What is your mileage?
What distances have you carried yourself?

Tell me of the roads.
Of summer evenings spent gliding on smooth, black asphalt. Tell me about the sounds, harmonizing with the warm thrum of your heart.

Tell me of the beaten paths.
Of midday walks on cracked, uneven sidewalks teeming with life, giving way to budding blades of green, and dandelion dreams.
Tell me how the sun stung your skin, how soft breezes whispered at the nape of your neck.

Share with me the memory of winter mornings past.
Of the biting chill kissing your cheeks as your feet trudged through soft white expanses.
Of the cold that set in your bones as you waited for the bus, and the fat wet flakes that fell in flurries.

Tell me all of it.
About the freedom that spring brings, the buzz of bees and possibilities. The gorgeous lull at 10am and the swell of your soul.

Tell me the way the falling leaves of autumn trees speak to you. How their crunch tickles your mind.
Tell me how October skies dazzle you, while the stars shine, reflected in your eyes.

Spend with me a moment of intimacy. Show me the things beyond the windows to the soul.
Share with me what your odometer reads.
Let me read the map of you.

Please show me you understand,
You don't have to agree or allow.
Just nod and I will be exonerated.

Freed from this self imposed cage.
Your outstretched hand broke, bars, boundaries, walls and fences.
A feather kiss calmed the tsunami.

It could never be fifty fifty, with you and I,
ninety nine and one, for you always will be.
Just a strand of your essence would power my battery for life.

I live just to see you comfortable.
I cannot shield you from harm or hurt.
They wont come from my hand, heart or mouth.

But with my hand I will pick you up.
Will my heart I will love you back on your feet
My mouth will only sing lullaby's and praises.

Anything less would be cheap,
untrue and disposable.
Anything less than everything wouldn't be worthy.

I believe I've written of the sun, sand and sea countless of times;
even when it's pouring down and even when the cold december wind is tugging at the strings of my heart.
The last time I wrote of my summer,
I told myself that the next time I would, it would be from experience and not of make-believe.
Why should I write of the seagulls' noises when all I ever heard this year were the familiar chirps of the Maya birds?
I just trick myself into thinking that the chirps of a Maya is much more relaxing anyway.
Why should I write of the heat that burns past through my skin then onto my heart when I get to feel the same heat while walking the streets to and from our old house?
I could achieve my dream tan by doing that twenty times a day.
Why should I make poems out of the waves and shells when life here in the city is enough to drown me lifeless but could also leave me so dry at the same time?
Even more ironically, I never went out of my room—my safe shell that I never actually felt safe in.
April and May, farewell and apologies.
I took you for granted and now I must wait another weary, barren year and daydream for my summer.

My heart is skyward.
I feel light at the sound of low flying planes, recalling my home now so sweetly.

I am a wilted Trilium,
for months fed by a foreign smoggy sun, with roots longingly outstretched for rich appalachian loam,
but grasping instead at the plumes of dust left behind overcrowded buses.

Still, I've grown.

A cosmic explosion of lies and hope,
a whirlwind void of dreams and scorn,
futile drags and optimistic pulling
A wish fulfilled is a wish no more.

Burning bright like the stars
by the time it touched ground it was lost
Swept away like unwanted replies.
Hand on heart a bluff no more.

Twinkling like tears from giants,
Sorrowful in meaning but powerful in intent
To look at it full on is the same to ignore it in hindsight,
orbiting the entirety.
A solitary solider or popular guardian angel

You don't have to love me back,
Just say I see you, and we will let that be that,
You just have to know I am around,
Just a nod of your head, nothing too profound.

You don't to commit or anything,
Just know I listen to the words they sing.
Please don't block or ignore, I am not a creep
I won't as you to hold my hand, I won't ask you to leap.

You can live normally, free and true.
It's my cross to bear that I am not for you.
Please take care with my heart, it may not always beat your name.
One day I could be gone, for once not to blame.

So all I ask is that you let me adore.
I have conjured a fantasty life, we need not explore.
I took a big step revealing my thoughts
Distantly yours, crosses and noughts.