to Dream or to keep they forget it is a choice to Dream of beyond and what’s left behind the mark on the wall left for us to find and question who we are to keep it still and yet always in motion these keepers of society your life in their hands every expectation expected to Dream or to keep it all together break the cycle and climb the hill all your own

to look at it all every single thing basking in this light i’m glad you decided to share it with me in this space of a place where the ghouls gather no longer scares me instead, acknowledging a past a life both well-lived and of many mistakes a finely floating mist hangs above our heads left behind from a family farmstead who passed on long ago his hands were always dirty from picking up the pieces

I see what you saw the hiccups and fears the ghostly girl passing through and right into you she played the game best she knew how since the rules were chunked out the window long, long ago she’s different now meeting strangers by their eyes without simply passing by the map is there but ever-changing her days are filled with endless questions not the ones that used to squirm and quarrel but the kind that push her forward

maybe she likes surprises best because a break in the predictable made her feel alive again maybe tomorrow held a secret one that required a promise to never tell another soul maybe he’d speak in song and rid of all meaningless talk simply no time to waste down here maybe the rain would come to soak these tireless fears and remind the living “you know, you’re not dead.”

“We’re has-beens,” he said. “No, we’re not,” I argued. How could we be When I barely knew of the world back then? Obliviously going through the motions Not having a clue of what I want or Who I am Who I would transform to be What delicacies I’d see And pains that would ease And teach me the constant Shuffle with patience The years of my adolescence A gift, altogether precious But these twenties of mine

There are parts of the room I can’t touch I can’t redecorate in fear that it will transport me to a multiverse of misunderstood fragments all of them ugly, lovely, fragile, oblivious hidden in ignorance a bliss unbeknownst to me then I don’t get to choose the past when it visits the void of my mind unscheduled and unannounced a fool to think it enticing but in this old neighborhood is a past once golden

Quick Air chest pains were apparent on the drive home like the kind that make you wonder is this a small dose of a heart attack? this scared me weirded me out to notice, actually feel, a shortness of breath a tightening in my lungs consciously consuming my air did I run out? when did this happen? a slow progression maybe focus, focus okay, first things first Breathe breathe in and out forcing myself to take in more

There is a street of polar opposite ends. To the north side, the vines consciously grow their stems up a million dollar investment brick by brick. Wishing to be effortless but will forever feel forced. To the south side, one must drive carefully for a child might sneak out onto the pavement carelessly laughing on a grandmother’s front yard. A quick scare that softens and reminds me of fourth grade friends.

Here’s to a year of growth Not measured in the ways You used to know But in the blind time That turns and churns And heals and transforms Me in a way I didn’t think possible Here’s to a year of grace And gratitude that was left unspoken in years past Bold enough now to reach out And take what it so longly deserves Unapologetically ready For whatever is in store