Flare

Heart racing and stopping and thrumming in the chest
While electricity sings along the nerves
a silent, screeching kind of tickling
And then muscles seize and shrink and pull you in
With organs quivering and trumbling
Making the world shake from the inside
But no one else can feel
Not even see

Everything's tight enough to pluck
Yet curled up into a ball
every sound pounds into your bones
The light sheers your eyes
Burning patterns inside your skull
With thoughts jumbled together
In a panic, too loud to be heard
Sloshing from one topsy-turvey
Just to crash against another

Dear Old Soul

Dear Old Soul

who was just growing into their youth

Forgive me, forgive us

As you face a war not your own

There are no rules, though many laws,

No glory, no honor,

just dashed promises of tomorrows

And loud shadowy exits

I would have painted you a home

Warm and cheery like Christmas

With summer fun and autumn feasts

And all the hopes of spring

But there is ice only ice creeping in

And angry storm fronts

The heat burns

And hope has shriveled to a shadow

You face this, as young and old

With bold strength

Quietly seething for justice

Of a youth and a future dashed

All those things I tried to keep

To hold so close they wouldn’t touch you

That I hid behind closed doors

That were too loud not to hear

All those things you face and more

In living memory and fading dreams

My Old Soul, my Guardian King,

My brave, leading  dawn

It reads my heart to see you rise

On a field of bloodied hearts

Of yours and mine, and his and theirs

No one is left untouched

I bear the blame for holding it all

For you and him and all our scars

I tried to be better, to never give up

But I trapped us all when I should have fled

Now here we are, us all and you,

My wise old warrior of infinity blessed

There are universes in your eyes

And red threads within your chest

Face judgment with innocence

Show guilt’s dark disgrace

Speak truth and life and memory

To free you from this past

Sometimes He Remembers He Loves the Sea

The morning is foggy, shrouded in the marine layer the sea creeps in. He lives on this island as his family has lived on this island their whole lives down the generations, as a fisherman. The shore, ever changing and ever the same bumps up against his calloused feet as he was absentmindedly down the path to the water. No matter how many times he walks the path, there is always a new stone in the moss and sand jabbing into his foot; there is no clear footing in the fog. The sea is placid, and almost always is. It is the peace of the water that holds the fog to the pathway, grows moss upon the sharp rocks, and milder in the sand. It is this peace that holds him here.

He carries the empty nets across his back, slung from shoulder to shoulder. They are heavy on his shoulder, but they remind him of his strength, so he carries them not just for his livelihood but also for his memory. He feels the sand turning icy and mucky, sucking around his feet, feels the stones beneath his feet slowly becoming round and the fog thickens around him. He absently notes that he is getting close to the water and his heart lights with the hope at the splash beckoning him.

He thinks back to those few days when he was a child and the sun drew the fog up from the earth and warmed the sea. The sweet kiss of an open sky's freedom and the wonders of the water's pregnant depths lighten his mind for a moment before he sees his father calling to him from the cottage to pull the nets to the shore. The sea that clashes against his skin is cold and he opens his eyes to see the gray liquid surround him, the distant splashing of fish in the waves. Now, just as then, he feels his duty to his lineage, to himself for survival. This is what his father taught him, and his father, and his father down the family line: to take from the sea what they can.

Few fish live here now. Generations had fed and gorged themselves on the plenty of the sea yet ever kept fishing, never satisfied by what the sea had offered up to them. As life drained from the sea, so the sea stilled and so the fog crept in upon them, covering their eyes and muting the music what little life left played in the wind.

He walks along in the shallow water, mirroring the shoreline while his eyes scan the water for the drop-off. The water darkens a few feet in front of him and he wonders where the fish have gone as he ties and coils the hand line around his wrist. Then he hears the water moving, sees ripples coming toward him. He grabs the net half an arm's length down and checks for tangles as he divides it in half and rolls the top portion over his thumb.

He stands there mid-motion; every muscle memory paused as his thoughts slowly move about as a school of fish in winter waters. Perhaps there is life beyond the fog. If he leaves maybe he will find a sun above warm waters where fish are plentiful. His hand slides down from thumb to the net's lag line as other men might slide their hands over a woman. But he has not known a woman. He is a fisherman on an island deserted by the others as the fog remained and thickened. All he knows is fishing. His father had refused to leave and so now he refuses to leave there is none left to refute.

