Leaving
by Carmen H Gray
My eyes hurt from all of the tears
Like sandpaper when they shut out the world
And in my mind’s eye I see
Pretty poppies along those paths I roamed
Eternal sleep in bright colors
That belie their playful congenialness
Like the blue and sunshine day
And lush berries hidden within the forest
Everything looks pretty in pictures
But like those death flowers everywhere
There is a heaviness
The echoes of a frailty
The crimson words of anger
I want to go home, but where is my home?
While “Leaving On A Jet Plane” plays
After, “Here Comes The Sun”
And our broken parts are just instances
Not the whole of something
Meet me in the back of the plane
Where I get the seats to myself
In a lucky secluded moment
And I can look at Mount Rainier
Recalling that such a place
Once held summers of happiness
But now it’s raw and cold
Each version of our personal hells
Remembered and recounted
As they needed to be
Death flowers and swollen eyes
Forests and mushrooms
Life and death and everything in between
Leaving all those years and fears
On the porch with tears
Only captured in my heart
And my words as they are
Leaving
Monarca Rising 