(Steps) Spring Forward, (Steps) Fall Back

Just a piece of mind,

I’ll find it. I’ll step back.

The inclined angle,

At my pace. Not yours.

I will.

I’m missing what I missed.

When you read,

It matters

To me.

Bee ash remains unburned

Rusted to the jagged branches.

That wait to move forward

That wait to move back

Until frames break apart.

Work your hands raw.

But let your nails grow.

Beauty is most brilliant

As contradiction.

When distress is for yourself,

Its mess and marks

May remain mere eccentricity.

Ink is a familiar sweet rolled on my tongue.

Not bitter.

Not rotted.

Not.

Nothing.

The pit, a cascade, cornerstone

Ripped bare.

Foundation rock bled dry,

Salted tracks of coyote howl

Hated.

If the limestone marbling was meat upon a human bone,

I would still not be as sad.

I have never had your exact experience.

I have felt your emotion.

Experiences need not be equal

For understanding.

I might have filled this notebook by now,

If I wasn’t so picky,

My nails so picked at.

In the library,

The deaf woman notices my hands.

There is arrogance in a book,

To believe you want to immerse

Yourself

In summary pages of

Myself.

I’m proud of my pages,

But resist their number.

Still, I am forced to count each lick of white

So someone else won’t lose their place.

Time didn’t stop.

Choices gathered as clouds

Rain pours and floods.

Words run through me

Colored as November sky.

Shattered pieces.

Splintered figures.

Hair is only gray in November light.

It’s time for air to hurt again

And I’m counting pages.

And I’m searching seed catalogues

For eternal spring.

Just a bit of nail,

I’ll fix it. I’ll pull and bite

The post hole,

I’ll dig it. I’ll tug and tamp.

I will.

I’m forgetting to be forgotten.

When I write,

It defines

Me.