His fingers feel for the lag line again and grasp the midpoint between the net halves, bringing it to his lips as his fingers follow the edges down again and grab hold of the net's top half along the lag line. He watches for the ripples as a distant splash whispers hope in his ear through the fog. The net is salty in him ought but he is used to it, has been seasoned with the salt through and through. Holding the lag line and half of the net in one hand with the handline and net in the other, he curves his body around and swings them all out over the darker ocean. He stands in the icy water, hand line still about his wrist, and gazes over the ocean wondering when life will return, where the sun had gone to, and why nothing can permeate the fog.

The water turns mucky as the day progresses and the water shifts away from the shore. He braces himself against the rough, moss-covered edges of rock at his feet and begins hauling in the net. But the net is light and it is easy to pull in, which makes his heart heavy with disappointment. Seaweed and slimy ocean much cover the net, only two fish lie in the net, brilliant colored scales flashing sharp light into his eyes. He sighs, it will be another meager day of meals, but perhaps tomorrow the fishing will be better. He empties the net of the garbage it has dragged up from the ocean floor. He hears a splash out in the fog, yes, he thinks, life is returning.

---

There is no life here. She waits. She watches. The fisherman has grown from boy to man, no longer free to fancy the unknown. He has bound himself with blood ties to the shore. When he was a boy he would swim out with her and they would swim together in the sea, wondrous with life. But those waters were far, very far, from his cottage home. The older he grew the closer to the shore he stayed, not even boating while he fished now. She weeps in the sea while she waits for him in the morning.

She sees him walking down to the shore empty nets across his back like lash marks of hurts past. She calls to him in her sing-song way. He does not even lookup. Her voice is lost in the fog. She pushes herself out of the water, splashing and waving, beckoning him out to her. She sings of warmer waters where the sun shines deep into the waters and winds tickle the waves, but he is deaf to her.

She pleads over dead waters, recalling the times they had played as children in the sea. "Escape the island," she offers, "swim the depths with me again, let us find life together." He stares out over the sea, unseeing, un-hearing, an ocean creature himself who has been beached on the shore too long.

The sea is as lifeless as his eyes and it breaks her heart for him.

He walks along the shallow water and she swims closer to him, a satchel over her shoulder bearing gifts. For a moment, it seems he senses her and she smiles despite herself and the warning in the back of her mind. Perhaps, she thinks, he will see today. But he is readying his nets, his eyes unfocused. She says his name and he pauses. She is so close to him if only he would come back to the sea. Be with me, she beguiles, and come see where the life has gone. And it seems as if he hears her offer. Please, oh please return to me, she begs over the swamp-like shallows.

But his hands are at work with the net again. She flings her satchel into the water, disturbing the glassy surface. Fury pulses through her, for his blindness, for his entrapment by those who raised him, by her inability to break him from himself. She dives under the waters and clutches the satchel to her, immediately repentant and heartbroken. Her tears mix with the sea as the net hits the surface above her. She panics and swims a short distance away, fearful of being caught in those terrible lines.

She returns to the surface, peeking out above the waters, hopeless with another attempt failed. She watches him from the sea until the tide begins to ebb. She returns to the net as he begins pulling it up. She carefully empties her satchel into it as it closes. Two fish from her homeland, and a pearl from her garden, and scales from her tail. The water is turning foul as the muck condenses. The foul waters weaken her, they sicken her a little more each day, but she continues to return for him, hoping. She swims to deeper waters and watches as he picks out the fish and disposes of her treasures, hidden by the muck. Anguished, she flings herself back into the sea and begins the long journey home.

Because I Love You

I know it hurts.
I’m sorry.
I can fix it.
I can make you better.
Why won’t you let me make it better?
You’re pretending.
You’re pretending, aren’t you?
Why are you pretending?
Stop it.
It doesn’t hurt.
It still hurts?
I’ll fix it.
I’ll make it stop.
I’ll make it stop for us both.
I can’t do this anymore.
I’ll make it stop.
I know it hurts.
But now it won’t anymore.
Now it won’t hurt either of us.
Not anymore.
Never again.
I know it hurts.
I’m sorry.
I can fix it.
Why won’t you let fix it?
Stop fighting.
Let me fix it.
It won’t hurt anymore.
Not anyone.
Anymore.

