorted

And you can make yourself out

But you aren’t yourself

Because your normal palette of colors

Has been switched with others.

And soon enough, all the colors will blend

Blend, blend, blend.

Until the colors aren’t colors

It’s all just one large mush.

And then instead of being

A colorful person

You are just a large brown mush

Or maybe, they will just swirl.

The new school colors

Won’t replace the old.

The new hobbies won’t

Contrast too much.

New friends won’t

Pencil out the old.

But there is only so much room 

On a piece of paper

Only so much room

For a sunset to shine

Only so much room

For newness to not take over the old

But maybe instead

The canvas will be double sided

Maybe it will be 3D

Maybe it will have six sides

Like a cube.

There is enough room on

Six sides for me to fit everything. 

I can add all the colors, and 

Make a collage of

Everything

New life mixed with old

Mixed with the newer life that

Never stops coming.

And the layers will show strength

But pictures will come back

And words will stay constant

And all the colors can exist in unity

And the horizon isn’t so mainstream

Its not a simple sunset

But a collage of 

What’s to come

However scary it might be

That you mess up the collage

You can always paint over,

Draw over, tape or glue over.

But the mistakes sometimes make it

Beautiful.

The horizon is a beautiful

Messed up, uncertain,

Contrasting and complementary

At the same time

Collage.

You’ll never lose some of you.

The newness might be on top

But you’ll definitely shine though.

Maybe it will complement

Maybe it will contrast

But it will be beautiful

Because it’s you.

The late nights usually surrendered to sleep

Are instead spent rolled over on our sides

Eyelids weak and the arms that hold up our heads weaker

As we run rivers of words out of our mouths.

Often more fulfilling than the hours of sleep they substitute

This connection creates a glow from our hearts despite the early morning darkness.

Sometimes blood will boil, to be followed by periods of silence and cold shoulders

But back in our beds, behind shuttered windows, we will always come to talk again.

I have a cat, and I miss him. I should be reading a short story for one of my classes, and I have a half-eaten burger in front of me, but I am thinking, only, of my cat. He is smooth—one brush of my palm against the back of his head and I was his, he was mine—he doesn’t really cuddle up to me, we just lay together, beside one another, in my bed. Sometimes the windows are open, and I watch the hair on his ears flutter. Other times, he settles his chin against the bony protrusions of my left ankle and purrs, eyes open. I’m not sure I would make a good pet owner—I don’t remember things, I neglect necessary duties, my medication piles up and I don’t take it. But he’s my parents’ cat, and when I come home—for break, for a night, for as long as I can—he’s there, and I’m here, and we bask in each other’s company. And, you know, I don’t really like cuddling. I’ve been touched and held before—of course I have—but there’s nothing quite like knowing someone (or something) you love is there, with you, because they choose to, and yet you do not touch, because you are existing while doing the things you both want to do, in proximity to one another. I think that’s why I like cats so much—they care, but they don’t. And we have a cat that cuddles—lord, does she—but she’s strange. My family thinks I dislike her—and, in the moment, I say I do. I agree. And I don’t. This is a cat—my brother’s cat—a small, defenseless, oldanimal that cannot do anything but walk around, get underfoot, drool, climb on top of our laps (at rather inopportune times), and meow, quite loudly. And eat, too, I suppose. She is very persistent, and very needy, and it is not the kind of personality I know how to handle. It irks me. Such habits and mannerisms are uncharacteristic of a cat, much less a person I can speak to and hang around. This is why I don’t like her—or, well. Don’t like being near her. She is too much. She needs me. I don’t know what to do about it. Maybe that makes me a bad person. It most certainly makes me a bad pet owner. I am willing to admit that. Bronny doesn’t do those things. He beats Seal up, sometimes (that’s her name; I’m not sure how she got it, other than the fact that she is very grey). It doesn’t bring me pleasure or happiness to see it, but I am detached from it all. Animals fight. Humans watch. Sometimes the roles switch. Oftentimes, even if the physical does, the psychological does not. I don’t know how to explain this philosophy. I mean, maybe, that we are all animals, but humans are inherently cruel, in a way everything else is not. It takes one to know one. I see it. I live it. I am it. I suppose I do like it when they are both in bed with me, laying there, asleep. It is peaceful. Seal is good company when she is quiet. Bronny is always quiet when he is in my bed—therefore, he is always good company. I guess I will say, I have two cats, and I miss them. Dearly. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, and lack of hairballs makes appreciation easier. Something like that.

