The sky replaced where your eyes once were. The clouds drift over the ground where your head lies and sun glasses rest. Are your eyelids open? I can't see anything, except for the reflection of the ocean twice over. I've begun to confuse my ups and downs since we started sitting here.

We've been here so long that the grass has grown up around us. Beneath our bodies, yours outstretched and mine pretzeled, the grass yellows in death. I pick at a weed that vines itself around your wrist. I feel your flinch long before I see it. I know we are still here for a reason. I move with uncertainty, and you move with a hurried assurance that we both know doesn't match the weather.

Like robins we search for worms. We're the bird's careful ears and sharp beaks. The soil must echo our attempts to draw out long sentences from one another. Does it matter we eat grubs instead? "Tell me something. Don't be beautiful."

Your dry summer lips open. "I imagine thunderstorms. At night, lighting breaks outside sleeping windows. The electricity illuminates dreams. I've seen past your countenance. Skipping stones always ripple the water."

Overhead, the sun burns my pale skin.

DreamCatcher

The father secured a golden braclet around his daugther's ankle. The click of the clasp assured its safe travel; where ever Natalie went, the sound from that belled charm echoed. The click of the clasp echoed in that stagnant room, too. Everything was already said; everything explained the best a seven year old's ears could understand. Natalie left the room with her hand in a stranger's. Her eyes didn't look back to say goodbye. They were busy watching the light reflect off her shiny anklet.

An insatiable longing was chained within the loops of gold. In moments of dispair, Natalie thought the bell let some of her father go. It took years for her to discover her father never left. Each sock fuzz that stuck on her right ankle, was the work of her father. He was there. At softball games, an extra voice added itself to the crowd. Afterwards, the red fabric stuck to the golden chain would make her smile. "Hello," her mind would say to the emptying locker room. "I thought I heard your voice today." She wouldn't remove the material from around her ankle. Instead, it would linger until her father revealed himself again.

Late one fall, Natalie was tired of waiting and went looking for him. She stood in the graveyard where her father hides unsure of her words or actions. The wind picked up. Autumn leaves fell at her feet. Bending down to pick up the brightest one, she saw between the cloth of her jeans and her shoe, a distinctly looped tan line.

Fog

It doesn't
feel necessary to breath
when such a superficial
landscape
settles outside.

Pulses
don't exist
as these white sheets
ease humans
into sedation.

Captivated by the radiance,
clocks forget to turn.
It may be lifetimes
since last
the sun shone.

Eyes are useless
within this brazen fog,
cautiously
other senses
adjust to the terrain
and humans reawaken in the mist.

Disillusionment

Thought portends
struggle;
it's a wretched
consequence.

Every advance
of knowledge
crushes
the remnants of simplicity
that trail behind
natural born ignorance.

As little children,
the plane of the world
shoots out beyond
outstretched fists
of curious infants.

Minds grow peripherally.

It takes many years
before anyone notices
doubt poking holes through the landscape.

Left to wade
through smoldering suspicions,
each step
questions the validity
of belief.

The foot falls
never stop falling;
they break through
theory's illusions.

Thought turns against
the thinker.