In my dreams the blades of grass under my feet are the waves of an ocean, and I am a ship, sailing the sea. The sea is a glass of water that I am drinking in a field, the leaves reaching up above my head into the stars, becoming the hair of a great beast, old and ancient.

Growing up is being given things–
Memories, most typically recounted by your mother as she finishes cooking dinner

About how much you loved playing on the roadside,
blackened-by-exhaust piles of snow when you were four

          I thought you’d knock your baby teeth out. You never could stay still.

These memories are almost always said slowly. Laden with thought and caution, and care

Unfolded with a gentle hand.
Her back is turned to you, who quietly sits, waiting at the table for dinner and to feel whole.

She adds the last handful of sumac to the cast iron pan, and her voice becomes obscured by the vent
That fills the house with the heavy, unmistakable aroma.

Mujadara, now steaming from under its lid 

Sometimes you don’t know what to say
When you hear these stories,
Years of your life you hardly know

And you have no such stories to tell. 

When I am in nature, I realize how small and insignificant I am, and that my struggles today will not affect me in the long term. I cannot waste my life away inside my head and miss all the beauty that stands in this moment. When I am away from my reality, I am a lover of nature; a poet. I have spent the happiest moments of my life outdoors, shaded by a pine. I have even spent the days where I feel as if my world is crumbling around me outside, taking a midwinter walk. I seek out nature when I feel down, and I find myself already in nature during my joy.

i don't think you know this,
but i always brought her bread
before school.

just one slice,
whatever was fresh. 

i always wrapped it in wax paper,
tied it with blue string,
and tucked it into my lunch box
under the apple slices. 

always under the apple slices.

i know she loved it.
she told me every day.

but now she's gone,
and you're here.

instead of her.         but not as much as her.
 

yet for some reason,
   

after today, there'll 
be no tomorrow, so try to 
count the seconds that 
drain away 
ebbing through the cracks in your 
fingers. time is not 
gained, it's only lost, 
hold what you have tight until 
it's gone 
just hold on until you can't, like a 
knife you hold by the blade 
like igniting 
melting 
nothing and everything and it all 
opens up again, unseamed, 
purpose made perfect made 
question marks wrapped in 
russian dolls holding your 
secret in the hollow under 
the open mouth, 
until you learn how to keep 
violence behind your teeth. 
wake up. 
xenoliths do not belong to 
you. wake up. the 
zeroes turn into ones turn into today. 

Dodie and Fletcher,
the orange dream catcher,
Unopened messages, 
Cinderella's transforming carriage.
Crying in the shower,
all I want is flowers!
Buttons on my shirt,
Can I get any more hurt?
Pictures bleached by the sun,
I didn't think it was done.
Beads on my shoelaces,
who's supposed to fill those empty spaces?
Bread crumbs, 
Old chewed-up gum,
stuck to the bottom of my chair,
I don't think that's fair.
 

Someone tell the pearl diver—
            that the sea is dead.
That the sea robins and dogfish swam away
            days ago.
That the coral once
            tangerine,
                        lilac,
                                    and 
                        blush
has bleached.

Whiter than a wedding dress.
Whiter than a pale, stone-cold stillborn 
            gripped so tightly
like a small,
            precious
                        pearl.

Evergreen sprigs line
The path I took 
Down the river
And past the old saw mill

Here birds sing in shrill cacophony
And my heart beats in tune
To each whistle

Faster, faster
My thick skinned feet sing
And urge me forward
Faster, faster

I’ve come to the water
To silence all that you have left
Lying desolate inside my head

Your voice haunts my dreams, lover
And your face follows me through my days
I’ve come to the water
To silence all that you have left

O lover, there is an empty space
One no amount of filling
Can ever fix

It lies gaping inside of me
Swallowing up all it can
O lover mine, you left it here
And hungry it gnaws deeper

These evergreen trees
So green amidst winter's unforgiving sleet
Watch me flounder through the snowfall

I do not keep growing
And I eye them with greenest envy

Some may see autumn as the season of death and decay, winter the results of her wrath, spring as the awakening of dormant nature, and summer the calm before the storm.
But I see fall as the season of life, the days when the cold is born.
There is life in the way that the hues of yellow, orange, and red blossom like a flower and spread like a wildfire across the landscape.
I see life in the way the once green grass uses the frost as a cape to hide itself beneath the icy winds.
There is beautiful, glorious life in the way the children stroll through the streets, life in their laughs as their mother feigns fear of the ghost that they embody in their white sheet with two windows to the outside world.
I see the life that one can bring to a pile of leaves if only they were to jump into it.
I see the life in the golden apples that are plucked from a tree to be baked into a fresh warm pie.