Summer nights had lost their luster
As a million fireflies dim their embers;
Only in nostalgia could we glance
Those scenes where they once danced

Lost are their glimmer—
The forests mourn their partners
For they've taken its tiny souls
Mystic glows that made them whole

Their embers were put to rest,
And murk swallowed these blessed;
Their shine that wanes to bloom
Now forever sleeps in gloom.

Something lurks in the forest of veils,
A place far from the war,
Which 'we' prevail.

A ripple of unrest,
Within the blankets of truth,
Hanging in the dripping branches.

What is a which hunt, without a lie,
One to convince us were doing good for 'us,'
A blatant killer,

Is among us.

A moment of riverbank fog,
In the earliest morning,
Before the timid sun rises over the horizon,
Aghast from the surging push of a breeze,
Watching the tall grass sway like fingers out car windows.

The musk of Petrichor and Dew
Pervades every olfactory nerve,
Invading taste and thought like an intrusive guest,
Submissively I drop to my knees,
Bowing to the bountiful grace she bestows upon me.

As the waters clear,
And the sweet mandarin orange paints the sky,
I am comforted like a swaddled babe,
Perfect and clean.
Unlimited in my pursuit of peace,
I am burdened only with impatience,
Blessed with the soothing effect of her touch,
Awash in the company of the ancient groves,
Enthralled by the emerald city as her Vedant kin call to me.
From clay to bone, and back again,
Gaia, watch over me, all mother.

She was busy counting wolves
conversing with crows
soft and white as a widow's linen.
They scoffed at her,
called her delicate,
only good for stew.
So she dug herself into stories,
buried beneath the noise
let them hunt after the myth of her,
never finding it.  
The forest swallowed her,
dried leaves and damp earth
scented with cinnamon
embracing her bones
in the hush of the underbrush.
She multiplied in silence
beneath the roots,
growing wild
through branches of wildflowers.
The thicket whispers a warning.
The hunters have gone missing,
and the doe-eyed jejune "varmint"
awakens whole, green with breath,
wild,
and never soft again.

Should I succumb to the forest?
Let the moss
creep over ribs and settle in hollows
Let her leave an effervescent trail,
when the dew settles.

Or when the rain falls
Should I?
Let her water reach its fingers into valleys
As the level rises
With nothing left to restrain it
Until it gushes forth.

As the mist settles again before the heat of the afternoon
The forest reminds its own
She cannot be had
But continues to beckon.

The dew will settle

And the rain will come

Once upon a time, there were five children who weren’t really children.
They were neglected feelings wearing borrowed skin and convictions of no needs.

The first was a boy who felt nothing at all.
He walked through life like a ghost no one remembered dying.
They called him cold, but he was just tired
Of dripping in places no one would whipe.
Inside, he wanted someone to knock on the door he bolted shut.
But no one ever stayed long enough to try.


The second was a dog who was always smiling.
People passed by and said, “What a happy little thing.”
But they put a leash around its neck and called it loyalty.
It wagged its tail even when it hurt,
because someone once told it love is earned through obedience.
So he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
No one returns.


The third was a boy who swallowed his nightmares.
He thought if he ate them all,
they’d go away.
But they grew inside him like weeds—
and some nights, he screamed in his sleep,
his belly full of bells no one could hear.

The fourth was a hand—
just a hand.
It wanted everything.
It grabbed and gripped and begged to be filled.
But everything it touched turned into something else:
a kiss became a bruise,
a hug became a choke.
The hand never asked, only took.
And still, it was always hungry.


The fifth wore a mask.
A lovely one.
Shiny eyes, soft lips, laughter stitched just right.
She wore it so long,
she forgot who lived underneath.
When people loved her,
she wondered who they were loving.
So she smiled harder.
And disappeared a little more each day.

One by one,
they wandered into the Forest of Almost.

They didn’t mean to meet each other.
They were just looking for silence
that didn’t hurt.

They didn’t speak at first.
They only sat—close, but not touching.
Each one pretending not to notice
how the others looked like pieces of them.

The boy who felt nothing
was the only one who saw the dog’s leash.
The girl with the mask
was the only one who saw the nightmares blooming under the boy’s skin.
The greedy hand trembled when the smiling dog licked it gently,
as if even hunger deserved kindness.

And slowly,
they did what no one else had done for them:

They stayed.

Not to fix.
Not to save.
Just to be.

And maybe that was the magic.
Because in the Forest of Almost,
they didn’t become whole—
but they did become real.

And sometimes,
real is the bravest thing you can be.

Splinters from a dead tree, afloat at sea,
burrow into my neck,
jolting me awake at sunset,
reminding me that the thorns serve
to keep us looking to the horizon
for a softer place to lay.

Maybe life can drift. Maybe it can float by,
like wood that forgot it was part of a forest.
I too was torn from the forest,
adrift without the ones
who once held me steady.

But then,
in the blur of a mirage,
I’d land on pain’s shore.
And I’m sure
that life, out on that log,
was gentler than this:
fire ants, rocky beaches,
the carcass of a beached whale,
and creatures that never found their way
back to the sea.