watch those fingers on that desk, tapping away the nervous sparks. they chip away at the desk, leaving nothing in return.

watch that foot, shifting back and forth to slip the shoe off and back on. the sock wears through to be replaced with cold air.

nod your head to their words, ticking out through teeth tethered to gums.

lift your hands to under your chin, hold yourself still. an eighth beat rest. begin again.

So what if we walked a little further than we had to? So what if the socks on our feet were melding to our skin? The sun was out, that's not something we get to enjoy every midnight.

We're living expenses. We're dreaming too slowly. We're forgetting what our differences are.

I've seen this dance, heard you sing that song before. I've installed speakers into your bookshelves when you complained about the silence that stories imply. I've watched chocolate drip from ceiling fans when your experiments lost structure and the clicking in your head fell out of beat.

I remember things the rest of us never will. Because none of it ever happened. And it never will. So what?

Tumbling teeth and grinding green grass while we watch from our porches of strife. The cold and condensation stick our hands to glass. Children stay in their rooms, sleeping until they can’t dream anymore. We never know when they’ll leave. Sit a while, watch a cloud or two pass before you decide to fall for that short dress. Before heels and smoke cloud your mind, make you foggy with uncertainty and leave you waking with your vocal cords missing.

There are cracks in the road that no one will fill. There are leaves fallen over, spotted and translucent. Your skin breathes just as loud as the lungs we’ve buried. We’ve lost our greenhouses.

Train tracks trail behind the pollution, increasing again, without your permission.

Cathartic for one week. Chaos for 6 years. Crime rates grow faster than the recovered and the dead.

Our frailty is so obvious now. Raise those borders. De-globalize. Trust only ourselves. Close the countries. End the transport of goods. Trust only our own production of disease and pain. Because what we make will never be as bad as what others can do to us. Because we are more than them. Because we will fault everyone except us. We were only scared once our birds fell out of the sky. Once the tingle was felt in our own throats. Once fear was only me and you. Because those people I never see don’t matter, they won’t reach us here. Where these mouths fall are uncertain. Something slimy stirs, swirls, slinks along our legs. High pitched sounds fall from our high rise buildings. The applause ends.

Shoes litter the sidewalks. Single file line grave markers. Candles are never lit. These funerals all gathered into one day would require forest fires to commemorate them. Burn our buildings, rid us of this collective memory.

Underneath bridges we have homes. They grow into their own little cities.

Grandiose stories for our grandchildren. Because we were never able to be grandchildren ourselves.

How will these shoes ever fit my feet again? Will these pants wrap around this waist again?

They won’t reach us here.

Bundled onto roads, no pockets to hold onto anything. The sky is so clean today. We’ve never seen the sun without its struggle against the dark smoke of pollution.

Hi. No. Hello! No. Hey. Okay, that's good.

Hey, I know it's been a while since the - you know - no I'm not denying it happened, I just think it should stay in the past.

You're right, I brought it up. I'm sorry.

Look, I'm sorry. I really am. It's just, sometimes time kinda sticks with you y'know? Like some broken part of a clock forgot to move on and is still stuck in your hair.

Okay okay, I'll get on with it. This morning, I heard the ice cream truck passing by the house - no, wait I have a point, I swear - so the ice cream truck goes by, and I hear it chiming but when I look out the window, none of the kids are running up to it. And I think it's been that way for a while, I just never really paid much attention to it. Then I see the ice-cream man for just a second and his face is bored, and I just got to thinking, there's something kids can just revive in some people y'know? And with these mass produced buckets of ice-cream that sell for far cheaper than the spongebob popsicles, kids have become too smart to fall for it. And I know it's good to know where you are in the world but, where's the "ignorance is bliss"? It's ruining us. Smarts. Schools. I don't remember much about any of my classes, but I sure sit still when my boss walks by, I don't run out to the taco trucks when they're in town cause I know it'll just make my face swell - but damn do I wish I could taste the mess sometimes.

You were right about it all. I just can't let go of some things. But it wasn't your fault, you just had to suffer me. I'm sorry. I really am.

I know it's not gonna be the same but I hope you can just say a few words to me when you see me, instead of just hiding away like those kids. Just to revive me.

It isn’t me. The thing that stares through reflective waters at the sky that forms bounds against the height of trees. It isn’t real. The dark lines that form around its eyes, a memory of laughter painted on by age.

We are creatures made different by the wash of rain against our skin. One sees green trees, the other sees arid sunrises. It is not a flickering scent, it is etched, branded into us by time. A world in which wrinkles and long travels were just a thought.

I am not sagging skin and grey hairs, I am cartwheels on sidewalks, eyelashes and summer dresses. I am not rocking chairs and forgotten mothers. I am not her - the old woman in the water.

They say I fear you, age. They say I am running from you. They say I am no longer young - but look at these flowers, these blooming flowers. Every summer it is full and lively again. The age of winter has done no damage to how their colours blossom. I am not made for these walls, surrounded by sleepy feet, and heads shaking from the tremble of what once was.

I am not made for your rooms with beds shrunken to fit my shriveling body. Trees are bursting with leaves so green, they want me to come out and see them. Let me see the trees as they reach for the sun. Let me breathe in sunbeams until I bloom again. Don’t take this away from me. Don’t let me be what I am in the reflections.