You’re crowded into a room with a view
Of the social smokers and baseball players
Giggling outside to a foreign language.
And the noise opposite your door
Makes you feel like you’re missing out.
And the dread of walking outside
Because people don’t swarm to you like bees
But simply ignore you
Keeps your eyes locked to the computer screen
Mercilessly fighting for contact.
And when hope arises,
It is crushed by the realization
That true, quality contact is miles away
Safely content with that same contact.
And every attempt at interaction
Brings out your personal awkwardness
Yet you offer advice on making friends
To someone in need.
What a hypocrite.
This is why you will forever remain
In the cycle of retaliation against
Your own desires.
But good night, sleepless one
For your loneliness will breed company
One day.

They stood proudly above the tall horizon.
Strong gusts of wind were second nature to them.
But when targeted, they didn’t stand a chance.
Cries for help erupted from their windows
And smoke billowed gray and thick
Higher and higher into the stratosphere.
While death cascades one atop another,
Life continues in my fourth grade classroom.
I tried to understand what there was the learn
Beyond multiplication tables
And long division – from the previous year
When suddenly the class erupted into
Stark silence
As authority notified the uninformed youth.
“Go home,” they said.
And home I did go
In fear that the smoke would follow me,
Sinking its claws into my skin.
That fear was not for naught.
It follows me to this day.
A decade of dark, deadly destruction
Carelessly cutting at the very veins that keep me alive.

The sun kissed the horizon
The plump Russian babysitters have
Strolled away with their strollers
Long ago.
But I watched her make dinner
On the bark stove she carved into her mind.
She set the table with her fanciest china,
Tonight was a special occasion
I presumed.
She placed a heaping plate of potatoes
On the flower-splattered tablecloth,
Made to match the grass growing
Underneath her feet.
I could almost see the steam rising
From a distance
As she scooped each golden yellow tater
One by one into each dish:
First, second, third.
How sweet,
She’s preparing for our family dinner.
It will be as likely as the willow branches,
Serving as her ceiling,
Will protect her from lightning.
It starts to pour
I start to leave
The horizon has swallowed the sun whole.
I want to run back and tell her
That the willow will not be the only one
Weeping
some day.
The branches will curl onto themselves
And the stove will rust with age
Until it can no longer be used.

I turn
Behind her still thin lenses she peers at me
With twinkling eyes;
Penetrating my already thick ones.
Her head is like a protrusion of the tree.
I want to go back and tell her
To run away with me
Far away from the willow.
But all I can manage is
A heavy yawn
Ready to swallow
The glowing beacon hanging by a thread
In the sky.
How time has flown by
And how I wish,
My little darling,
That my memory of you
Stopped haunting my dreams.

She wanted to tell me
The willow is not as ***** as it seems.
But I’m not meant to make such predictions.
With a regretful tear I turn away
And run up the hill
To what I thought was higher ground.
Maybe one day
She will greet the journey with a smile.

The apple sits
Begging to pulsate.
But the damage of the worm
Strengthens.
It continuously burrows
Burrows
Until nothing but the core of the apple is left.
The round plumpness of the apple
Has been reduced to
Nothing.
It wobbles and shivers.
The core falls over
Helpless.

When the petals of a rose begin to wilt,
I drown it with water until there is no more.
The rose has lived for far too long
And I am determined for it to keep on living.
But the discoloration has already begun.
The sun whose laughter used to make the rose redden with glee
Is now disfigured by the clouds.
They play tricks on my eye
With their friendly shapes
When really they’re tears on the verge of pouring down my face.
The rose will not die!
I will mend it with my tears,
With my bare hands if I have to.
But when light blinds instead of nourishes,
I cannot help but be discouraged.