Beginning.
Her eyes.
Dark blue borders the sea green within
and they begin to flood as her voice tries to sing
And I was told my cries calmed as she rocked me asleep,
And that’s the story I heard when he told me she loved me.
End.
Beginning.
Seventeen years old.
He walks me to class with his hand in mine,
And we talk about life and people and time,
How numbers and minutes control the path that we make,
And how unofficial rules dictate the risks that we take.
This strange feeling of nauseousness
That brings sickness with a high,
a weird state of consciousness,
I feel it for the first time,
A little more than puppy love,
A little less than true love.
Two years and almost one month.
End.
Beginning.
Alcohol does not taste good.
In a basement of a house two streets down from mine,
I mimic small talk conversations with a girl I call my friend,
Vodka and whiskey and bourbon mixed with wine,
I close my eyes and lie down as a blurry world goes by.
A night that went by blind,
I say,
this is the first and last time.
End.
Beginning.
Eighth grade, I have a friend.
Mostly calm and collected with these short curly curls,
But sometimes short tempered with a stutter.
He would forget to use his words.
He knows the tricks to fix the things that knack away at me,
He knows all the things that I let loose
Inside the head I let him see.
One day he grows distant and almost shy,
I push him to talk, to explain, to speak.
With nothing, I turn away from him,
I say goodbye,
Eighth grade, I had a friend.
End.
Beginning.
Today he brought her home.
Her hair bleach blonde with a streak of red
And her eyes seem friendly ,
“It’s okay,” he said,
“This time it won’t go wrong.
Try to be accepting, I know it’s hard,
Fourteen is too old,
You can call her by name,
She’s now part of our world.”
Two years, three months, six days.
I don’t remember her name.
End.
Middle.
To young for a mid life crisis,
Maybe a pre mid crisis.
Misguided, one sided, and as a hole all divided
I stand straight slightly blinded
and stare blankly hypnotised.
At patterns and routines made from stories make believe,
I mimic the linear words found in these fairy tail endings
And throw away leaves with big creases
And tiptoe around streets with gasoline stains.
And forget to notice that the gasoline never burned,
And forget to see that that leaf with all the creases
is still whole.
I forgot to see that the boy with curly curls waited a few years
And learned to use his words.
While I lead myself to here
where I can only speak in metaphors.
Middle.
Beginning.
I learn how to swing.
My toes reach to try and touch the sandy surface
I push slightly to gain momentum,
My knees lock and lean out with my arms stretched.
Exhilarated. Bliss. Euphoria.
The feeling of content.
My stomach drops as I come down,
The first feeling of self satisfaction.
End.
Beginning.
School is not for me.
Four years left messy memories, and incomplete work.
Forced in a class, meant for one mind,
While personalities are left behind,
I buy one ticket and say goodbye,
To a time I forgot to be me.
End.
Beginning.
She is my friend.
Abandoned by love and confused by misplaced trust
Overwhelmed by the stench of uncertain facts
And consumed by the simple way of escape
She walks on air
And breaths in dust
Suffocated by the grip of society
She let herself float on paper
And sink beneath reality
Today a stranger to morlas
And tomorrow a lifeline for unspoken words
Only to be noticed by people like her,
She joins the invisible world.
She was my friend.
End.
Beginning.
The tips of my fingers tingle as I draw patterns in the spring water.
The grass made canopy dipps over my head
as I count the clouds in the sky through the reflection of the still pond.
Twenty-three years spent figuring out the years ahead.
I let myself sink into the ground,
And I simply live now.
–Sarah dlr
