Characters: Speaker, Real Estate Agent

Setting: A house for sale

The real estate agent has shown the kitchen and now enters the main bedroom and begins to explain the latest modifications. The speaker is not at the moment aware of the agent’s speech. Instead the speaker’s attention is caught by the closet which is opened.

Speaker: (Interrupting the agent)
You know, save for the musky odor
And dust collecting on the top shelf,
The closet, back in my mom’s house
The one in what was my room,
Is bare.
I always strained to keep the door shut
With all of my belongings pressing ‘gainst it.
Its bare now.
No trace of what once resided in there.
Just bare.

Real Estate Agent: Well, this closet is the biggest in the house so there is no need to worry about an overabundance of belongings.

Speaker: (Smiles)
It might be hard to believe
But I longer need
A closet.

She isn't my sister,
the girl from Ohio.
Biologically we are no kin.
But her blood smeared against asphalt
has shimmering dots
revealing that
We are family.

This is to her and others like her.
The ones from before
and the ones after.

My sister will never hear these words
But as long as its known

I love her.
Even if the world wasn't ready for her.

As I rest this head of mine
I pray that my arms become
Olive branches.
I pray that when extended
they are taken.
And that this world ceases strife.

What is it that we are doing?
The TV murmurs in the background.
Breaths are shallow.
Nothing makes sense anymore.

He buried the arm.
Black dirt, cracked under a blazing sun.
His bones slid stiffly into one another; shovel slipped from sweat.
He’d covered the face already. A pale mask of serenity with burnt black sockets.
Dead leaves blew past his legs. The house shook. Boards rattled against the wind.
A paperboy passed by.
What a stupid waste of flesh.
He waved.
******** stupid.

The world is a painting.
We are merely blots of ink.

I fell in love with the little things you do
Like when you whisper "I love you"
It sends shivers through my soul
And now my heart shines like gold.