She is my luck, my success
She is my purity, my hope.
She acts as my protection
and shields me from those
who hurt
she is my
beautiful
tiger lily.

When the time comes
When my heartbeats begin to fade
My eyes begin to flutter
I hope to see you there

Your floppy ears listen
Your crooked tail wags
Your smile grows wide
While you stand by my side
I hope to see you there

My best friend
My shadow
My furry soulmate
I hope to see you there

You are the happy friend.
You seek compliments but you don’t believe them.
You can’t be the messed up friend because they have it worse.
You can’t compare because they won’t see it as bad as it is.
You are the happy friend.
You are the funny friend.
You are the safe friend.
You let them vent, you let them share.
You take the burden so they don’t have to. You carry their weight-
adding to yours.
You don’t let them see.
They check in with you but you know you can’t say anything.
You can’t trust them with your feelings. They don’t need more on their plate.
They can’t handle it, but you can.
You can’t be delicate.
You can’t be hurt.
You are unbothered.
Because you are the happy friend.

It’s starting. I feel the taps.
I glance over my shoulder. No one there.
In my mind? “Hey chum, got time to spare?”
Time slipped and left the dreadful gaps.

“Hey chum, care to wake up?”
Reality calls. Eyes on us. “Help me out here?”
“Sorry chum, nothing but void.” A nervous tear.
Get up and pour some coffee in that cup.

Dear mind, we need to talk.
“Cease your violent tapping, leave me be!”
Eerily quiet, but the shadows glee.
Dim lights. Senses rest during a late night walk.

Hopeful dawn. Tell me a story, my friend.
“Look at you, chum! Paying attention!” Rising stress.
His lips move, his words roll. Tap tap. “Mind, please continue to process!”
A fleeting tale, instantly lost. I was there for you, yet absent.  

A mind deep as the universe, yet without gravity.
During daylight, always beckoned by fantasy.
My thoughts fade away, my memory fails. I swear it’s not apathy.
I try not to drift. Please bear with me, for your love is my necessity.

you always made it look easy  
to pry back your corners,  
carve out a piece of your heart  
and transform it into soulsong  
Your words and rhymes laying perfectly over your intentions  

snapshots of your soul  
painted in love and pain and blood,  
whispers in your synonyms and syllables.  
I saw your soul laid bare, and in my heart it was just for me  
each of your tomes a secret glimpse to savor  
so brash to see myself in some  
and cowardly to hope absent from others  

so I wrote.  
stumbling after your eloquence,  
fumbling and unpracticed  
without any of your skill or precision,  
clawing at myself for something  
I could offer, to speak to you  
in your own language  
as if some small piece of you still belonged to me  

which makes you my muse  
of a sort I suppose  
For truly every time that I wrote  
I wrote for you.  
not for you, but to you  
to read me and know me  
my heart pressed between the pages of a book  

and we communed  
as close as 1’s and 0’s would permit  
through lines on a screen  
never able to reach past our fingertips  
a call and response  
in codes and comment boxes.  
A secret conversation between us,  
that not even we spoke about  
until we didn’t speak at all  
but I can still find you in the lines  
and imagine you are talking to me

Whenever I read your voice  
Draped across the tree-tops  
In misty strings and fog  
its ships sailing.  
  
Wind-whipped sails ripple,  
Wave-wake slaps along salt-worn planks,  
The smell of ropes and rigging.  
  
The feeling of open skies  
And unfathomed depths—  
Swirled green, turquoise, black  
Sea dragons and sailors,  
Treasures, charts, and pirates.  

You skip so easily along the tips  
And tops of the world.  

Horses run across water.  
Wars and lovers both rage  
As the ground shifts,  
Tides bulge and bow, ripping at the shore,  
Tectonic plates slip and crumple  
Shaking the world's foundation.  
It revolves in orbit,  
Balanced on the tip of your tongue.  
  
I am cross-legged,  
Listening to the way the world is  
Watching birds cut the sky  
Bleeding onto the clouds  
Listening to the creak of your mast  
With envy.

Aliens loom
In the skies overhead.
They might be the doom
That makes us all dead.

Or maybe AI
Will do us all in,
And all men will die
By cyborgs with "skin".

But, likelier, Man
Will be his own end
Before he began
To be his own friend.

A friend to many
all of whom
were too lost
to remember her

But a foe to most
who remember
her thievery