I once thought I had everything in my hands
Looking at the perfectly carved face in front of me
I thought to myself
I made this
And it is lovely
And then those perfectly chiseled features
Slipped through my hands
Shattering around my feet
While I sunk to my knees
I picked up the shards
Hands shaking
Fingers bleeding
I held the tiny pieces close
Not willing to let them go
I swept them into a tiny box
Lined with silk and down-feathers
Plucked from my own soul
I sealed the lid

I might have been a great physicist, had I been given a brain that didn’t commence automatic emergency shutdown procedures at the first sign of anything more complex than simple multiplication.
As it is, my fate has limited me to having an enormous respect for the work that physicists do, and a passionate fascination with their field of study. Hence, I do have a rudimentary understanding of physics in a rather instinctual way, even though I couldn’t explain the mathematical technicalities if my life depended on it.

[this piece has been redacted for publication in my school's literary journal!]

i would say

i would say that this house is
too chilled in the winter air
and that i'd really just prefer
a really strong cup of coffee

but i'll take the tea all the same

i would say that you never
really told me why you picked
up your things and left
without any words

but i wouldn't understand anyway

i would say that this line is
taking too long--do you really
need to get that five cent
discount on hot dogs?

but it wouldn't accelerate the process

i can see that day like it belonged to someone else
as distant as the television in the other room
another of those things that only happens to other people
as every day life continues the memories of that day are
like ghosts that left an imprint that will last for months

longer than your face and your laugh because
all i had left was pictures in
my mind
and in these blurry weeks
few pictures last long

“She’s waking up!”
“Shhh!”
“Hello there, my pretty! Glad to see you’ve finally come ‘round!”
Annica opened her eyes slowly and stared up at the many faces staring down at hers. She realized she was on a bed in a small, sunlit room; that was about all she could tell about her surroundings at the moment.

[to the f u t u r e]

It still comes as a surprise, how much time we share. Oh, sorry, not you we. We dear-my-friend and I, and don’t you two know each other? His self-described nomadic lifestyle both gave you a relationship and strained it. But I started out about something else you know—time. Specifically the time he makes to wait to talk to be kind. All of it is good and right down to my bones. Even, would you believe, the time he takes to leave me.

END OF THE OPERA

Charles crouched over Diana, holding her limp in his arms.

Another explosion erupted behind him, and crouched more over her, feeling the heat wave and pieces of concrete spattering off of him.

His scarlet overcoat smoked as the heat settled, and he looked down at her face.

It was pale, her eyelids shut. Her lips were limp and she had a peace about her face. A moment before she was in agony from the bullet-wound. Now she was as calm as if she were merely sleeping.

26. The Tragedy of the Marble Cat
This marble cat sits
On a marble windowsill,
Watching everlasting asphalt streets.
On marble haunches,
Teases metal cars
With its sleek, cold grace.
Lifelike marble tail,
Slender as hairless stone can be,
Almost seems to swing,
With a touch of imagination.
Bright emerald eyes wink,
Almost intelligently.
But not for all the imagination in the world
Will this marble cat ever
Catch a single real mouse.

27.
I dreamed a dream of sunshine

No time for tea and sympathy
heading straight for the brink of sixteen
it’s been over a year, suddenly realizing,
since playing at some imagining.

How long it’s been since sticks and arrows
how long since paper planes
how long since flags and carboard houses
how long since spying games.

No time for books arranged in series, for
each year in between, growing up more
suddenly standing at the library door
finding the characters two years younger or more.