From Tethered to Tattered

Souls were meant to travel

To permeate each other 

ebb and flow

to soothe into one another

and withdraw like the dew

Yet they are constrained

pushed into this world

caged inside flesh

Tortured by glimpses

of infinity in a moment

and eternity beyond touch

So, what happens

to the soul that escapes

Who shredded its tethers

and flows in and out

of itself and others

What of the body

left behind soulless

during dream time

with connections awry

the cage splayed open

Empty with soul absent

Or of the reunion

And the soul returns

and the body reawakens

when the soul no longer fits

and the cage is weakened

How long can a soul stay

in a cage it hates

when it’s felt freedom

and the touch of life

true as from the source

The shell never fit

A body ever left wanting

Captive of in-between

Undecided

on staying or leaving

So it leaves just once more

and then returns

Ambiguous

Searches again for clarity

Tearing the strands

of body and soul

ever more

and more

Forever, more

one last time

The Edge of Art

The palette knife was nothing special to anyone but the painter. The palette was covered with globs and smears and swirls as the painter worked. There was something calming about mixing the colors before the application. He took his time, slicing a bit of color from this shade and that, mixing them together slowly and gently till it matched his mind's eye just so.

The ingredients with this particular medium were tricky, there were so many variables to consider when cultivating it. Event the best of colors could go bad. You had to work quickly and with strong strokes before it dried or died. Living mediums were like that.

This latest piece was a sunset. His own life was coming to a close soon. It was a hazard of this line of work. Life his father before him, and his grandmother before that, he worked to perfect his craft, to uphold his family's legacy. They had all been artists and with each generation they tried to improve upon the last.

He had been the first to truly utilize the resources at his disposal, making and mixing more than one color for a piece of work. This had been commissioned by the grand museum in town. It had to be perfect. He didn't know how much longer he would be able to work once his work was publicized to that extent. It was a risk, but one worth taking.

He walked to one of the steel slabs, Table A, examine the blue veins of color. He took his knife and pressed its tip against an azure line. The liquid needed to the surface, a lighter red then he was looking for. He turned to the next table and traced the veins on a younger limb. He took the palette knife to it, revealing a darker, richer blend. That was better.

He made a mental note to add more iron to the lines for Table A. There must be a nutritionally deficiency forming.

He worked with the knife, forming the sea cliffs, sharp jagged, and dark against the fading light of the sun. He had to work quickly, slanting with the thinnest part of the blade. This pigment was younger and clotted faster.

Fly Away

They keep telling me what I can't do. They keep telling me I have to be careful. To be safe. I'm sick. I'm fragile. I can't be like other kids. I can't jump and run. My teacher says to be patient, that maybe I'll be stronger when I get to first grade.

I'm mad.

It's not fair.

I've been swinging as high as I can go, the wind helps me feel better...

But the tears still hurt.

I need to get higher, even as the swing hiccups and snaps, I want to go higher. I want to get away.

Maybe... if I get higher enough... I can let go... and jump into the sky... Or... they could be right...

Starlight

Ghosts
Standing at my door
Throwing pebbles at my window
Inform
Inconsistent
There and gone
Come back
Stay away
Remind me
Make me forget

Only in the dark
Peek at me from the past
Whisper to me you're still here
Tell me you're not gone
Things I wonder or know
That I feel kisses in the breeze
During nights I'm alone
In my own company

You are my lights
My beautiful night sky
The patterns of chaos
Panning out into order
As understanding dawns
Upon the small and blind
We are immeasurably alone
Yet, somehow, connected
As we shine upon each other.

The Shattered Iris

Gardens are so mercurial, temperamental; even in the winters... and it was always winter here. It was a blessed sort of hell for the research my team and I were trying to accomplish.

We were supposed to create a flower that could survive the cold, the snow, the ice.We were failing. Had failed. The garden I kept was my only comfort in this desolation.

I had kept it in my room, at first, an Iris. She was a beautiful sort of flower. Delicate in her beauty and resilient in her strength. She had been my inspiration through all the frustrations.a

When worse came to worse I converted the hydroponics works into a sort of open air greenhouse. Safe from the wind but frozen like outside.

No one understood. One by one, they left us. I was so close, I knew it. I had to keep trying, keep testing. My beauties weren't ready for the winds yet... but... they were withstanding the cold without shattering.

I only had one chance left before I was out of test subjects.

I walked slowly back to my room. There is a price for science and I cried while I paid it; bagging my beautiful Iris, filling the bag with a warmed gas to keep her petals supple while I wheeled her down to the test area.

An eternity later I gazed at my specimen's test results. All readings looked hopeful. I had done it. We had done it. My beautiful Iris lay living, not dormant, beneath the layers of ice. Nothing had cracked, nothing had shattered. She lived and could move, could bend when the winds caught her.

