By: Riley Eleanor

March mourning mornings are punc-tu-a-ted
By letters that look like consolations,
Congratulations that sound like condolences.
Dreams die when we let them
So I pulled the plug on my
Electrocuting hopes.
I never wanted to feel
Simultaneous
Fury and heartbreak
But I did
I did
I did.
Rain beats down
And wind blows
And sun shines
The tombstone stays
And I no longer feign my innocence.
Youth makes way
For Maturity
Like brooding roots ripped out by
Doomed poets
Like attitudes
Ruined by blue moods
Like fools asking God for proof.
Tornadoes destroy
And snow drops
And I want
Lying in a bed of broken promises
That I made myself
Thinking I’d be good enough
To have someone who’d stay there with me.
Still mourning the death
Of an unnamed face and future,
All of my new and broken plans
Sound like ifs ands or buts
Because they are only excuses
Making way for charades
False deities and falser hope
Yeses and Nos and If-Onlys
If only I had grown into
Something that others would
Be glad to see:
An untouched scene
A pond without reeds
Apples without seeds
Apples unbitten
Stories unwritten
Sins not yet known.