Combine in a large metal mixing bowl:

One wooden spoon or ladle, tucked underneath your pillows

before bed. One pair of old pajamas turned inside out

(backwards may be substituted.)

Eighteen coins stacked in twos upon all the windowsills

in your house, yes, even in the bathroom. Two

ice cubes in the toilet (optional)

and a white crayon in the freezer, hidden between

the strawberry & lime popsicles. One pair of hands

gripping the sheets before bed in hope

and triumph. One official school board notice

(thawed three hours, posted online) reading

SB: SNOW DAY TOMORROW!

and two girls shrieking in delight 

at opposite ends of the street. Three group chats

chaotic with snowflake emojis.

Twenty-four million (eyeball it) actual snowflakes

falling heavy and thick outside. 

Bake at 11 degrees Fahrenheit for one day;

it's done when a toothpick inserted into the middle

comes out covered in white.

From what I remember, it was born growing.

It was born hot, expanding, glowing,

And the people were made of gold 

and of fire.

And it kept growing, it kept burning hot, bright,

And Luna came soon after to draw the waters around the shores at night,

As well as magic and childhood and mystery in the air,

And smoky towns with tiny mirrors in the sky.

Human Beings looked up and died looking up.

I walked the earth long and happily in those years.

Where I came upon folks singing, I sang in their midst,

And where I came upon folks weeping, I kept my distance but wept with them,

so they would know that I was a friend, which I was.

Then, while the moon set on the first age, I crawled back up to the stars, and I never really came back down again.

Cities came soon after that.

(That was when the world had only just begun to grey.)

I barely remember the first cities -

They were not cities in any modern sense.

Human beings had not yet figured out that you could live in cities.

What they did, you see, was that they gathered great stones and piled them on top of one another.

and kept piling and piling on top of each other.

Where one died, their body was picked up and molded into several new babies,

so that one day the work could continue.

Their intent was to reach heaven. They almost did a couple of times.

There was one man among them, I remember, Cartaphilus. He refused to die after the rest. 

After the Human Beings had used up all the stone of the earth in their tower, he sat at the top and looked past the stars and into my face. 

He vowed he would never die as long as the earth still faced the heavens.

I can see his bones even now, dried on that tower to the north and south and east and west of where I sit in the sky.

My memory fogs over after that. 

Human beings harnessed the early and ancient mists and magics and childhoods 

Given to them in moderation at the beginning, 

And condensed them into fuel and sugar to eat and snort and run their cars with. 

A curtain was pulled about the globe so that no more light reflected off it.

I have lost it in the night sky now. It could be wandering anywhere down there.

My final memory of that place is one from a waking dream of mine, or maybe it was something real that woke me briefly from a deep sleep.

I was standing on a cliff over the North Sea, 

And I was pushed backwards off of it by a flood of Human Beings

Spilling over the ledge.

I flailed in the hordes of Men and Women, trying to swim up the wave.

I only gave up when I realized that they never ended.

It was people, people, people, all the way from the sea to the sky.

America.

“The land of the free and the home of the brave,” they say,

But behind the mask, does freedom truly stay?

Tell me, America, are you proud of what you have become?

Once a place of hope, where dreams coincide, 

People came here in search of a better life. 

America,

Do you see what you have become?

Whispers turning into cries, lost in the sounds of shots being fired,

Freedom’s flame flickers as the light dims.

America,

Democracy flickers like a lone star in the night sky.

Voices in protest across the country,

In streets, shadows snatch and steal, 

For the price of resisting and fighting for our neighbors. 

America, I fear for your future. 

Can hope be rekindled for the damage that has been done?  

Yo quiero un mundo

de felicidad para todos.

Donde hay no fin de cuánto

tu puedes amor

todos las cosas

tu quieres.

Cree tu eres el sola persona

en el mundo,

y cierras sus ojos

para sentirte tranquilo.

I want a world

of happiness for everyone.

Where there is no end of how much

you can love

all the things

you want.

Believe you are the only person

in the world,

and close your eyes

to feel calm.