Seedling, Know

“I love you with every bit of my heart,” and I went on and on

Some pleading to an audience of none

“You would’ve always been the only man for me. You renewed my hope and changed my life. I was so excited about us. We were going to love and take care of each other for the rest of our lives — yes? I was working hard to become a better version of myself….”

Then some seedling
Sown, thankfully
Sprung from beneath the freeze
Reminded me
In reality
Was and were and what would’ve been

Were as empty husks

A thorny nowhere, to which you dropped me

Fields of memories from some cliff you chose

This, my grain, my daily bread

Seedling, know, you saved the hour
Today I’ll reap none pain-filled breath

Wall Street

What sustains you, friend?

And, as one eternally tethered to the We that is you, too
I care not of the answer

Unless it entreats you
Go the distance, scale the heights!

For lengths you gain at our expense
Whether dirt road or Wall Street

Are, in fact, as ten steps back

Photo Credit: Tiger R.; age 12

Florida

I like your music

Drunken karaoke

Stumbling elders wearing not much else but Sunshine State smiles

Escapees of all ages, retired from thinking places

Evolved, now

Intuition and third-eye compass — be damned!

Disregard for reason wafting freely into my consciousness on your cigarette smoke-laden, early morning, top-of-your-lungs, southern-drawled out conversations

About nothing that matters

But I like your music

I like it

To Dad

I tried
Together to rip off the band-aid with you

To allow the city sun to shine upon the wounds we allowed others to inflict

Vitamin D for our tough-skinned inner-child

The parentified children we were
The superhero we each became

Heal with me, I shrieked to deafened ears
The same way we’d said it to dad

Heal for me

New Ocean

A freeing, I imagine, is the gift we’d gift eachother

Leave the striving and othering to striving others grasping for some brass ring

Leave the grasping to the ocean waves that want more of the shore

A new ocean and eachother’s, I know…gold rings…free