1. summer

I didn’t expect my first
slice of independence to mean
a futon bed & eating peanut butter and jelly
for
every
meal

who didn’t teach me to make chicken?

I didn’t expect to become
a grandma overnight
everyone is ready to party and
my bedtime is 11pm

but
I like it
my cozy little
3-windowed bedroom
I have adjusted to
my rock hard futon
and I may still
have not unpacked
but I am good
where I am

2. committed

Prologue

The Globe Academy was established for the pure purpose of pushing students to the very limits of their human capabilities. If anyone had high hopes for their children, they tried their hardest to get them into the Globe.

- He sprinted through the empty hall, hugging an arm around his side as every step sent another shot of agonizing pain riding his spine.

Captain Aurelius Cassian held his breath. He prayed to Juno for a son for months after he was told of the pregnancy, and he sent incense to Jupiter for a princely fellow, Venus and Cupid for a boy of comely appearance, and Mars for a suitable warrior of Rome. He begged the gods for an heir.
Now, he waited for the result of his prayers.

Ileuad pulled her mud stained cloak tighter around herself, trying not to wake Ewen. She shuddered in the cold, and cast a glance over to the other side of the cave. There Adaon lay, never to rise again. He was shrouded in his dark cloak in the very farthest corner of the cave.

In my dreams, I race very fast,
In my dreams, I flee from my past.
In my dreams, towards the future I run
In my dreams, we’ve only just begun.

Of every soul I’ve ever met,
You are my favorite, as of yet.
And even now when you are gone,
My love for you goes on and on.

And after all these years, my friend of old,
You still have that heart, made of gold.
And after all these years that we’ve been bound,
I realize my heart had been lost, then found.

I remember when we watched the sunrise over the river,
And we imagined dragons flying above, making the clouds into oceans.
The sky seemed to split apart, and fire rained down over us,
And we spilled into a new world that we made.

I remember when we walked through green hallways,
The trees making vaulted ceilings to our palace of fantasy.
We were dressed in all the trappings of wild princesses,
And we raced through the hidden tunnels of the new world we made.

It had been hours. A doctor had been summoned, Grandfather was rushed into one of the rooms of the estate, and the party was disbanded. Ettore had waited long enough outside the room in which the doctor was with Grandfather. He sat at the bedside and he observed how sick the man who raised him was. The doctor said his heart had stopped, but somehow, Ettore’s thoughtless reasoning kept him alive a little longer.
The room was silent and dark.

Florence (Firenze), region of Tuscany, Italy
December, 1490

Jennifer sat down across from Teren.
“You sounded serious when you asked me to tea. Serious really isn’t your thing.”
Teren shook his head.
“Yeah, I know. I don’t like serious stuff, but this is kind of important.”
He cleared his throat.
“We both agree that we don’t feel romantically about each other, and don’t want to get married, right?”
“So far I’m with you, yes.”
“I think we should tell my father how we feel about it. And if he doesn’t know about Stuart and Jolie-”
“I’m not sure if Stuart and Jolie even know about Stuart and Jolie.”

A Letter: On A Morning, One Week After You Left
The garden's fence was dressed in morning glory.
One liverwort's crescent held its last gemma.
A cruciform blossom evoked the trilemma -
How can that Soul be sent to Upper Story?
The dampened soil was fresh with petrichor
(Which I discovered when the rain had stopped
Its long unceasing murmur; up I propped
The window in that room of vellichor
You always sit to read in when you come).
Beyond the fence, dew-dropped viridity
Was dancing on the spring-leaves of the Plum