If melancholy was an ocean,
I’d be drowning, with names of forgotten souls weighing me down
like they do in my memories

A remorse that can’t be told.

I skip the wakes for the things I helped die
from time and time of neglect
A guilt I can’t escape
For joining something I could easily forget

A remorse that can’t be told

I’m pained when I oversee the obvious
my oblivion always reigns supreme
people’s efforts go unnoticed
as their dedication is dismissed

A remorse that can’t be told

With sun upon my weathered face
On mountain trail with stream below,
I walk this trail and think about
The beauty nature has to show.

So many things bring pleasure
Like whispered tales from trees,
Or the touch of nature's kind embrace
All the senses sure to please.

The beauty of the flowers
The vastness of the sky,
I close my eyes and listen
To the birds that sing on high.

When you read my words
In typeset or handwritten
Committed to lined pages
Or tapped purposefully
Through a spider’s web of cracks
On a tired smartphone screen
Beamed to the cloud
At near light speed
You become a traveler
A transcendental being of time
Radio antenna in the darkness
Of my lonely existence
Observers at a dusty window
Wiping detritus off the panes
Gaining insights to yourself
Through my own experience
Having been provoked to thoughts
Which otherwise might not have come

There's jobs I've had, jobs I've wanted
there's ones I've never tried
I've worked a lot of the hard ones
indoors and those outside

I've been a paperboy, a roofer
cut wood and mowed some lawns
Worked in factories, sprayed trees
got up at the crack of dawn

Muddy footprints down my trail
oh, the paths that I have trod
There's some that I would eschew
there were plenty that were odd

Laying lifeless in a distant field
there i was
empty inside, beat down
my heartbeat faded with every breathe
my heartbeat grew more silent with time
with my last gaze at the setting sun
there lay an alluring figure
a prepossessing sight for my lifeless eyes
a bolt of lightning struck my fading heart
a rush of adrenaline ran through me
goosebumps formed on my frail skin.
i felt alive again, a love war veteran had,
had suddenly pummeled through his fears
for a long time i had given up, been shot,

What if a man on a bike wears pink blouson sleeves or,
an old lady pushes her dog in a pram, to walk her cat in the rain?
What if the tiles on my neighbour’s roof are a skate park,
rising and falling, like a pillow sagging in cloudburst?
What if squawking corvids reach their zenith and
I join them in their Hitchcock murder scene?
What if this is real and not a failure of unsheathed brain
wires interrupting signals to send vague pictures?
What if I step into traffic because I can't see silver cars,

The suffocating walls confine and poison me,
The door might as well be miles away to break free.
Long have I waited for a way out, for a chance,
To escape the cycle of despair and break free from this trance.

My feelings reside deep inside, trapped in my skin,
And toxic thoughts linger, unwelcome and unrelenting.
Every step towards the door feels like a weight,
As I fall into the same patterns, time and again, unable to escape.

In the quiet corners of the room,
She sits and thinks, a lonely bloom.
Shy and introverted, often misunderstood,
She feels like no one really could.

Bullied and teased, she struggled to fit in,
But her love for math and schoolwork was her win.
With each passing day, she found her way,
And slowly, she began to glow and sway.

In 7th grade, she found a friend,
And together, they laughed until the end.
But the joy was short-lived, as she realized,
That the friendship was toxic and needed to be revised.

I’ve always had this little hunch
Just a tiny feeling
That you had bad intentions
Something you were concealing
I pushed those thoughts away
Ignored my screaming thoughts
But then my friend came along
And made that bubble pop
She told me the awful things you said
It was hard for me to listen
I realized that all this time
You really had been the villain
You were plotting behind my back
And treating me like garbage
Even though I was there for you
When things got the hardest

You molded me into an inveterate lover of you.
The hands of a sculptor, you created me anew.
So that when I’m lying next to you, and we’re singing the blues.
I get to see our voices mix into clouds of intricate hues.

I feel like you planned out this ruse,
Blueprints stacked and sprawled in your room.
Plans to make me inveterate lover of you.