Wrong

Wrong?
No, nothing's wrong.
Everything is exactly as it's always been.

Untitled by the girl in the dress

One More Drop

One more drop.
One more graceless fall.
I land down here among the broken

Pieces I had cast away long ago.
All the sorrows re-stick
Like boulder-heavy burrs
To my sweater-soft heart.
Why do old wounds re-open?
Look how the bloods all run together.

Portal III by Pamela Hunt Lee

Goodbye

I keep trying to say goodbye
To this past with a future.
But now I am the present
With nowhere to go.

Untitled by Veronica Olson

Her Choice

I think I made the right decision.
But each word of that sentence
Is like a knife to the heart.
If the mermaid had decided to
Leave her prince to his princess
And walk the earth the rest of her days
Rather than drown her sorrows
In a foamy ocean death,
She would have learned to live
With the knives in her feet.
Learned to live with her choice.
Her choice, not his.
Her choice, not fate.
Her choice, not right.
Her choice, not wrong.

The Little Mermaid, illustration by Helen Stratton

Good Morning

I woke up and didn't think of him for a good fifteen minutes. But all of my thoughts are the same color. I find myself in a Brave New World that started at "yes" and exploded at "no" and any thought that I think now includes him by default. 

I stepped through the mirror after all. There was no way to stop myself once he placed me in front of it. The shards of glass at my feet are real, but so is my solid reflection as I look back and realize that forward is the only direction for me.

The Desert And The Rainbow

I have not had my fill of you.
I am hungry and thirsty.
If you approached me tomorrow
With open arms
I could never keep myself from them.

I would drink you in
Like the desert was inside me;
Me and my dry wasteland of a heart.
You the flash flood,
The deluvian ocean,
Come to drown all faithless thoughts
And wash away the detritus
Of my selfish soul.

You'd paint me a rainbow
Like you always do.
We'd sleep under it, together.
Washed-out me, mist-thin you.

Sleepwalker by Brooke Shaden

Most Likely To Succeed

"most likely to succeed";

i only made the grades.

i finished lots of school, but

i haven't got a trade.

you started out so low.

you've never finished first.

you've hardly ever finished!

perseverance unenforced.

i see you and i tremble,

i flinch as you implore.

your living seems like losing.

i swear that i need more.

but i am not much better;

i have crazy dreams;

my roots are surface shallow;

my hold looser than it seems.

so how can i point fingers,

require all from you,

when i just want some babies?

i won't be doing what you do.

your weakness might be magic.

your talents, buried deep,

might blossom out of nowhere

though i said they wouldn't keep.

do you think that i'll feel foolish?

will i look back with regret

when you're making all your millions,

and i've lost our stupid bet?

the fact is i can't tell.

the future's dark to me.

you might soar above the clouds 

or be sunk beneath the sea.
and what about us then?

could i be part of that?

the gamble that you offer:

whitest white or darkest black.

it isn't that i know 

that you will never measure up;

it's just that i am sure

that promises are not enough.

i watch your scattered flailings,

and i wonder if i see

a genius left untapped

and a soul that dances free.

don't let my worry shake you

from your faith and earnest hope.

i'll cheer you on forever.

and maybe one day we'll elope.

Icarus by Frank Frazetta