I don't understand how it must feel to have never questioned your own existence.

I stand at the sink, hot water scalding my skin as I scrub dried food from plates and forks.

I don't understand how it must feel to have never asked yourself the question, to have weighed the good and the waste in each hand.

The yard outside the window is frozen, painted in white, not a single breeze today. Maybe it'll finally melt the ice on the driveway.

Does everyone have moments of living that don't feel alive?

I dry the dishes.

It is exhausting, isn't it?
To keep walking,
To keep trying.

But there is nothing left to do but try, anyway -
Whether you stay or rise,
It won't change
How much time has passed,
How fast time is passing,
So I might as well get up.

The beauty of a sunset and sunrise
Is the wash of night that wipes everything clean.
The long hours between:
When you can't see your hand before your eyes
You can't see the mistakes left lying at your feet
And in the golden dawn
Even broken glass and aging decay looks beautiful.

The silhouette of mountain ranges glow softly in the distance
Across the vast expanse...
In the morning, you can start walking in any direction,
Until you decide you've gone far enough.

At your feet the ground is new, untouched
Undisturbed tracks of animals and others unseen
Living around you, before you
So you can try to walk again
To live again
Like them.

Maybe this time
With not so many mistakes left in your tracks.
And if not -
There is always the next morning.

Writing feels like painting with the widest brush
Making out shapes and forms on a vast canvas.
I like to sketch out stories like the scaffolding for a house
The framework for a window
The braces for a great tower
But to leave enough blank space for anyone to color it in.

Creations of their own fitting between the lines
Too specific and the details are overwhelming
But just vague enough to hint at beauty,
Light cresting over hilltops with golden glimmers of wheat
Vast waves forming in the dawn of a rising day
But the town, the colors, the city of people are made
In your image, dear reader,
Dear dreamer
You, writer.

I wish I could do it over again
But at least let me live vicariously through you
Stopping you from making my mistakes
Celebrating your joys
Being proud of your successes
I can love you from afar
How I wish I was loved
Watch you fly
With my clipped wings.

Maybe I'll join you when I heal
But for now, I can only see the sky
Through your eyes.

I drive home
Past the same highway markers
I envisioned in my dreams, in the hours driving here
Waiting and waiting for the road north to turn west
Slowly narrowing
Until I'm on my street
In my driveway
I reach the door,

No one's home. The lights are off
I look outside, the tree in the front yard
Lies dead. Not dormant
I know it won't flower in the spring
No one has been caring for it

The dishwasher is full
The clutter on the table
A photo of it all would sound like footsteps coming down stairs
This isn't the way I pictured it.
None of my future is the way I dreamed, as a kid
Life left me on hold
And the music is giving me a headache
I can't wish away the silence.

I can only watch the past form around me
Like concrete burying my feet
Pouring, pouring, up around my knees -
I know it in my bones, I will be buried in this house
Or at least, some important part of me
Will never leave

As my body continues forward, trudging
The parts who were hurt, fatally wounded
Will stay here. I'll be buried in the yard
With no one to mark a grave
Flowers won't be left, and none will grow
I've been left in this wretched place,
I used to call home.

Screaming
I let the noise take shape
Forming something out of nothing
In a mindless run, a sprint
A stream of consciousness, of thoughts, of dreams, of pain
Endless and rushing
Until I am spent and empty

Like a reservoir when the dam has been opened
I pour everything I've had left
Until I have space to breathe
And silence to think
So I wait as it fills again, slowly
And the dam will open again.