your youth plays tricks on you:

on saturday mornings you rise with the sun

and gaze at your own reflection in the mirror,

marveling at how young and free you are;

at sixteen, seventy-eight years is forever.

but life is fleeting as the summer grass.

you see this as the years flow by,

and though time’s passing is nothing more to you

than a lazy river, you catch glimpses of

the horizon ahead, the waterfall awaiting you,

and year after year you watch others

drop over the edge, and you know the end

draws ever nearer, an unceasing approach.

sometimes you think the thump of your own

heartbeat is the marching drum of death.

still, you aren’t afraid of where the current

might take you; although you wonder if

it will hurt to crash your rowboat when the

stream plummets into the rocks, you

have no need to fear. you know the end.

so even though the monster looms over

your head, tongue lolling, drool pooling on

your homework, you ignore his beckoning

pants, plug your ears and jam out to

“beautiful” until the sun goes down and the

darkness surges over only to reveal the light.

note:

"beautiful" is my favorite song by phil wickham

there’s rust on the rim of the faucet, and the soft plink of water dripping from the tap into the porcelain sink wakes me up at night, a vile alarm clock. this house is too old for me, too full of history, and i’m too young for it. my sister is an old ghost haunting the bedroom, tapping her mallets on the xylophone to the timid melody of ‘twinkle twinkle little star’; the notes ring in my eardrums with a silvery buzz. when I hear her music I envision the moon.

this bed of sticks and straw isn’t comfortable anymore, branches snapping against my skin. I lean this way and that and settle in for a night of stargazing, but’s it’s time to fledge and I can’t avoid it much longer; the world calls. I throw my hairbrush at the wall and watch the handle snap in two; maybe it’s just teenage angst, but I don’t think I belong here. I want to run, to walk far away, dance past the statues of armor left over from the middle ages, shake their hands and wish them farewell. i want to leave this old nest behind. you never know, maybe there’s a land beyond the sunset.

here i am lying on vomit-soaked silk sheets

drenched in sweat and a bath of my own blood

here i am covered in sores and wrapped in rags

soaked in my own filth and silent before the

accusations of the voices speaking in the back

of my head wretched pitiable poor blind naked

dead dead dead dead it’s all true isn’t it?

it’s all true there is no excuse for a past of horrid

falls and endless sins these scars crisscross my

skin like a pattern of haunted dreams memories

of a past i’d like to leave far behind but can’t

i collapse inward hide myself from the world

they tell me to love myself but how can i forget

the way my hands gripped knives and traced

incisions into commandments and tore them

to shreds how can i forget all the faces forever

imprinted on my mind the symbols of all those

i have hurt i cover my bare skin with fig leaves

and false reputations building myself a safe

hideaway deep within the ground far far away

from the peering eyes of all those who must

not see this creature of wrath i’ve become

i stare at my reflection in pools of sulfur let

myself blend into the caverns around me

become one with the darkness and the damp

i hope no one finds me here i hope they stay

far far away and don’t come looking for me

i don’t want them to see me here in my death

yet here i am dying and crying for someone to

find me and teach me what it means to be loved

i had a girl once. pretty, with cinnamon eyes and freckles, hair that flew sleek like gull’s feathers in the wind. we walked hand-in-hand along the seashore and talked about getting married, buying a house on the ocean and swimming in the waves, raising a family here and taking pictures of tiny footprints in the sand.

she always did love the sea. it called to her, whispering of hidden cities and lost treasures, clamshells and silvery fish scales whirling into schools, sparkling like diamonds. she’d pick through the driftwood after summer storms, searching for seaweed and shark eggs.

there was a far-off look in her eyes that day, the day she told me i couldn’t give the world to her even though i’d always promised it. diamonds weren’t enough for her; she wanted pearls and rubies and gemstones only to be found in the deepest, darkest trenches of the world’s oceans. she wanted to swim, to be one of the fishes.

she never said goodbye. she merely smiled sadly at me and ran into the waves, diving beneath the crest and flying out of sight. i should have wrapped kelp around her waist like sea otters do their pups, to anchor her. but she was wild and full of unbridled wanderlust, dreaming of the big blue and all it could offer her. the sirens called to her from across the sea, their voices wily and dripping with impossible promises, and she was too enraptured to resist, disappearing beneath the foam. i called her name, but she never looked back.

she’s stopped keeping track of the years, staring up at the stars on cool nights and wondering what lies beyond the milky way, if the universe stretches on forever. she plucks daisies in the meadows and braids dandelions into her hair. she remembers the fountain of youth, how the water trickled down her fingers as she cupped her palms beneath the flow, sipping the draught of honeysuckle and summer peaches. now youth stains her tongue bright with sour sugar. she is immortal, a dream of a long-lost past, floating along the tender hillsides in search of meaning. far beyond, embers rise among the fireflies and settle themselves into the midnight sky.

“you are priceless”

think again and see the truth:

“you are worth nothing”

some will tell you

you are a diamond

this is a lie

no one cares about you

all your life you will hear that

someone died for you

but remember

no one will ever cherish you

even though others will say

“I love you”

now turn around and look the other way

our losses leaves shiny trinkets for the crows

gleaming silver melting on the sidewalk

our tears splatter to the floor and erupt into

dizzying droplets solidifying into chains

and pendants like mourning doves

we wear our grief around our necks

opening our empty hands for all to see

this is poverty a heart devoid of emotion

but the crows love to pick through the rubble

of broken relationships and crumbled souls

of the collision between life and death

iridescent feathers shimmer black and blue

beneath a sun dripping light like gold coins

and still the crows ruffle their feathers and

move on to the next house to eye the sorrow

with flashing expressions seeking gain

they clutch humanity’s misery in their beaks

our blood dribbles down from their wings

today she finds the feather on her driveway

dark and grey and translucent blue

floating down from a crystal clear sky

she twists the remnant of life in her hands

and she understands why the doves mourn, why

they release haunting calls from telephone wires

the world coats her fingers with death

and she learns to grieve when her cat

stumbles down the stairs on creaky joints

and her mother says with teary eyes

“i don’t know if he’ll survive tomorrow”

this is when she tastes death

when the stench stains her palms

when she looks in the mirror and sees

only her own bleak reflection staring back

the sky grows dark with thunderclouds

she gazes out the window as the raindrops patter

down from above and streak along the glass

she cups her hands to catch the flow

and drinks sips of the earth’s pain

it tastes like vinegar slipping down her throat

she braids her heritage, triplet rivers of blood

france germany scotland, all united within her

german floats off her tongue, but her name is french

and the names of her ancestors are scottish

french and dutch but no german braids

her cousin wallows in the french language

but bonjour never sounds right on her lips

she prefers guten morgen or perhaps hallo

tonight she twists her hair into lace braids

leaves holes for her soul to escape through

she dreams of ridding herself of the past

it’s far far away now untouchable

she takes her failures and laces them through

her hair, over under over under left right left right

drapes feathers into the melted chocolate

the birds leave her gifts, but she steals from them