The soft snow rested on your hair like a veil, innocence radiating from your smile and red nose. Cold lungs and warm exhales. That’s how we found each other, a winter of contentment.

The pounding hail provided you with enough interjections to avoid what you came to say. Some were still in your hair, rapidly melting and blending with tears. He was there, I was not. He was present I was not. He was as I used to be… but only for a short summer. One empty season with a gaping void. One regretful season cowering from the ones we shared.

I wanted to say I told you so, but we shared too much for such an annoying response. I’m sorry you have regret - I suppose that’s worse. I swam with you and drowned, only to see you find an empty rock. Visible to me, but not worth the swim.

“Repent therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.” The priest’s eyes met mine, as did the rest of those gathered in the nave. “Repent! Repent!” The chanting filled the room as the priest extended his finger towards my hands which were now covered in blood. Yelling and screaming did nothing but cast a bewildered look on everyone’s face. The priest touched me, asked me to sit and be calm as if nothing was wrong. With a shove and a sprint past gaping jaws, I ran as fast as I could.

The run home was brief, fumbling with my keys, I realized my bloodied hands were clean. My head pounded, my vision darkened.

I regained consciousness to the sound of alarms outside of the decrepit apartment. “What have I done?” My mind wandered, but the alarms brought it back. Louder, louder, then it stopped. Momentarily deaf, I heard nothing and felt as though I were watching over myself, an empty shell. I wasn’t controlling it, and... “I WAS NOT controlling it last night!” Trying to win the battle in my head I stood perplexed. “This isn’t my home,” but I can’t think of home.

I took to the streets cluelessly, unaware of where I was, or where I was going. The streets are all the same, my thoughts all the same and there he is, “on every corner.” The words oozed from my mouth along with the sudden realization of his presence. His head, or the shadow of it, turned to stare as if it just noticed me. “There are no eyes” and yet I felt like it was peering into my soul. “It’s not real, I’ll just keep going,” but it must be, it looks just like him. I’m seeing things, “no, no, because there he is again!” My words and thoughts merged and separated with the streets, faster and faster as my pace increased.

I found myself back at the church, wanting to go in it and wanting to run away from it. I was then looking down from the steeple, it was a long fall, as if plummeting towards Hell itself.

If you met him

you’d first notice his aura

You’d fall in line from a pierce of his gaze

His calm, calculated, collected demeanor

would bewilder you

You’d eye his tailored suit and slicked back hair

His hardened face would

accentuate your softness

His body looks of stone

while yours of sugar

If you shook his hand

Which you’d do gently

You’d realize the fire within

Your meeting would be terse

Your words would lack projection

Your feet would be aimed for the door

Once out, you’d be glad you were

You’d question the man’s happiness

How could one carry such weight on their shoulders?

You’d wonder how people tolerate him

His apparent emptiness

would accentuate your spirit

His life though luxurious

looks meaningless

while yours, full

You rely on him

You pay him what is due

You sleep without worry - real worry

You’d trade places with him if you could

But you couldn’t

You also don’t know if you would

Though a figment of my imagination

He is everything I’m glad I’m not

And everything I wish I was

I’m thankful for the November warmth

the windows rolled down

A jolt of what was and

What will no longer be

I’m thankful for that lone leaf

The wind repelling its slow descent

It’s crisp scarlet color twirling endlessly

Before me and the clear blue sky

I’m thankful for my cup of hot tea

It’s long voyage from Laoshan

across oceans, continents and

Into my welcoming hands

I’m thankful for that woodchuck

Perked up between those two busy roads

Lets me know he’s safe

In his precarious little home

I’m thankful for her company

Her tiny paw kept on my leg

If I move, she’ll know

For now, she snores

My fat flesh for nothing more than a meal,

These bars are embedding into my skin;

How much longer can I live this ordeal?

Where, when or how I got here I know not,

My life has only been within these bars;

My fat flesh for nothing more than a meal.

The air burns my eyes, and my joints do rot,

The noise pollutes worse, constant agony;

How much longer can I live this ordeal?

I dream of pasture, play and a mud spot,

Then I open my eyes to the life here;

My fat flesh for nothing more than a meal.

Whatever stench is rotting in this lot,

The flesh and shit in my meal smells better;

How much longer can I live this ordeal?

No piglet is meant to be in this hell,

They overrode that, they overrode me;

My fat flesh for nothing more than a meal,

How much longer can I live this ordeal?

The sun sets with my gaze focused intently upon it, eager to see it for the last time. The blue waves, tinted red, crash upon the jagged rocks where the ocean abruptly meets its stony edge. With each impact on the rocks, I feel the throbbing in my chest. My warm red heart is slowly turning blue and the crashes of the ocean begin to outpace the pumps of its chambers. The black of the night fights away the remnants of the sunset. At first the stars wait, their lights obscured by the sun’s dwindling rays. The darkness quickly encompasses the sky as the victor. As quickly as it comes, however, the stars emerge. The darkness repelled with the help of the sun’s reflection on the moon. The darkness cannot prevail and is instead in a perpetually losing battle. The throbbing stops and a feeling of bliss crashes down upon me.