'Fold Yourself Into The Edges'

Fold yourself into the edges

That wind you up like an outgrown toy

The moments in a life that linger long after

A button stuck on repeat

Rattle your bones in the cold days and dark nights

Spring green laughter

Crisp breaths falling from hollowed lungs

Where the wind traces absent patterns in brown locks

Clarity in hazy memories

Bits of you - me too - in clips of time

Hints of real life, the beauty in living,

Snatched away by the faux reality we have rooted ourselves in

An eye focused on the past

An eye scared for the present

Wishing for those hazy, dim lights on a rainy night

Cardboard buildings and bad dance moves etched in a pencil’s messy script

Barely out of your reach

Your fingers are long but can never fully grasp what they had before

Ambivalence in a cup of hot chocolate on that November night

Naivety baked into a batch of cookies

Pray you don’t forget what it feels like

The ache of losing parts of you refuse to leave sorrowful bones

Nails digging under pale, soft flesh

An echo of a gunshot in shades of green

You would like to go back, however foolish it may be

To find the happiness you’ve so desperately sought

Flowers lush among the vegetation near the whispering stream

That you almost lost your shoes and your life in years ago

Walls covered in crawling vines guarding already stolen secrets

A golden age you piece together in broken minds

Uneven cobblestone beneath your feet

Mistakes made in absence of regret

You try and try to put everything together, aware of the futile endeavor

Pieces are missing; the puzzle forever incomplete

Failure is still your friend after all this time

A list of unfinished projects and broken promises line your walls

Haunted by past incidents, clinging to the comfort others provide

These recollections are morning glories that wreathe around your thoughts

Can’t you feel the scratchy sleeping bags and the make-up not entirely washed off?

Cold, fresh air crept inside your jacket as you heard your favorite band for the first time

How can you understand what it all means

If you believe everyone else’s vacuous words?

Cover your ears, my dear,

And see what I’m trying so hard to explain

Look closely, at each detail, as they build upon each other

How the waves echo and hiss crashing down on the sand that sticks to your toes

Don’t let go of the flutter in your stomach as his hand brushes against yours

How it felt when you cut your hair short; when you bought your first record

Innocence is consequential

Nothing is quite as diminutive as you presume

Those slivers of recollection mold and shape you into the person you are

Fold yourself into the edges; that’s the one thing I have learned.