My Iris swayed on the table as I touched her, my gloved hands trembling. Beauty, finally frozen in time, alive.

My Limerick

There was a deep, wheezing voice floating over the crowd as our eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the door. Poet's Den was the oddest bar I think I'd ever dragged my man into. The incense, coffees, and teas mixed in the air, giving each table it's own aromatic aurora. I felt like I"d crawled out of my skin and into my soul with so many kindred spirits about, my poor date just looked like he was suffocating on all thick vernaculars in the air.

He took up residence in my normal haunt, a corner in the back of the room, pretty much out of sight. I was the social butterfly here, an inversion of our roles beyond these walls. It had been so long since I'd spoken with other writers. We read each other's pieces, listened to the poets on stage, the musicians wove melodies, discussed what we really meant by what we said. It was thrilling... in a calm, sipping warm spices kind of way.

Then a sort of raucous rose up from the back. There he was, obviously enjoying something a bit bolder than my tea in his glass and being the loud, fun loving sailor I'd fallen in love with.

Excusing myself I walked over to him and whispered an appropriate encouragement to get us out the door without too much disruption. While we were walking out a heard a few sneers and distasteful remarks, a classic case of" who do you think you are to be in our clique" kind of nonsense that drove me mad.

I paid the cashier and said, a little loudly and maybe with a wink, "You'll have to excuse us for the night. My limerick needs its muse.".

It was cheesy and silly, but what can I say, my sailor's rubbed off on me.

Dandelion Diadem

The room was sparse but for some handpicked flowers from her garden and the Chihuahua's amenities. There was a crocheted blanket pulled up around her shoulders.

A quick rap at the door startled her out of her limbo like reverie about how life had mistreated her. A slight woman entered the room, too thin for her height, limp curls hung like dirty drapes around eyes encircled with the darkness of sleepless nights and worried days.

"Morning, Mother," she said, like she had every day since this has started. Her voice had gotten quieter as things had deteriorated. "How are you feeling?" She asked, looking around the room. A disapproving snort from the bed had tears shimmering in the visitor's eyes.

"Are my roses blooming?"

The question was impatient and and whistled off at the end, overtaken by wheezing.

"They should be blooming. You should have brought me some fresh flowers... Did you fertilize them like you were supposed to? You have to feed them every few months or they won't bloom as nice... I bet you didn't, or you didn't do it right. If you had then you would have brought me... flowers..." She wheezed off a huff of indignation, looking to the window for flowers outside.

"I'm sure they'll be blooming soon, Mother." The daughter replied softly. She fidgeted in her lap, eyes examining the blanket. "I think I skipped a stitch on the hem on the end her. I'll have to unravel it a bit to fix it, but I could bring my hooks tomorrow and fix it."

"The blanket's fine if not a little lopsided. Don't put yourself out on my account. Not like I'm going to be tossing it around my shoulders and running around naked outside."

"O-okay."

"Is your mother so boring that you can't just sit with me for awhile? It's not like you have much longer to wait. You were always impatient. Ungrateful."

The daughter squeezed her eyes shut, wiping at the tears that escaped.

"I made you something." The hurt visitor said, opening a small box and placing it on the bed. "It's a dandelion crown, like you made me that one time."

She grunted with a glance in the box.

"It was a good memory." Her daughter whispered as she let herself out.

Dance Drops

It had been a long day, not that long days weren’t unusual, but it was the long kind of day that had just kept pounding one disappointment on top of another.

I stepped out the front door into a humid summer night. Rain was coming. It was always coming. This was a place of mermaids and naiads, tree sprites and mudpuppies. It had always been home, even when I had nowhere to call my own, the air and water here had always called to me during my travels. It was my restoring gravity.

I walked through the heavy night to my vehicle and left to clear my head. I didn’t have a particular direction in mind, much less a destination, but I ended up down by the capital. The architecture was beautiful, to be sure, standing lit behind the lake. The lights reflected off of the water like the fireflies I once caught as a child.

I stopped and headed down towards the water, fully intending to find myself one of those wrought iron benches and just watch the lights upon the ripples… but the rain had come faster than I’d expected.

I laughed. A sad, resigned, slightly hysteric laugh before the rain turned to a downpour and washed the day away from my upturned face, the tears hidden behind the nature. Then the music came, as it always did, with the rain. The percussion and gliding upon a myriad of unassuming instruments so often overlooked as ordinary merely because they were common.

