Stories and Starlight

i. the guardian your wings are warm and wide they circle the nest, cover it, envelop it Security.  you tell us someday, the wings will be gone,  nothing to separate us from the sky and air and the fall Alone. Free.  Terrifying. but words exist and evaporate (promises, promises…) while walls of wings remain. ii. the fledgling my wings have just come in.  they are imperfect, there are still feathers left to grow peering over the edge, I can see so far. Possibility.   I tell you someday I’ll be out and gone,  nothing to tether me back from  the sky and the air and the fall Alone. Terrified.  Free.  but the passage of time is too slow and not fast enough. I’m running out. I wonder how far I have to fall before I float (soon, one day soon…)  and if the pain of the                               ...

aspiration (n.) |   steadfast longing for a higher goal, earnest desire for something above one. I. there's a screen in front of me, a keyboard under my fingers, a tune in my ears, but it's not enough to bring me out of my head. there's tomorrow in front of me,  and today's passing before my eyes, but no song in my heart, no words for my pen, no exit for my emotion. it sits and swells inside, bringing tears that threaten to spill over my smile. I don't know what to do about tomorrow, I don't know what to do about myself. II. I told you I didn't want to be just another face in the crowd. you said I would be just that unless I changed, and I don't want just that: I want to be more, to do more, to live more -- but all I do is feel  more, and the feelings bring me  down  into  myself. III. feelings are supposed to be liberating, but instead it seems they're limiting they consume me, like a river with nowhere to run they build until they pool, but never ...

hello . it's been awkward. six hours and thousands of miles but not a word was said to  bridge the gap, only a sprinkling of laughter: crumbly plastery filling,  forced lightness, because we can't seem to accept the darkness:  that cramped pretense we put up instead, a poor protection for what should be spoken, but hangs out to dry on the fine line of silence,  waiting, perhaps, for when we turn and (actually) say  hello. it's been tiring. three years and thousands of conversations but hardly a word was said to  bridge the gap, only a sprinkling of outings: flimsy sugary filling, like melting ice cream, because we can't seem to have a full meal, that duty called "quality time" by convention ,  hiding the longing for something substantial but giving in to habit just one more time, waiting, perhaps, for when we try to (really) say hello. it's been difficult. one childhood and thousands of memories but not a word I've said to bridge the gap, only a scrapb...

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beneath that crown of tangerine-tipped ruffles, of saffron borders gently spreading is a stem-stalk cluster, a Seussical forest of tangled, mottled leaves bent over one another. packed in for breath. sprouting from browning trunks that lighten as they lengthen stretching                  r e a c h ing                                       s t r a i n i n g for the bursts of color above. undersides of an upside-down umbrella reversed romantic love; a matchmaker's mix-up. what once wrapped my wrist at a dance, what once you tossed at your wedding wilts, waiting for when it will be (once more) wrong side down and right side up **** photo & poem: 9.4.2020