he was a black and white print,
wet and straight from the negative. or maybe
he was the negative, the one who never
believed in happy endings until goldilocks
arrived. suddenly the prince of the dark room
loved. and he was far from kansas, indiana, iowa,
whatever godforsakenstate it was that overflowed
with the cornfields of her hair.

she watched him in dreams, his eyes shaded
by some dark corner of her echoing mind.
he seemed mute in a prison of his anger
but free in the open spaces of his heart. anger,
he says, is only the outward appearance.

she doesn’t know the oceans of his eyes,
their unrelenting sadness, and the gravity
that cannot be explained.

we think it’s because
their core is superheating, spinning so fast
that gravity pulls them back together like two stars
about to collide.

they will explode this time. it will end.
and the silent, soulless void will persist afterward.

photo by myself (Rachel Ashley)

I comfort it.

Because it is your child, your dearest and most beloved,
it rests on my fourth shelf at eye-level.
It meets me in the twilight of six thirty, crying
out for you.

Every day it grows into my shelf, arguing theology
(and reality) with Piper and Lewis in the vicinity of Socrates, Little and Brown.
The alphabet matters little to me.

It (the precious) shares the yellow glow of a lamp with Roy Peter Clark
and Shakespeare, which I know you’ll never touch,
but I hope the softness and wisdom of their pages reach yours someday.

If you ever speak to me again, I promise I’ll never give you Shakespeare,
Twain or Hawthorne. Not even Hemingway will enter your presence,
and Mister Brooks will be yours,

forever and always.

[dear friend] your silence is loud in the pages of this creature.
but it is yours, so I close the cover and press it to my chest
as if this is some way of saying

I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.

I understand the weight of silence, of fallen drops
balancing on yellowed leaves, the sadness
which the branch cannot carry.

Their burdens slide from waxy ceilings to the corners
of my hands–the riverbeds of my palms–
seeking to be absorbed, to evaporate away
from the humiliation of falling.

[My lover] he knows not the unyielding grief
of the apple tree which carries his weight,
shelters his eyes, covers his shirt to keep him
dry when the rain begins to fall again.

She will love the rain
and when it passes, the silence will be an emptiness
heavier than the chilled moisture,
rain on yellowed leaves
in early autumn.

He’s busy fighting wars, flying
Circles around the other suitors.

I don’t own a pair of pointe shoes,
But I want to wrap my feet in them
So I can dance closer to the sun.
My arabesque might feel like flight,
Pirhouettes like dreams,
Endless and glassy.

Seven nights a nomad,
An albino gypsy decorated
In the smallest fourteen karats
Braided into a heart.
The centered rose was gifted to me
And I hope to give it to you.

I hide it beneath my shirt until
Your eyes are fully opened,
Until you see me dancing here
On the sweet, familiar ground.

Blood and fog stream through the valves of my heart, separated like water and oil. Globules of fog escape, dark and active and reaching. I’m afraid to show you my blackness. It needs to be understood like a child with a story to tell. But I fear it’s too dense to pass through your filters. I wrestle under an old quilt at night next to the dark, doubting fog.

I’ve got wings hidden in the threads of my camisole. They call me a gem, a wonderfully feathered thing that everyone desires to hold. You hold me. Not in the same way as others, you keep your hands open in case I want to fly again. I’ve never known this freedom.

Moments of clarity reappear, transparent patches on dirty windows. I see that I am an extraordinary being with a quiet strength. My mind is a many-sided crystalline structure. Its complexities shine through the greens and yellows of my irises, contrasted by the blackness of eyelashes and two pupils.

Bring me a daisy. It will match my bright eyes and eager limbs today.

I am a bird, a wonderfully feathered thing.

the flight of myself is how I know,
my separation of contact from
ground–though also uncertain–
is no match for the feeling of Icarus
basking in a sun too indifferent
to sustain his wings.

i am not asked or pressed
but i open the door to an ocean.

what was bold is pleasant and dry
but i am a fish. i may suffocate
for a moment but floods wash out the
sand and dust.

i breathe in the moisture of a cloud.
i rise with it.

A photo taken one late July evening on a small lake in the northern half of the state.

As you know, first and foremost, I am a writer at heart. My mind always wants to put into words the beauty of the things I see with my eyes. But sometimes I can’t walk away from a scene like this without capturing it. I’m a hobby photographer, which means I have a semi-decent camera that could take great pictures if it had a more knowledgeable operator behind the lens. It means that I just learned what a lens hood is, how to change the shutter speed and how NOT to take someone’s wedding pictures.

Several people are claiming photography as a hobby as they snap pictures with a point-and-shoot of themselves in the mirror and their pets sleeping soundly on the couch. I’m not one of those people. I’m young and learning, but I hope someday to use this gift as a blessing to others, not necessarily as a profit for me.