#tinyautumnpoems

[ntebook]

01: glass

I peer into the darkness try to make sense of the world beyond my window but my face stares back— dull, flat, blurry, bleak, hollowed eyes and fractured silhouette a figure from another plane a silent watcher guarding lesser shadows staring in as I stare out

I wonder what she sees and if the glow from the kitchen light seems inviting and warm a fluorescent halo round my unkempt hair, or if it casts my face in shadow and makes me monster and if she feels relief that she is out there in the night while I remain behind the glass

[ntebook]

09: harbour

arms that hold my brokenness together laughter that makes me less alone smiles that banish darkness, hands which proffer gifts    and carry all the things that I cannot feet that come running when I call eyes who see beyond the mask I weave a safe place, a warm space,    this human turned a haven for my soul

[ntebook]

08: heat

anticipation the waiting game we play as I lean on the counter and my brother pulls up a stool and both of us cram our mouths with handfuls of m&ms and peanuts unable to stop not because we are hungry but because they are there for the taking and the recessed lights  turn my mother into some sort of angel as she carries the dish to the oven the door opens and I shiver escaping heat warming my cheeks and my heart  as I dream of all the tastiness to come and how one simple dish can feel like home

[ntebook]

07: edit

this is the part where I come alive:

when I like a surgeon a sculptor, a prospector sift through the silt carve away the outer layers extract the pieces that shine, shimmer, shapely in my hands shifting, rearranging until the perfected piece polished to that brilliant state of being just shy of perfection which I call ‘good enough’ and none but me can see its flaws

[ntebook]

06: mottled

what the world tries to be rid of are the things that I treasure: strands of silver in stark contrast softened middles and weakening eyes scars and stubborn spots and thinning skin upon our hands; for not so long ago the future was a whispered prayer an endpoint unfathomable a hope unreached for out of fear and now we’re here now we’re here now we’re here

[ntebook]

05: curve

hands trace the soft sweeping planes of your skin and I note the places you have been following your journey along birthmarks and scars and fingertip bruises like navigator’s marks and lines of charcoal and thumbtack pins that mark each milestone until your hands find mine and soft lips caress weary fingertips inviting me to rest here, now, always in the present we share

[ntebook]

04: movement

directionless, I go through the same motions again and again the same motions that dull my mind the same motions that make me believe the same motions that I am nothing the same motions that this is all there is the same motions forever and ever the same motions as I hold my breath the same motions and wait for something more the same motions as more never comes

then, something different;

a new cadence at last, I can breathe again the freshness of hope and light fills me up and makes me move to a new beat and I revel

for in stagnation there is death and to take even the       smallest step    forward           brings    life

[ntebook]

03: figure

I feel your presence like a specter lingering at the edges of time and space and memory and though you move  in and out of focus I know it is you even in the dimmest light the vaguest recollection the line between comfort and haunting regret even more indistinct than the sound of your voice which I have already  begun to forget

[ntebook]

02 : change

I don’t know why it is  so hard to make decisions; why the most  trivial of choices weighs me down with finality. as if I can’t take it back as if I cannot change my mind as if I cannot be changed and maybe that is the thing I fear the most.