I can feel it in the thickness of the air,
massing all around me
and pressing against my skin.
Incidents of great importance
waiting just around the corner,
their breath heavy fog from chapped lips.
But every time I walk the path
and look for these the keepers of my fate,
there are only shadows hanging in the chill air.
How hard could it be, to find these creatures?
I search day after day, and my reward?
A glimpse of a heavy dark cloak
that's actually a garbage bag
carried by the breeze.

Where the snow fell last night,
powdered drifts spread and scattered,
dulling all sound,
like cotton stuffed into your ears.

You can barely hear
the soft crunch that your feet make
as they break the surface.

The ground is no longer smooth now.
Black breadcrumbs lead back
to where you began your journey.
A force undeterred by the chill
and stillness.
Ready to explore this strange
pale world.

It's only now that you notice
that with each print you left behind,
each step that you carefully made,
clawed, deep prints have misaligned with yours,
as if they'd passed through a dark mirror,
traveling back the way you came.

As you left your quiet home and quiet family,
that beast that you know far too well,
that you thought you'd banished to die
in the wasteland outside yourself,
in the dark frost,
crept back, right beside you,
to that haven of warmth and comfort.

And it's hungry.
You know its hunger,
its needs,
and now there's nothing you can do to stop it.
Because as you turn back towards that cozy cottage,
a muffled scream skips over the frozen earth,
barely reaching you.
Now, there's nothing to return to.
You are alone
​with the beast.

Lay me down atop the cloudy sky.
Let me laze upon midnight air,
to the songs of nightingales.
All I want is relief from
the rushing winds inside.
Please calm them for me
so I may rest.
And fall fast
into
sleep.

Tic-toc-
won't you stop
the damned ticking of that clock?
It never halts to chime the hour,
and never has needed battery power.
The ringing in my-
-tic-toc-
ears won't stop
as long as those hands mover 'round the clock.

I took it off the wall today,
to no avail.
It continues onward, without a halt.
But I'm determined to
-tic-toc-
destroy the wretched thing tonight.
Through fire- or water- or a really big rock.
I'm going to silence that evil-
-tic-toc-

Fluffy blobs. 3 am, they run
wild. The reason, you ask? Well fun
is what I would guess.
A sporadic chess
game? To make a mess?
Release stress?
​Or there's none.

It happens on a damp Sunday morning.
The streams are tracing the traffic lane lines,
and footprints puddle across cold concrete block.
Umbrellas, striding towards destinations,
defying gusts pulling and pushing at their frames.
Drops splat,
congregating in the cracks in well-worn paths.
A force skids,
pulling at the traction that has fled,
begging for it to return,
but its pleading is ignored,
laughed at,
and the uncontrolled body folds,
crumpling in on itself as the sky's water floods over it.
The liquid is in control now,
and the umbrellas flee the fallen embarrassment,
leaving it to soak in solitude.

When two sticks are rubbed together, are flames destined to erupt?
It's a wonder that the trees aren't burnt, and piled as ashes on the ground,
or pillars of fire reaching up into the sky with ragged burning fingernails,
waving their beacon leaves in invisible winds and blocking out the stars.

If that's what trees were like,
the satellite lenses would be blinded with both the light of civilizations and nature,
and flame would battle fluorescence for the eyes and attentions of all on earth.

Moths would no longer flock to the lamps and lanterns lining homes and streets,
instead, they would learn from the blackened wings of their fellows, or be wiped out completely by their curiosity.

We are forever acting as moths to a flame,
reeled in by the vines and temptations in the minefield of our minds.
Destroyed by our ignorance of the obvious dangers ahead.