Midnight

Where will the night train take me?

So many trains

all leading to distant December destinations

crammed full of strangers breathing

clouds against the windows’ glass

as they exhale their expectations

            Convinced we knew the future from what was

            afraid to confront the past in

            what we had

            become

But for the desperate promise to find a summer unknown

we dismantled the track that would lead us back

home

            No one remembered the snowstorm in

            the mountains

            how we yearned to crash

            to ride this shivering disappointment

            right down to its

            final gasp

When all aboard ride the night train alone

mark the passing of the time with the

falling of the

snow

No use in unpacking for tomorrow    

tomorrow is a thousand midnight

dreams of color

away

            Engines powered by

            frost-covered anticipation

            the eternal steel of millions of tracks

            rusting into the most elusive of

            destinations

only to find ourselves here once again

Where will the night train take me?

this I learned never to ask

            not with so many trains all

            vacating this station

            with so many tracks, less one, left for me—

            the one you have taken

Darkness

huddled in a corner

hunted by sun

too much for the moon

to overcome

Yesterday and yesterday

She has a memory.  One beautiful memory.  Carefully held in the palm of her hands, so that no one else might find it and steal it.  She must leave it nowhere.  It must always remain with her.  The memory of that one summer morning, while they still slept.  The pavement of the driveway cool on her bare feet as she stepped into the shadow cast by the huge Mountain Ash in the front yard, the sun burning golden at the edges.  No one must have this moment.  This moment must never be touched.

Because she must hold it so close and so carefully, she cannot hold onto any others.  She lets the pictures framed in broken glass fall through her fingers.  There must only be one world.  One world, underneath the tree, where no one else exists.  Let the others sleep.  Let them all sleep.  She is a girl standing in the shadow of a golden halo.  She must never step out.  She must live here forever.

Shadows

I shivered, walked past the knives

only to be stabbed a thousand more times

Atomic rage

I surrendered my travel book centuries ago

burned the forest where you were 

my favorite tree

You are the reality I cannot close in on 

the dream I mistook for 

permanency

A World Away

The shimmering patch of air was now positively beckoning her. 

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Kitty asked out loud.  As long as she took care not to run into the cactus lurking just behind this potential hallucination, the answered seemed to be nothing, other than a few wasted moments of her life.  And it wasn’t as if Kitty had something better to do.  Her existence was so devoid of excitement that it seemed a shame to ignore even this smidgeon of potential.  So she said brightly to herself, “Well, here goes!” and feeling more than a little stupid, marched straight into the shimmering light.

Kitty felt herself gasp as a blast of frigid air blow through her—air colder than anything she’d ever experienced during a Wisconsin winter, including the January when the temperature failed to rise above zero degrees.  Just when she thought she would never feel warm again, however, the sensation passed.  And then Kitty stumbled and promptly fell down onto her knees.

Embarrassed, she stood up and brushed herself off.  At least no one had been around to see her make a fool of herself—and, more importantly, she had avoided the cactus.   Kitty didn’t even want to think what it would have felt like to fall into that.

She was still flicking bits of dirt off of her clothes, imagining herself covered in cactus needles, when she noticed a battered pair of black riding boots just a few feet in front of her.  

Kitty looked up.  A man stood in front of her.

*From my upcoming serialized YA fantasy novel, A Window to the World, coming to https://channillo.com/ soon!

            

Silence

I hear riddles all day long

words but not in English

no one wants me to know

My heart is a tinder box I

am not allowed to open