Drowned

I thought childhood would last forever

But it does so only in memory.

It hit me in hindsight of sex and love,

With thoughts of the death allotted to me.

My childhood friend lost her life today.

She was one I shared innocence with

And a time that had nothing to do

With loss, determination or grit.

I thought then butterflies flew forever.

Animals were never shot down for fun.

I’ve grown up now and seen prejudice kill

And blinded hatred win life’s distance run.

Things are no longer coloured for me.

They’ve all turned a hazy shade of grey.

If only I could bring assurance back,

Or have a modicum of childhood stay.

Familiar Ghosts

I can’t sleep.

Those I lost,

Those I will lose,

Come to me,

For company,

Or to confuse.

My eyes, swollen with sick

And love,

Cannot shut;

And I keep thinking,

If…But…

Visions from the past

Haunt me,

Like drapes in the wind.

I smile to see

Familiar ghosts

Wait,

In some dust;

And I must know

Insomnia and fear

Are ghosts, too.

Sonnet

I took his hand, while drifting on the shore,
He mistook the shallows for the ocean.
His youth found the beauty in all the lore,
Caressing the anchor, devoid of motion.
My captain stood against a want and need,
To protect him from what must lay ahead:
Shattered lessons of betrayal and greed,
Of weighed down dreams, upon an ocean bed.

What he does not know now need not be known…
But when landlocked safety is rejected,
I‘d have to take what I myself have grown,
And sail to the deep and the dejected.

When waters roar and his eyes froth with fear,
I wish enough remains to pull him near.