The heat

The sweat drips across my face.

   The wind is a relief,
        when it comes;
      welcomed, though brief

   A certain disappointment sets in
       once I realize that
      it hasn't swept me away
     from this place

Moments later, the heat comes back
   and the thoughts of salvation
        from its soulless injustice
      are quickly burned away.

    The periods between the gusts
       are nearly too much to bear
      breaking only when my spirits
        are
          all but given up.

       Teasing me with useless hope.

    I do not forget the drips of sweat
       that cover my face
          and burn in my eyes
       though I act as though I am oblivious;
            as if I do not notice

  In truth, I cannot help but denounce it
       in the deep recesses of my mind.

     It is my only solace
        that I never let on
           the disgust I have
          for that burden.

        By shutting it in,
               I am shutting it out.

i will

    you are
      lost in a world so vast
          grasping at the strands
               trying to keep from being swept away

     wandering the streets
          desperately trying to keep from drowning
               as the endless days pass you by
            and the fallen leaves swirl around your feet

            nobody seems to notice
     not a soul reaches out
            and you don't know how
       to make contact

     the world is crashing through your door
            and you struggle to hold it back
               trying to keep yourself safe

     running never gets you far enough;
         hiding under the covers--pressed
             securely against the warm bed--
                         never holds it off long enough

     each and every day
               the world sits and waits
                         watching you as you struggle
     to keep your head above water
          unrelenting, unforgiving, unforgetting

     but, someday i will find you
               i will smile, and you'll smile too
                 i will hold you up
                   and help you breathe
               i will stand up to the world in your name,
                         though we've never met

     i will hold you up
       i will hold you close
         i will hold you tight

       i will be here

I seem to go about everything in all the wrong ways,

    though there seems to be little I can do to change that.

When will this all end?

   I fear too long from now.

      I fear a lengthy dissatisfaction

 in which I often wonder aloud

           that very question.

When will this all end?

These days, I sit alone.
        I find this heart has grown
                 but still it must bemoan
                          unconscious hearts of stone
                  though they are not my own.
           I find this bird has flown.

Until that time I change my mind...

Until that time I change my mind,

This state of mine of smoke and wine

Will oft remind of lesser time

And make me blind, and make me blind.

These days

These days, I'm not sure where it is I've come from...
       what it is that has made me the way I seemingly am.

These days, I sit and watch, too often, so many others,
       as hours and days are spent in quick-motion--
                zipping by with little said,
                        and so much apparently understood--
       and I wonder what makes me
                so unlike those I often observe .
                        These days, I wonder what makes me dissimilar,
                                       and why I feel so.

       These days, I find little dissension to my individuality,
                and much agreement to my belief that
                        something inside seems off-color,
                though something not necessarily unsound.

       These days, I question others less,
                and sigh wistfully so much more.

       These days, I find myself lost in thought more often,
                and only find answers after struggling.

       These days, I imagine people avoid me
                with a gaining popularity.

       These days, I wonder about who I truly am.

These days, I relent to disbelief.

These days, I feel alone
       when surrounded by others.

These days, I withdraw
       as a means to protect myself.

I am lost
       in a world of fitting in, these days,

though I cannot fit in.

Prose: A Fiction (Pending a complete re-write)

As the conversation wound down, he felt her breathing begin to slow, even as his own words started to trail off with consistently more frequency. She used her feet to push off her plaid-patterned flats and rubbed her feet together as the shoes dropped to the floor, landing with one resting on top of the other. She reached up and pulled a fragment of off-colored lint from his shirt, very near to her face, and in her sleepy sense of humor, placed it in his shirt pocket, taking care to button it closed, thus keeping the lint safe so that he might come across it some time in the future and likely discard it at that time.

As she pulled her hand back and rested it next to her face, her palm down laying softly against his chest, she fell into a peaceful sleep. His eyes barely open, he looked across her hair, somewhat tousled from the time spent laying against each other. His gaze continued as he followed the folds of her delicately beautiful sundress, which somehow found a way to make this perfectly enchanting woman even more attractive; so much so, that he struggled to keep his eyes dry.

He leaned his head forward and, taking in the smell of her hair, kissed her softly atop her head as stray hairs tickled his face and stuck to his re-emerging beard. Before pulling back, he kissed her head once more and, in doing so, lost the ability to hold back his tears any longer. As he lay back, his arm holding her gently, secretly hoping to shroud her from any unhappiness that might ever come into her life, tears rolled over his face in perfect silence. She made a soft sound in her sleep, and he used his other hand to dry his face. Moments later, he took to sleep with him the acceptance that he would never know the love he had lived for since he had met her so many years before, when they were children, unmarred by life, and yet innocent.

Memories of their times together filled his dreams: the sight of her face as she laughed with her entire soul, and the way her eyes squinted ever so slightly from the resulting smile that could make anybody's day that much better. He dreamed of her running ahead of him in a race which always started with her taking off before a race had ever declared. As he ran to catch up, she would be laughing uncontrollably, while running with her dress pulled up enough to keep it from tripping her up, just barely revealing her soft and delicate legs, tapering off into her bare feet, which, even covered in dust, seemed to express flawlessness. The race would always end in her declaring herself the victor—her present position suddenly having become the unofficial finish line—and turning to watch him make his way to meet her as she laughed in delight.

After each such race, he detests himself for not having swept her into his arms upon catching up to her and kissing her in a way that would make her hope it might never end so that she could stand there kissing him forever. He had always wanted to kiss her like that, and he knew that there was no other person on earth who could ever kiss her in such a way. There was no other person who had shared with her that time together, who had talked with her for endless hours until both had fallen asleep, who had covered her up at the first hint of a shiver, though she had never been aware of either the cold, or of his act of caring.