I had endured many types of dance lessons long ago, they are some of my first memories, and the body remembers the things it loves even if youthful refusal fought not to. And my body loves to dance.

Out around midnight, amid the rain, I tiptoed and twirled in a soggy shirt and jeans to a song the universe was playing for me alone.

The Water Well

Life is a river running through time; ebbing, flowing, curving, twisting, roiling and calm.

Out amidst the vastness of the mind, a figure floats amid the waters, dipping a quill into liquid and penning along the stars a story's constellation, line by line.

With every story, the ink that runs and drips lives into existence, that tells of yesterdays and todays and tomorrows, no matter the color all comes from a well fed by the undercurrents of spirits traversing existence along those living waters like inks themselves.

So they exist alone and blended and those blendings blending until a universe bursts into existence with all creatures and stories separate yet entwined. And the words among the stars bleed and seep and drip onto the canvas of the mind as the pictures the mind's eye sees within and then without.

Now A Writer

All of a sudden the universe is imploding and exploding all at once behind your eyes and somewhere amidst the reflecting of chaoses, one against the other, you see a pattern emerge as if woven with that ominous red string of fate, binding you to your words and your words to a vastness that begs to be filled though you know it never will be. In this moment, a moment of inspiration and destiny, you have found your voice amidst a calling you had always heard but never quite recognized. You have become god to your creations while a slave to their demons.

Mother Merry

I grew up in what you might call a group home. It wasn’t exactly an orphanage. There were lots of kids and lots of moms who weren’t moms looking after us. No one belonged to anyone else, we were all just there together. Some would come and stay for a little while, some would go and never come back. It was kind of scary but it was kind of exciting.

There were always lots of colors, so many that it sometimes hurt my eyes. Lots of lights and glitter, like Wonderland.

On special days or bad days, if I asked for Mother Merry, one of the non-moms for her. Those were the days I asked for Mother Merry. She didn’t come around very often and, unlike the other non-moms, she wore simple colors of black and white and she shimmered like an angel. She was quiet, like me, with a soft smile. She looked sad sometimes when she looked at me but it still made me happy to see her, our eyes matched. I didn’t match anybody else in Wonderland.

On my birthday, I drew her a picture. I love to draw and last year she brought me pretty pencils. I hide them from the other kids so they don’t get broken. This year, for my birthday, I drew Mother Merry a special picture of me and her. It wasn’t flashy like Wonderland, I didn’t use any glitter or gems. Sometimes, we like to be plain, to be who we are under all the colors and sparkles. So, I drew us like we are with matching eyes.

I thought I’d done it wrong when I gave it to Mother Merry because it made her cry. I didn’t mean to make her cry. Her crying made me cry, too. I told her I was sorry for hurting her feelings but instead of being cross she smiled and hugged me.

She said I hadn’t hurt her feelings at all but had really made mother very happy.

Child Sacrifice

Innocence is the price of eternal youth. Some give it up willingly, even maliciously, while some just let it slip away, but some of us are forced to regardless of how we battle against it.

It's the way we live; we give up what is most important for what is least. We surrender the future for the now and scream out to the universe that it is what is right and fair and needed.

We grow, and age, and then grow old, but are still young at heart. Not the happy, summertime of youth but the petulant, whining toddlers who have become spoiled. Whether it is because we do not know how else to be or have chosen to stay stagnant in that existence, who knows?

We bathe in the crimson tears of innocents to wash away our age, our inconvenience, our mistakes, our ties to those we wish to leave behind. We watch them die a little more with each disappointment and argument, every episode of neglect feeding a little more into our inability to cope with adulthood and leeching a little more from their joy, their trust, their ability to hope.

The generations are bleeding one another dry. Those who wouldn't have raised those who can't and now we are raising those we cannot and so we let them die a little at a time over the course of years to feed our perpetual tantrums. We watch them lose their souls drop by drop with every tear they cry and, soon, they will have no souls left to cry and will bleed themselves just to feel alive because the only life they know is the one being leeched out by their parents.

Mornings of Afar

The light spills over his head in lieu of cold water. Beginnings are not gentle things here, they are the crashing and flashing of light against your eyes despite the day before unending because the night sky was itself set alight, the percussion of hateful hearts booming in his ears. The dirt mucked in his mouth as he swallowed the dregs of his canteen down. It was time to keep going.

