The Light And Dark Tides Of My Life Swelled Simultaneously

The winter cardinals Have finished their work Of raising wobbly chicks Into fierce and steady Juveniles, ready to Graze the sky with the Tips of their wings And soar off gracefully Away on their own breeze A fresh, solo journey

The parents are not Left behind, they are Quietly content, free To fly wherever they please The male a radiant scarlet And she such prominent earth Tones, the blazing yellow Of their beaks like Flames flying by on the Biting morning winds

The serene songbirds Mated for life, they fly Side by side, sharing One current of frigid air Wings spread out together As they glide in sync With nothing more to be Done, they settle in their Empty nest and sleep freely And warmly with each other

I would like to be no one A nameless, faceless, Shapeless form To walk through life Unknown Lost in the norm

Everything I do will blend Into the scenery, The earth, unheard And I, no one, am but a wisp, My life Never occurred

When I have gone in whisper Give me an Unmarked stone Or better yet, nothing No one was here I, thankfully, was alone

We are so entwined I don't know which love is yours Or which kiss is mine

Ungraceful am I For grieving so publicly Bereaved, forgive me

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

I thought we were art The kind that could heal Your paintings abstract My writing surreal Pieces that where honest And made us both feel But I wanted concrete And you've been ideal I look at you and see More than sex appeal Maybe you don't want art Or anything real I'm just another secret Someone new to conceal

No one reads an open book They only tear out handfuls Of their favorite pages Give the binding a final look Tossing it into the fire That scatters then rages

Stories of magic hidden A life so private Gone up in the smoke The erasure of the forbidden Secrets of the temple ashen No wondering mind to provoke

The food has been dropped off again And I can't put it away And it's all I can think about That I need to put it away and can't

But my hands are getting warmer And my fingers are starting to burn And my body feels like it's vibrating And the food needs to go in the fridge But I can't put it away so I fall asleep

I wake up and the food has gone bad I'm afraid it's gone bad so it's bad And my dad says that people are starving And I've wasted more food again

So I pull the blankets over my head And I do nothing all day Because I couldn't put the food away Because I couldn't get up and move And wonder if maybe my brain is melting

You say, "A boyfriend sounds nice"

So now I'm sitting Here, Embarrassed For thinking that's What I'd been All these years

All these Years, years, years

All this time Our romance had been ancient History

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