Vision+Voice

The stars twinkled like diamonds
The darkness was a blanket around us
We sat on the grass and talked

The jar in my hand was cold
The buzzing of the fireflies made my hand tingle
You told me that it would go away

And it did
But so did you
You left me

You left me and the darkness
Alone
Without you

You left a sharp pain in my heart
That never seemed to leave
Never quite healing

You never came back
You were gone like the wind
Fast, quick, and cold…

I never let go of you
I held onto you for dear life
But you slipped away

You slipped further
and further
Until all that was left was a memory

A memory of Fireflies
Of darkness
Of you and me

The moon illuminates my pathway as I walk down slowly
A giant nightlight
A natural satellite
A muse
It can be anything…
But most of all
It can change tides
Without the moon
The tides would be unpredictable
Messy
Choppy
Without the moon,
It would all be pitch black
Nothing in sight
No muse
Nothing to look up at and think
All of the what if’s possible
The good and the bad
The terrible and the unthinkable
The moon influences life as we know it
No more first steps or flags
No more ferocious fears
No more falling in love with it.
Just darkness
Silence in the night

As I keep walking along my path,
I think that if it disappears one day
I’ll like to look at it now.
I stop and take it all in
Every single crater
Crack
Crevice
Every single face
Phase
Flag
And field
It’s there for me even during the day at times
Sometimes
It’s not there
But I know it’ll come back
The moon
Is what
We think of it

Big
Bold
Blissful
Beaming
Something to look up to.

My eyes dart back and forth
I take a sip of my tea
I turn the page
My eyes go faster
And faster
Until I can’t stop
My conscience slips through the pages
It just squeezes through
All sounds around me halt
It feels like I’m in the book
Like I’m right there in front of the characters
I pause for a second and my world sucks back to reality.
The noises start up again
I had gotten stuck on a word.
I move past it
As it happens again.
My eyes
Faster
And faster.
I’m back.
It’s the best part
Please, spare me,
I know who did it.
It was-
“Come down for dinner!”
I’m sucked back into reality again.
“Now!”
I knew the characters didn’t say that
It was supposed to be the best part.

People all around me swarm
Popular people
A crowd
A storm
I look down at myself
So different
So worn
I look back up at people
All the very same
Except for me who is full of shame
I feel like I’m in the wrong
Like I’m singing a different song
But then I noticed,
That no one really needs to belong
So from that day on, I held my head up high
No matter what people thought
No matter what energy they brought,
I am myself,
And I am proud
And if I want to,
When I want to
I will be loud.

How does one attempt to fix
An already lived in world
Like a pair of shoes
With tears in the soles
And holes in the toes
You wished to give to your children
But are now
Unwearable
Like our world
A gift for the children
But a broken one

For what does one do
When they need water
But have no tap
When they need justice
But have no representation

I hope my children
Do not resent me
For the broken world I could not fix
And I hope they still try to stitch the rips
And wear this world
One more time

Nine days I spent alone
On the cusp of reality
With a full room
And an empty mind

What does one do when they have no thoughts?

A world full of pigments
Of varying intensities
Of varying styles
Of varying attitudes

A room full of people
Each one alone
Too scared to speak to one another
All of empty mind

Who do I always hope to see in a crowded room?

You
Without reason
My empty mind travels back
To you
Sending me spiraling
Without warning
A black and white world turns golden
And swings naturally
Back to blue
As my unnatural longing
Is met with the apathy
Of an empty mind

And so here I am
Ten days spent alone
Finally falling back towards the reality
Of my empty room
Of my empty mind

In this house
It is silent
Except for the leaky pipe
Pit
Pat
Pit
Pat

The silence interrupted
Over and over
By a simple
Pit
Pat
Pit
Pat

As I lay in agony
Unable to sleep
The water continues to fall

Pit
Pat
Pit
Pat

I plug my ears
I try to ignore
The never ending drip

Pit
Pat
Pit
Pat

I almost swore
But then it stops
Interruptions, no more.

The sharp cool breeze hits my face
Making my cheeks turn pink

The splash of salt water
My rolled up pants turn wet

The cold water rushing over my bare feet
Shivering legs

My feet turn numb
Now unaware of the cold

The calls of seagulls going home for the night
The waves splashing against the shore

The horizon is dark and dreary
The sun is gone but l remain

I wish l could remember
I wish l could forget

But the feeling of numb in my heart lingers

Little pine tree,
Stretching its branches merrily
In the center of the clearing
At the base of the mountain
Near the edge of the woods

It leaves me
wondering
Oh little pine tree,
What is it like
To be

here endlessly
When the bee comes
and smell your sweet scent,

And the snow
covers your grand little branches
And the sweeping winds
carry it away
when it melts again for spring

What is it like
To be

In the center of a clearing
At the base of the mountain
Near the edge of the woods?

1 A magnificent scale
2 So wondrous and tall
3 Stable and luxurious
4 So able in its appointments
5 Its supremacy was thought to never be challenged

6 A fateful day
7 A fulfilled prophecy
8 Some face is to blame for the end of a long awaited journey
9 So traumatic was this event, that face was lost in history

10 A lesson was learned for many
11 As the souls aboard were lost in time
12 Forgot in the midst of the doomed vessel
13 Lying under sand in the ocean, buried by secrets that will never be told