There

I ended up there,
close enough
to reach out
but not quite
always just out of reach
trying to understand what kept pulling at me
during the late hours
in the stillness
But that feeling of being so close
felt like pressing my hands
against a pane of glass
unable to break through
unable to really live
only able to see the
almost that was just beyond

the waters

i tested the waters

dipping my toes

but the lake was made of silence

that had turned a perfect blue

language

I could
but the key to the lock
was a
forgotten language
its words lost
to time and silence.

empty air

How does my breath
get taken by yours?
When I speak,
you seem to draw out the marrow
from my words.
If my words come from fear,
you take in the shadows.
If they come from longing,
then I am left holding only
the remains of desire.
Is this
how we share?
Breath at the core,
yet I am
grasping at empty air.

murky waters

an old photograph shows
my father
I was just a child
looking up in wonder
The pond shimmered
cool and
refreshing relief from the heavy summer
heat
We used to leap from
the muddy bank
into the murky water below
offered us secrets only children could sense
we were still so young
looking up the way only children can
do
while the adults pretended
in the way only adults
do

I pressed a leaf
between book pages
in a chapter I
haven’t read yet.
a dark purple leaf
with crimson veins
from a season that has passed
from a season kept
in a timeless moment,
a child laughing at
the rain.
a child who isn’t jaded yet
always curious
and free
always safe
in the unknown
at home with all the questions
questions wrapped up in life
life held as a question