The lights just melded into one another, imploding beneath his eyelids to ring his head like a bell. He tightened his laces, slung his weapon back into place, checked his gear, loaded up and eased to his feet. It was the slowest part of his day, but even then his heart pounded in time to the blasts.

This was his life. It was what he had trained for and to survive.

He heard a click and time slowed as he lifted his arm towards his face, shrapnel slunking against his armor, slicing through flesh.

Smokey stars filled his eyes, swirling in the first darkness he’d known since the fighting began.The stars twinkled out, caving in upon themselves into the darkness with only thunder behind them. And for a few moments, after all the star trails have been sucked into the darkness, there’s quiet. There are no blasts, there are no screams, the pain is fading as he slips deeper under the dark.

Then light slowly begins to dawn, soft and gentle.

Space

I couldn't breathe. Everything was just too close. The people and their cluttered lives of emotions and loss and triumph. I couldn't take it anymore. My children, each so different, so beautiful, and intense. They all collided with my soul, crashing inside my head, tearing my soul apart as their own ebbed and flowed around and through my senses. Too much. It was all too much, too close.

Their breaths joined the fog, adding to the humidity in the heavy air. My husband, my rock, the only person I knew who's emotions didn't permeate me on a daily basis, but then, he didn't seem to feel much where it could reach out and touch anyone. He locked everything away as if those carpentry skills he'd mastered growing up had been used to chisel out some new hidden compartment for his heart to hide in over the course of our marriage. I watched him sleep for a while, trying to will the closeness we'd once had back into the air between us. I watched each of my children in turn as they dreamed their dreams.

Closing the front door behind me, the one that didn't belong to us, the one we'd been allowed with all sorts of strings attached, I started walking.

We lived in freedom but we were not free.

I walked the road, turning here and there, following the heartbeat in the wind that neither lifted nor moved the clouds too heartbroken to lift themselves off the ground and back into their place in the sky. They didn't belong here, but neither did I. Yet their closeness held no camaraderie, no consolation, they were just one more entity closing in on me in the darkness.

The road gave way to gravel, and that gave way to sand, and the wind moved stronger, just strong enough to still be gentle as the predawn colors started oozing up from the briny ocean.

The sky was ageless, not a cloud or a star to show time's passing but for the blackness giving way to dawn. There had been no storms, no squalls, the tide even seemed content to stagnate in the murk. This was not life.

A gull called out from the nothingness and his voice sent chills down my spine. Even the sunrise was dull. The light faded as it reached down to the earth.

This was not life, but it was mine.

Legacy of a Wild Child

The hunter loved and feared the woods, he’d grown up in them, fostered by a harsh man who spent more time chasing dreams in the bottom of a bottle than putting food on the table. He had escaped to the woods, after being thrown there unwanted, drank from its creeks, fed from its bounty, hunted its prey.

It was not that he felt at home in the woods, it was that he felt alienated. He did not feel safe, he felt watched. The woods he’d grown up in seemed as aware of him as he had always been of it; the shifting of shadows, the scents upon the wind, the changing of seasons that tickled the soul before ever coming to light.

This day he took his own son with him; a doe-eyed youth amazed by the wonders of nature around him, a child drawn to the woods as if his hazel eyes had been born of the thickets. Wild as the wolves running under the speckled light, the child ran recklessly ahead of his father.

Instead of hunting, the hunter tracked, amid leaves and moss and twigs and ferns, he followed his son’s footsteps to the base of a tree. Looking up, his eyes adjusted to the light shining down through the woods that had grown dark under dense leaves.

For a moment, just a moment, he saw his son clinging to the tree. It looked, almost, as if he had embraced the tree. Surely he had reached out to catch himself. He was a hunter’s son. But, then, just before calling to his son to come down, he noticed the golden light in the flecks of his son’s eyes, the greens of the leaves and browns of the tree reflecting there as well. A whole wild forest engulfed in those eyes.

He was a hunter’s son… yet he clung to the tree as if he’d found a kindred spirit at last.

Moon Maiden

She was always hiding,
peeking out just enough to catch someone's eye
before disappearing back behind her veil.
She can't help but say hello,
delicately afraid...
of acknowledgment...
of rejection...
of regretting. 

Time moves on,
she follows
in those same circles
she's always known,
trapped in roundabout hellos
so quiet they are rarely heard. 

So she shrinks away,
finding herself
farther and farther
from those she is drawn to.
Paler and paler her world becomes
as she reflects less and less upon it.