Shifts

The sky has closed in on me, presenting a grey shroud as if it were a much-anticipated birthday gift. “Happy New Year, now be subdued.” It is dark and I am tired both from lack of sleep and dreams that have haunted me like a helpless child just out of reach; haunting for sixteen months without relief.

She is a familiar spirit visiting me for some sin of which I’m yet unaware. The lodestone of my heart; I am doomed time and time again to have my decks shattered upon the rocks only to have them rebuilt and redisconfigured.

9:25 am. A newspaper wakens me to a new year and alerts me to the successful relationship of ——- and —— and my mind is glad but my heart pulls the grey shroud from the sky and wraps it round like a blanket, tight as the grave.

Had I known ten years ago where I’d sit today, would I have set the same course? Would I have chosen safer seas, free of sirens and mysteries?

I do not know.

All I know is that any glimpse of land is more mirage than reality. We few ships on this endless sea flash code through the night. We ask each other and the stars whether we made a mistake in choosing not to winter in safe havens. The ice is packing, screeching as it collides and closes in with the sky until our sails will be torn, our masts broken, and I will have landfall –

either on the rocks, the ice or the ocean floor.

Barefoot

There are still bare branches outside the window;

browned, winter-kissed bramble shivers

lifelessly in the spring breeze,

smelling of rain and thunder.

The air rumors of life, but I’ve

yet to see it beneath these grey skies.

 

I don’t know how one goes about

starting these adventures.

Are my bare feet enough?

 

Sometimes, I still try to talk to the birds.

When we share the grass mattress I feel close enough,

so I chirp like a child that doesn’t know better.

A child can never know that they won’t talk back.

 

This morning the birds flew back into the grey skies.

I was left bare-footed beneath bare branches

that let the rain flood me and the browned bramble.