Underneath the Aspen Tree
Slow and slippery is the entity that possesses me,
As the millions of Medusas litter the hundreds of seats in front of me.
Sick silence blends with the echoing reminders of all that was said,
Said and done throughout over,
504, 576, 000 seconds,
8,409,600 minutes,
140,160 hours,
5,844 days,
192 months,
16 years.
My mind loses memory of it all,
From the back of my hand,
The affirmations,
The reassurance,
The excitement,
The love,
To the hard work,
The long practices,
The overworking,
The persistence,
All of the above.
Letting go with a dead man's grip,
As my lungs deflate like an old balloon sitting in sunlight,
Shakes and shudders of the past and imperfection,
My dreams of wisteria trees dangling over me,
Lying in a field of Baby’s Breath and Lavender,
Admiring the beautiful blue sky’s sunlight that carefully kisses my face.
Turn into dark corners occasionally illuminated by the moon,
As I coward in devotion with my Marigolds and Violets,
Underneath the aspen tree.
After They're Gone
The world, a rock.
Racking your brain for the last memory,
To keep them alive.
Sickly silence sends shivers through your spine.
Heavy eyes,
In the black beneath them,
watering your pillow,
Created by those rough restless tears,
Tears that tear cracks in your heart.
Mourning over the words you never got to say,
The questions you never bothered them with.
All the stories untold
Now forgotten,
Surplus of secrets sits six feet buried below.
They’re gone.
So suddenly expected,
The inevitable.
The In-Between
On the rocks I lie,
The salty waves crashing
Inches Below My Feet.
Tied down by vines of Daffodils and Aspen,
A distant vision of undeclared honeysuckles and rues
Claims my attention,
As each second fades into the next,
As the clouds over the permanent moon,
That illuminates the cracks in my porcelain
As I pray to Phobos
To set me free
And as I plead for Flora to replace my Daffodils with
Daisies,
And my Aspen with Lavenders.
Before I tear out my heart,
Turn myself inside out,
And surrender myself to the world,
That I am first guaranteed a bouquet of
Lady’s Mantles and Lilacs,
Gladiolus and Asters,
Blessed by Athena herself,
Before I break,
Before I clatter to the ground with a hollow echo,
As did the sword of Achilles,
Before I am battered by the fates,
Before I crash like the waves beneath me.