She Sneaks Back Into My Head Tiptoes Her Way Into The Room In The Middle Of The Night For A Second I

Icicles on a tree branch, glittering The barren thing adorned anew Similar to the way the leaves grew When birds were still out twittering

The ice hangs like daggers or teeth Or diamonds hung around a neck A delicate or dangerous effect Be wary those who pause beneath

To catch them as they drip and fall And crash upon a wooden floor Shattered, a delicate thing unmoored Such glass is sweet at the end of it all

What do the living Do with the dead? What do we do?

What do we do when Someone vanishes?

What do the living Do when consumed With such a void? Death Is for the living

I thought I saw him walking by Out of the corner of my eye Just a trick of the light A trick of the mind It was just a little cloud Casting a fleeting shroud A phantom little lie He was not conjured from the sky But for a second I had hoped Which I have never since allowed

Do moths ever wonder How many versions of themselves Live in the shadows Of their wings?

How many past selves Live in that blackness Cast out like an inky silhouette Or a flattened ghost?

I wonder if snakes Leave their shed skins behind To remind themselves They are forever changed

But I carry my past All the people I have ever been Make room, shadow I will be many more still

I didn't put you on a pedestal for worship I lifted you up As high as you deserved Which was, of course, very high What is it like in the sky? I am grounded I promise It was never just the idea of you How I wish you would touch me down here

I will live alone Detached But I will be no spinster Perhaps instead A weaver Of loose threads That flow to me Over salty waves, making Their landing In the sands of a Beach I will never visit So the seagulls Will carry your damaged Pieces of fabric Home to me

The red-winged blackbird Clings to the cattail It perches on, Calling out in that Short, piercing chirp

They sway in the Gentle breeze together Like one entity

I wonder how the cattail Feels, if it likes Having talons Wrapped around its stem, To be joined in such a way.

It's just hair Sometimes I am Covered in it Sometimes it Isn't there It doesn't matter Much to me Whether I am Blanked or bare I thought That it defined me Or that one way Made you want me I don't know Why I cared But you shaved Above my lip What I thought You wanted there So I still think It's why you left me That it was just Because of hair

Grief is a large pelican Diving into the water where I was swimming peacefully Scooping me up in its beak

It carries me up from my home This is just nature's way I succumb to the darkness of Drowning in someone's mouth

Owl music is playing on low tonight Predators, I think, are soft spoken I whistle back, it's not the right tone Owls don't whistle and I don't hoot They don't pay me any mind Don't acknowledge failed harmony Who are you speaking to? I am asking them via my chirping No fluttering, no rustling The owl music sounds further away Don't stop completely, don't stop Who is out there tonight? Who is calling me? I want to be called Like an owl, quietly and discreetly Invisible yet something to be feared