I craft my words as fallen flowers,

Pressed and dried, tucked neatly away.

While you hurled yours, a sharpened shower,

The archer’s ever proud display.

And your pointed words, with eloquence,

Pierced many standing in their path.

Yet you noticed none that fell, nor since

Have let the toll abate your wrath.

I hide my words, not because I bleed,

Nor due to spite, but knowing this:

Though some flowers are just common weeds,

My other blooms are poisonous.

And with all your verbal weaponry,

You have no shield from such as these.

Looking through old pictures I see myself where

I do not remember being

I do not remember losing.

Your signature caught my eye where I forgot

To look for it

To look at you.

These cigarette breaths began in the absence of

My thoughts of life

My thoughts of you.

Chasing its tail, its trail of smoke, the end reminds me

Why I began

Why I forgot

Why I will smoke again….

Molten glass, I shape
Each crevice, nook, and
Broad expanse.
A lover’s touch
To pull and change,
Create
Before the hardening.

I step back
Gaze at my perfection
I watch the lines
Change, curve
Where not intended
Despair.
It is not my own.

I fling this force,
This fragile thing
Far from me.
I barely hear
It shatter.
Glass dust
Clings to my skin.