Like mirror lakes.

Where the beauty of the sky,

Reflects perfectly,

Off still waters

Once broken by raindrops.

Unexpected downtime, I thought that we might play

Instead you pace and want to flee

Why can you not just stay?

I thought this was a good place to be…

Nowhere to go on this rainy day

Here with me

Yet I can feel your love decay

And sense your longing to be free

Why can you not just stay?

But other places you long to see

And your nerves, they seem to fray

Here with me

“Out there” seems to always outweigh

Time only spent with me

Why can you not just stay?

I wonder how long you’ve felt this way

A rainy day-- the truth exposed, I only have this plea:

Why can you not just stay

Here with me?

she's caught in my web

my cold legs wrap around her

bite down on her head

the victim in a horror movie

is always the girl

pretty

long brown hair

perfect body

boyfriend who is crazy about her

but she's always a little dumb

and it comes back around to get her

in the form of a knife

or a guy

who just can't control himself

can he?

her pretty blue eyes

pierced with the white and red

of a gory death

yet i sit back and laugh at her

i wonder why

i never root for the good guys

As Aaron and Carolina lay there, her head on his chest, gazing endlessly into the starry sky, listening to the rush of cars on the interstate, he realized he was falling in love with her. He yearned to tell her how he felt: that he didn’t need anything but her. That he loved her. Because he did, he did love Carolina Peterson, and he always would. But he just stared into the night. She looked lost in her own thoughts. He wondered if she somehow knew that he could not stop thinking of how perfect they could have been together.

The bed in the guest room was comfortable, but wasn’t the same as home. Lying on her back, she willed herself to sleep.

A cat jumped onto the bed near her feet.

Oh, she thought, hello bedmate...

She felt the cat walk over her legs, felt its feline weight as it draped its body over her abdomen.

Friendly...

She soon drifted off to sleep hoping it wouldn’t begin that kneading thing cats sometimes do and wake her.

In the morning, she poured herself coffee and commented, “I didn’t know you had a cat.”

Her host’s face grew pale, “I don’t.”

The details were laid out on the gurney

for his kids to sift through, like

pieces of glass

in his hair, the note

in his pocket

He took too many pills

then tried to gas himself

and our family dog

Lucky lived.

Dad dialed for help, but

died having his stomach pumped

Half-truths like this are told

to spare children the details.

The full weight was broken

into bits I could lift

once I tore grief and anger

into smaller pieces still

Your Dad

jumped out

of an ambulance

on the high way

en route to be convicted.

I have worn my heart out

wrestling with this

I drop it

Feels right to release these ashes

like all the apologies, the excuses,

the verdict that need not burden us...

Sometimes pain

weighs less than the justice

we inflict upon ourselves

Sometimes...the right choice is the heaviest

Photo by Egor Ivlev on Unsplash

#Suicide #Justice #Trauma #poetry #truth #grief

Heavy snow struck the first toll

A cross continent storm

Paradise lost to sleet

Please stay home

Yes, feels good. Our king has come

No, we can't complain

Even if

We run out of alms

Yes, we can dig deeper

Earth is only frozen over

And we are only

Rolling in our graves

Photo by Tom Wheatley on Unsplash

I do not think I know how to write anymore.

There was a time it was bobbing towards me in a sea of such vastness and mystery, like a pure sunbeam, untouched by the cold. Like the sun, it lifted me closer to the sky, sought colour within the squeeze of lemon-rain. In the night, it sunk below my feet, through my body and into my heart, and beat and beat and beat.

I do not feel it now. It floats a little, it dangles, it crashes over and dissolves into white specks that travel through me, upwards and upwards, lighting the dark, dissolving in daylight. It is a specimen, a sample, an infinitesimal bite of creamy and tart toffee, a bare sip of 7-Up's latest lemon-and-lime summertime invention. It comes back in a mortar, smeared on the table, crumbled in school essays and writing comprehensions and debates and the next big thing that will destroy me.

I do not doubt it will stay so, because I have learned to swim, and I do not create without the imminent threat of sinking. I have dipped my toes into the heart of the ocean and felt the beating there, into my chest, beat and beat and beat. The hundreds walk and follow. When I sink, I will, the ocean will open its maw and and crack my bones, and split my jaw, and let pieces rest. And then I will explode, upwards and upwards.

There was a time it was bobbing towards me in a sea of such vastness and mystery, like a pure sunbeam, untouched by the cold. It sunk below my feet, through my body and into my heart, and beat and beat and beat.