Play, Pause, Replay

the last wish and a burned dreamland

Make a wish, blow out the candles, and have yourself a happy birthday.

I made a wish on my fifteenth birthday.

The playback of our old August songs,

the itch of sunflowers across the ripe blood, 

and your favorite blackberries under the sun.

We were lying on the beach; the warmth

seeping into our hollowed bones.

You drew the mirror image of a butterfly

on my left shoulder, in red.

The last string of girlhood suddenly dissolves in the air.

I am no longer in prairie dresses, savoring blackberries.

There is a growing ache in the cracks of my palm;

a subtle hint of sorrow in the crumbled walls of the room;

a paper cut across my heart, too gentle to let it bleed.

And there comes the last dream of our dreamland,

now covered in moss and wood smoke.

All our stars are dead; the everglow has 

ripped my heart into two.

Yet there's an off-key rhythm from your old

guitar, the one you never got to play, that

keeps coming around – pulsing in anger.

So I wait under the flickering platform light,

amidst the sea of faces, waiting for the

last signal of the train that will perhaps

never arrive again. 

Soon, it will be four in the morning, and

a new train will arrive for several faceless

ones, burnt in the starlight.

My last birthday wish is still ripe under

the melon light of August auroras.

I've watched the moon burning in the

ocean waves; the sunsets fading away in

the starry skies; the stories sealed in time.

August will always smell like my last lover,

my last birthday wish, but mostly my girlhood.

I'll still have the aftertaste of coffee 

the next morning, and will probably cry 

over my favorite cardigan.

Perhaps, another night of the northern lights

will wash away the waves of angst and anger.

And soon, my late summer dream will

die on the breast of fleeting sorrow.

It isn't there anymore, but I can see it.

Lousy poetry hanging in the air, 

a redbug crossing the thin lines of 

the bark, and grief worth living.