Emptiness pours back in

Mortality flares from every mirror 

Glares 

Reflections of

A constant reminder 

Of all that’s lost 

And all that will never 

be

     again. 

After this 

Dreams come in 

A rapid succession 

Rain, such a comfort!

Anyone’s tears but your own

Hell, everyone’s 

Everyone’s Hell. 

Digression. Dissolution. Decay. 

Feelings of drought

As the emptiness is drained, 

and the tides don’t return, 

and the sun is clouded for 40 days 

behind the driving home sunrise out 

of reach but never out 

Of mind 

And us, 

            Our 

Fleeting smiles lost in ashes 

Disguises as unending as unwavering 

The only thing immortal 

Here 

Marceline taught me 

She painted in gold 

What I needed to see

Painted by number, the number of regrets 

And how they all connected 

How together, 

they made a beautiful story 

Marceline carved with her paintbrush 

The time, as I had never seen it 

Past mistakes, though not erased 

Blended right in 

To this masterpiece 

Made by Marceline 

She showed me my heart 

With all it’s broken pieces, never healed

Just glued together, at best

Looking closely I find

That light gets through that way 

The breaks and the scars

These are instruments to the beyond 

To the lighted freedom I have searched for all along 

Broken, no. 

Unblind. Unbound. Unshackled. 

Set free from what was 

And better yet 

From how 

IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE

This. 

This is how it was supposed to be 

And now 

Is always right where you are

Always where you end, 

and always where you need to be

Marceline. She is now. 

And in a hundred nows, she’ll be forever

Looking back, she always was 

Pain, looming on the horizon 

Shimmers, shatters, shifts 

What was once chiseling apathy 

Now radiates a Nazareth star, 

Revolving in I told you so fashion

So that now 

When you hold your breath 

It only means a greater exhale

Had it really once meant something different?

Hold on to happiness like minutes

The rat race will run out

But here, will remain

Horizons surround, orbiting about an exhale 

Held for far, far, far 

Too long 

Sunrise exits left, off stage

Replaced quietly by Marceline 

The regret in your rear view mirror

Mortality looms large

She tells me this is good, it’s good to be mortal

For that means you are here

You are now

Forever doesn’t matter anymore. 

My life was a storm the night you were born.

My mind was a tangle of madness and loss, and I never expected you to appear

To appear to me that day a brand new life to replace that which the earth had taken, was it to be any other way

You couldn’t wait for me and I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to hold that tiny tiny human i had made

Born in the storm, surviving the roughest ocean my days had seen

I wasn’t ready to love you

You caught me by surprise, in many ways, and you have never stopped

My little boy blue

I feared you had inherited my sadness

You wept for 30 days and 30 nights, and now I know, that you knew then

More than we

Had we only heeded your warning…

But I remember the first time you smiled.

 And I never will forget how I cried

The happiness I had forgotten existed, you brought that back to me.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to give that back to you

Time has a way of running out sometimes

It’s too late for many things

But you came to us at the perfect moment amidst a night of ashes rose the strongest little boy I know

My little boy blue

Born with a storm in your eyes, a reflection of mistakes I’ve made

you held the calmness that comes before it

As if you knew

As if you knew how much the world needed this soul

Of yours

My little tiny baby that would change the world

That pulled me out of a storm

if only for a moment reminded me of beauty, and second chances

Dreams come in a series that feel like 100 deaths

A masquerade of varying torments

Hard to interpret and harder to ignore

Awakening to someone not quite you, anymore

She screams and screams

And says nothing