Butter Over Too Much Bread

Walking well-known streets,
but every door is closed;
no more front porch knitting circles and
friendly "oy!"s;
just furtive, hard-eyed stares
and a cold wind that
claws its way around the edges of my coat
as it whips at stray wisps of hair
where it used to gently tease.
Is it perception
that changes things until
memories overlay reality so jarringly?
Hindsight is no clearer
for being farther away,
only colored a different shade
(now, less rose than gray).
Is this an inner global warming?
Even at high emotional tide,
the water marks still show
where years ago, the waves used to pound
with resounding force;
no more mellow, only lower,
as I slowly sink
(and to think, I once believed
there was nowhere to go but up).
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Dear Stranger

Dear stranger on the corner,
don't mind my uncomfortable silence
as I meet your eyes,
only to too quickly glance away.
It's not personal;
I just find contact,
even that much,
too revealing.
You see, I'm hurting,
but I'd like to die in peace.
I'm tired of explaining
the shadows in my eyes
to people who don't care
beyond a feeling that they should.
If I thought
that I could reach you
with a smile and a handshake,
that we could mutually accept each other's flaws
and better one another,
I'd ask your name
and where you're headed,
what you dream
when you're awake,
and maybe, what you'd make out of forever.
But we're just strangers
on the same street,
and our moment is over.
Best of luck, and I'll see you
when we're neighbors
in some shady little plot
and the flowers overhead
smile and nod, and sigh and know
how good life is,
better than we ever did.
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[pine]

Inextricably entwined
with our demise:
each other.
One plus another;
do two broken halves
equal more than a hole?
I knew a dream,
a fragile breath
that I foolishly believed
was God, was us, was forever--
big words, for a little mind.
Never growing into my heart,
bound by the smallness
of clutching after
all things not-mine.
Majestic, secretive forest
turned landfill,
shoving myself full of
all the broken bits of humanity,
magic lost to decay,
and no one looks at me
with anything but regret.
[do we ever outgrow our scars?]
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