Tomorrow is a new month,
a day closer to a point
when I can look and say,
"hey, it's a new me!"
(because these changes are gradual)

In celebration,
I woke up a little early
so I could box up some things
for my coming move
and then threw some things away.

I threw out a box of paper flowers,
still in the box
in which they arrived at my first dorm room,
as I'm cleaning my room,
and I'm also dusting
the corners of my heart.

Maybe I should start running again.

Maybe I should take to my heels
and pretend I'm not damaging my knees
and that I can outrun this stress
this sense of fear and anxiety.

Maybe it's just because I'm young.
Maybe it's just because
everything is changing,
the world turning upside down.

Some things stay the same.
My heart beats inside my chest.
The sun warms my skin.
I will keep those close
even as place and time
move about me.

She is my best friend,
my sister though our names are different,
and we can talk for hours.

We smile and laugh,
we share joy
and take away sorrows.

I wouldn't trade her
for jewels,
because then I'd lack
the sister to show them to
in giddy excitement

I had a whole weekend
of a built-in co-pilot,
someone to navigate
and change music
and hold my hand
and look at me when he thinks I couldn't see
I have stunning peripheral vision

and now I'm making my way out of Chicago.
Alone.
My passenger seats empty.

My hand empty.

I wrote them a poem,
this happy couple,
and then I let it run away.

I don't need to remember those words,
I just need to remember their smiles,
how brightly they shone before the altar.

I don't care how many stanzas it was,
just how many times they leaned together
to whisper happily,
how many times her fingers knit through his.

Their love is so much,
so bright,
it's filling my own heart to bursting.
Their joy is so great
A smile is painted on my own face.

Oh, let them be happy
for the rest of their days
with a contentment that settles in their bones.

The Healthy Griffindor

She feels like suspension,
specifically,
she feels like one foot on solid ground,
the other in midair.

She feels breathless and light,
like air readying to rush into lungs-
she feels like gravity ready to claim you.

She feels like life,
fear and exhilaration all in one,
uncertainty and surety tied together.

She feels like standing on a cliff,
one foot on solid ground,
the other reaching out into air.

The Words Given Back

I am running water,
a stream, a brook, a river,
all of it.
Slipping through
or around obstacles,
I am water.

A brook,
babbling noisily,
bright and cheery,
tripping merrily down rocks.

A river,
graceful and stately,
pressing ever on-wards
with slow, careful surety,
never losing ground always gaining.

A steam,
slender, lovely,
sparkling with summer sun,
peaceful.

I am running water,
because no matter which exact word
all are calming,
all bring peace,
all soothe souls with their simple presence,
even if they roar like rapids down a mountainside.

He gave me words back

He gave me words back,
and it may be the most considerate thing
anyone could have done for me that week.

Oh, my friends love me.
I know it with a calm surety.
they just love me in their ways,
which is honestly fantastic because
the world would be boring if it were all the same.

I hand out words a lot,
words strung together with care and precision
(or the precision of "shit I have 5 minutes to write this")
because I'm better with those,
at least when they're written.

I don't always get them back,
at least,
not in the ways I give them.

So the moments I get them,
they stick out.

Like when a little freshman
wrote me a silly poem
and I almost cried because
it was the first poem anyone wrote
for me about me.

When the cat that feels like fog
asked what I was,
what I felt like,
and I responded, "I dunno. People don't tell me back."
he looked me in the eyes and said,
"water."
(so forgive me,
but I'll be paraphrasing him later
to compliment myself)

When I handed my love music that made me think of him
(which isn't even my thing,
it's a way to love someone else gave me)
and now I'm bouncing in my chair
as he's burning "the first" set of music in return.

the cat handed me words first,
and I shall not forget that.

"The fog creeps in on little cat feet"

Il est comme un chat,
mais he feels like fog,
like the mist hanging in the air
wrapping around streetlamps.

He feels both dangerous
and calming,
shadowy but also
romantic like Paris in the rain,
where maybe it's not romance made for you
but it still soothes and eases the rough edges of your soul
to know someone somewhere is in love.

He feels like fog settled down around the cracks of you,
not a weight to bear
but a gentle pressure grounding your feet.

He feels like the smoke curling up from his cigarettes,
potentially deadly
but honestly,
who's got the time?

The Fallen Griffindor

She is fire,
bright and dangerous.

She could be a campfire,
warming friends,
gathering people about her
to share in laughter.

She could be a hearth-fire,
steady and dependable,
constantly burning
to provide and warm those she cares for.

Instead,
she raged, rages,
an inferno that scorched,
possessive
it sucked the air from lungs
until there was no one left to consume,
when she collapsed on herself,
dying embers
flickering with what she had been.

Those who cared tried to breathe life back into her,
to give her the air she longed for,
hoping we'd see again
the warming fire
that had brought so much comfort before.

Instead,
she blazed again,
so we ran,
rather than be burned again,
though it broke our hearts to save our lives.

The Bright Freshman II

He is an evergreen,
a fir tree,
roots reaching deep as he stretches to the sky.

He's spread his branches wide,
greenery reaching out
to take in all he can,
to protect all the friends he can.

He is an evergreen;
He will not change season to season,
only grow,
and grow stronger and wiser.
He will bend but not break;
His roots reach too deep to be ended by a fire.

The Bright Freshman

He feels like the horizon,
riding hard towards that line in the distance
always getting farther away
but with that spreading distance
the sense of freedom grows.

He feels like the sunset,
cresting over the mountains in the distance
that you think you can reach and know
in just one afternoon,
but there's always something more just beyond
the next ridge

My Introverted Slytherin

She feels like winter
settled over a mountainside,
the snow piled over evergreen boughs
that drag through the powder,
heavy with weight.

She feels like that hush,
that sense that all is quiet
but nothing in still;
everything is pulled taunt and waiting
waiting
waiting to strike with renewed vigor.

Smoke hangs in the air,
clouding the streets as if it were a battlefield,
yet it's just premature celebration,
a joyous explosion
of color and sound -
bright and wonderful
if a bit loud for puppies.

Tomorrow night,
when things are truly crazy,
maybe I'll climb up on the roof -
and try not to slice my foot open again -
so my gaze can stretch out for miles
and I can see fireworks until I basically fall asleep.

She still is wacky and wild,

with humorous thoughts

taking leaps the rest of us couldn't-

but she's more sure of herself,

settled,

in the way that three years in the Navy

will bring anyone.

There's also tint of sadness,

from time to time,

that comes from a funeral.

But I'll ply her with ice cream,

and we'll laugh about pigeon culture,

and maybe we can beat back the sadness

for another day,