Scars

These wounds never heal
This conscious decision
Slices like a knife
With rigid edges
Carved into my soul
The price of ecstasy
Of one moment in time
Stretching for eternity
As taut as a string
Pulled tight across veins
Pale white like bone
Scarlet red in relief
These shadowed scars
Still bleeding
This blinding disguise
Fleeting like love
That dissipates in time
Leaving painful reminders
Every delicate cut
Exposed to a wintry air
That makes it fresh again
Slicing to the core
And bleeding out
This thing like love
This savage beast
From the inside out
This fragile tension
Like morning doves
Preparing for flight
With clipped wings.

Waiting For Sunday

This gnarled branch
Stretches up high
Like a child on tiptoe
Wanting to be seen
Face turned to the sun
This wood upon wood
Boundless in complexity
Striated by time

Two crows sit sentinel
Talons curled underneath
Heavy as a church
Waiting for Sunday
A rustling in the leaves
Testament to life
Shut up in its bones
Crying to be free

As shadows rain down
Formless in the void
A sound rings out
Splitting the distance
Scattering the birds
Like so much despair
Then wood upon wood
Cracks into pieces

Littering the forest floor.