today

spread out your arms and take a breath

look up to the sun or the clouds

or the stars

and breathe them down in

and tell them how you've missed them so

and tell them how it hurt

they will soothe the pain

and reciprocate the words

today

go out and give paper stars to a stranger

the trees will bless this kindness

and you might give someone a reason

to wake up and hold on one more day

for how could you hate the world

when you could hold it in your hands

and fill it with love instead?

Tomorrow

do not wait for the sky to be kind

step into it anyway
with your hands still trembling
from everything you carried through the night

there will be days
when the sun forgets your name
when the clouds press low
like questions you cannot answer

still
walk

let your breath be uneven
let your heart speak in fragments
there is no rule that says
healing must sound like music

and if the stars feel distant

borrow their patience

they have always burned
without asking to be seen

tomorrow

leave a door open behind you

not for the past to return
but for the person you were
to know they made it somewhere softer

and if you find another stranger

with tired eyes and quiet hands

sit beside them

you do not need paper stars this time

just stay

long enough

for both of you
to remember

the world is still turning

and it has not given up on you yet

So yesterday

I did

All that was said.

I gave

Flowers to a stranger

They smiled.

But not at me--

Nor my flowers.

They took a picture of it

And gave them back

To me

who was sitting by the ocean,

alone

Wondering if it was filled with tears

And became salty.

Salty, not bitter.

Bitter, not angry

Angry

At what?

At yesterday.

For yesterday

Was a false promise fulfilled.

And now I sit by the ocean,

My flower planted on its bank.

Until now becomes yesterday.

overmorrow,

when you're over yourself down to your marrow,

and nothing seems right and your path seems narrow,

(and your end seems dead and your heart screams sorrow)

(an alleyway with a glasgow smile; live carves a smile on your face with a scar)

(then lies about the fact it's not a mend but a mar)

(the mud in the alley with no flower breaking through)

(treaded underfoot by the men who tread on you, brought dread on you)

with a cliff up on one side and a cliff down on the leftward arrow

what do you say to yourself?

the paper stars are made from the trees

and the air you breathe; from the trees

the world in your hands can be cradled or crushed

we all feel the crush

oil the earthsblood

and the earth's tears

does the earth cry?

does the earth cry for me?

i cry for it.

the stars feel distant

they are holes pricked in a blanket over my head

to keep out the world

[but i still let some light in]

i can't do it anymore.

the lying or the smirling.

i am done

i lie down and i'm done.

overmorrow,

when your head seems dead and your heart bleeds sorrow

you clench your teeth till they crack like clay found 'neath the barrow

i lay down here to die

neath the cairn

on the windswept plain

but a bairn

alive and now dead,

amen.

porcelain

porcine

i feel like the boar hunted in the forest by the kingsmen

its many spines made many more by the spears and arrows of the flingsmen

the deathly cent cinquante draw

downward arrows

heartwood arrows aimed for the heart

heartward.

this world turns backwards and i am made undone

i was meant to live on a clockwise turn

i am unraveled by the everyday

by the every day.

i am done.

the glasgow smile or the cheshire grin

a checkered life and a stripy skin

the cheshire cat within

who can laugh when all about him

are disintegrating.

strung out

and a-laugh

a-laughing,

and then done.

i hate the world in that i see it clear,

in that the air is clear and the sky is clear,

in that i don't see it at all.