The rose of my life is fading,
Petal by wilting petal.
As each falls to the ground,
A piece of my life goes with it.
But the ultimate beauty
And glorious fragrance of its bloom
Will live in my heart…
Forever.

Grammarly, grammarly –
they've all got it grammarly
If they punctuate me
I’ll punctuate them

up the bracket

The etcetera
is my raison d'etre
but letters are better

Apostrophes?
They bother me
What do they do?
They don’t dash or slash
they’re not equal to a hash
they just hang there
in mid-air like eyes
that stop and stare.

You have my heart and soul, darling,

You're the Odysseus to Penelope
The Heracles to my Megara
The Mark Anthony to my Cleopatra
The Napoleon to my Josephine
The Pierre to my Marie, darling.

You're my world,
My sun, moon, stars, and air.
You are like a ghost,
Haunting me with your love with every step I take,
Never leaving, till death do we part.

And even so,
Until our souls smolder out into ashes and dimmed sparks,
Our flaming love will forever be joint.

Each night before I fall asleep
I feel her breath caress my cheek,
I feel her hair like softest dew
Her scented flesh that wakes anew
Feelings strong I can't ignore
Until, that is, she starts to snore.

You weren't here long enough.
I didn't get to see you grow old.
You never met your great-grandson, he's courageous and bold.
When I think of you, it is with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat.
I miss you Mom.
You gave me hope.
You made me smile through all the pain
and I wish I could have returned the favor one day.
I will never again take for granted those moments we are given and I will try to not squander them away.

In the early dawn, when sol's first ray ascends,
A splendid morn, a symphony of delights transcends.
Beneath a cerulean sky, resplendent and grand,
Nature awakens, in an opulent, vivid land.

The avian choir in harmonic splendor sings,
Their melodies, an ethereal tapestry it brings.
A cacophony of warbles and trills,
Enchanting my senses, curing life's ills.

Grow up.
That’s what my parents always told me
You act like a child.
That’s what my teachers told me.
You are so immature.
That’s what my friends told me.
Why are you like this?
That’s what I said to myself.
Every night in the mirror
Until one day
You aren’t the parent here.
That’s what my parents tell me.
You changed.
That’s what my teachers tell me.
You have gotten boring.
That’s what my friends tell me.
Why are they like this?
I ask myself in the mirror.

The suffocating walls confine and poison me,
The door might as well be miles away to break free.
Long have I waited for a way out, for a chance,
To escape the cycle of despair and break free from this trance.

My feelings reside deep inside, trapped in my skin,
And toxic thoughts linger, unwelcome and unrelenting.
Every step towards the door feels like a weight,
As I fall into the same patterns, time and again, unable to escape.

“Willfully blind,” the paper said
and all the world knew it was true
though so many refused to acknowledge it
even to themselves

And so the once proud country
now caught in the gears of machinery dedicated to power and party
domination and debasement
slipped ever more closely
circling, spinning
toward the gaping maw of obliteration

You are a soft diamond
in the rain and morning light,
spectral at the surface
as dragonflies in flight,
delicate and beautiful
as blown and brindled sedge,
a rippled, dappled stream of light
I watch from water's edge.