Cemetery Park

A tree struck by lightning sat near a playground,

The birds were quiet,

No life around the fountain.

A naïve boy and a handful of feed

Greeted a tree full of dead sparrows.

There small bodies not moving,

Not chirping,

Not watching,

Not breathing.

Their lifeless eyes all lock in a stare,

Bird-size brains full of last thoughts.

The boy stood in silence,

Giving a moment to each.

From behind a mother was screaming,

He didn’t hear her,

He only heard the stillness of the birds,

No twirping,

No singing.

She started to pull the boy away.

Don’t look!

Close your eyes!

His arm was yanked from the socket,

But his eyes did not leave the birds.

At night tucked in safe and away,

He laid in silence.

His eyes locked in a stare,

He still sees them,

Their bodies lie next to him.

Exhaustion finally defeats his small frame,

He closes his eyes,

They are there.

The wind outside sways the tree to one side,

Its head hangs low and it mourns.

Like steady hands the tree branches cradles each body.

They dig small graves in his thoughts,

He still sees them.

The leaves brush dirt over the tops of open graves,

Burying them.

They lay,

No chirping,

No humming,

They’ll lie behind his eyes…

A naïve boy with a handful of feed.

Tormenting Midnight

Her lips quivered before our last kiss.

I thought our end would bring us quicker to death,

But within our breaths,

We’re tortured with what we had.

I saw you again last night,

I laid my head down,

And your shadow danced on my chest.

Its funny how when you close your eyes,

You usually see what you’re trying not to.

So I’ve tried my best to deprive myself from sleep,

To prevent you from making me want to stay…

I could sleep a lifetime.

My thoughts attempt to keep busy,

As my mannerisms stay slow and displaced,

Its hours pass midnight

And my eyes ache to see you.

Put me to sleep,

Put me to sleep,

My eyes ache to see her.

Her hand slowly moves down my face and to my chest,

Her nails start to dig for something that once was hers,

She caresses every inch of the well-worked heart,

It violently comes to life….

My eyes open to find that I’ve drifted off,

She almost kept me.

I can’t help wondering why I torture myself.

The Sound of Sleeplessness

Ticking,

Ticking,

Everything is ticking.

The room is so warm but yet my fingertips are ice.

Outside the window the shadows dance.

One and Two and One and Two.

The tree’s branches tap with rhythm against the roof,

The wind decides to whistle along.

Thoughts roar through my head,

My teeth clench,

My eyes clamp close,

Click, Clack, Click, Clack!

A roller coaster awakes between my ears.

Roll over,

Fix the pillows,

Turn over,

Flip the pillows,

Shuffle, Scrap, Shuffle, Scrap,

So restless…

I wrestle the sheets for positioning,

They have my legs tangled and my chest pinned,

I tap out,

I surrender…

My body is too exhausted for sleep.

So tired…

Closing my eyes keeps me more awake.

Dreaming is a distant land,

Rest is a foreign language.

The moon is peeking through the blinds,

Looking in on me,

It converses with an old friend.

I’m wondering…

Are you asleep and dreaming?

Am I the only person awake?

Are the night’s sounds only for my hearing?

I wonder when I’ll sleep.

The Drifter and His Wooden Box

There once was a man who loved too much. He tied his heart to his sleeve for everyone to share. There was never a wretch or outcast that wasn’t good enough for his kindness and friendly conversation. He lived to serve; there was nothing that you could ask of him that was asking too much. One day as he was conversing with an elderly lady in the market, he met eyes with the most enchanting creature. The old woman said to him, "Son, you look like you’ve seen an Angel." He did not reply. His love walked toward them and stretched her arms around the old woman, and with a voice from the heavens she said, "There you are grandmother, I thought I lost you." She then looked at the man and saw how big his heart was. He looked directly into her eyes and he was forever her slave. Her name was Constantine. Her name was Heartless. The man gave his entire heart to her, and she did with it what she pleased. She made a habit of forgetting it in different places. It would stay out in a summer’s day, under the sun, blistered and exhausted, or out in the cold with the lonely moon in the rain and the wet earth. She would drop it and break it, and crush it and tear it, but still he lay there on the cutting slab. He loved her too much and she loved him too little.

The day came where the man awoke and was missing apart of himself, he searched for Constantine and for his barely beating heart. He turned the town inside out; he even searched every place where a heartless dame would go, but no Constantine. A week later, he received a knock at his door, it was the Butcher and he was holding something wrapped in cloth. It was the man’s heart. The butcher had found it in his discard bin, it was barely intact.

The once love-filled man was now a shell of himself, filled with bitterness and spite. He sold everything that he had, because everything reminded him of the miserable harlot that dug his grave. So with the clothes on his back and his heart in a wooden box, he walked out of his door one night to never return. He wonders through the dark, never traveling by day, just him, the moon, and the shadow of a dead man. Some say that they catch a glimpse of him every once in a long while, but they are never sure that it is him until they hear the muffled sound of a broken heart beating ever so weakly against a wooden box.