Snowed in (poem)

We awoke to a winter wonderland.

As we had slept in warm darkness,

the cold white blanket fell down,

hiding everything beneath it.

The snow was perched on the branches,

singing its song of serene silence,

waiting for the right wind to fly

and remake its home elsewhere.

We could have pushed the door open—

the white powder would have moved,

stepped to the side and bowed to us—

but instead we called in trapped.

I made a pot of tea—

Arctic fire, her favorite—

and she collected our blankets,

lying the warmest on the couch.

We wrapped ourselves in them,

and in each other,

a warm bundle of love,

interlaced and intertwined.

We spent the day there,

the TV on, Netflix playing,

her drowsing off on my shoulder

as I combed my fingers through her hair.

-Zero

The echoes that haunt us (poem)

We all have our own scars,

our hearts burdened by stories past,

of expectations unmet,

of loves lost.

Even when the sun shines bright,

and the darkness seems banished,

shadows still follow close behind,

the echoes that haunt us.

Memories occupy spaces

like an arrangement of sculptures,

our fingerprints visible across them,

our hopes and dreams etched into marble.

And we, like ghosts,

can only pass through them,

trying to possess that space again,

but it's never the same.

Desperate to find home again,

we build castles in the past,

only for the inevitable tide of reality

to wash away the sand we mistook for stone.

Dragged out into the dark infinite sea,

we drift, lost and alone,

until the currents collide

and we find another.

Lost but not alone,

we find a light to banish the dark,

never losing our shadows,

but finding a way to stay afloat.

-Zero

I got lost in the woods (prose poem)

I got lost in the woods looking for you. I wandered until the glow of the summer sun faded to darkness and a pale moonlit fog crept around me. I thought you would be there, somewhere hidden among the trees. You had to be there. I looked everywhere else. But you weren't.

I got lost in the woods looking for you, and you weren't there. I sat in the cricket silence and felt the fog pass over me, pass through me as if I was a ghost. But if I'm dead, then I died the moment I went looking for you, when I ran off chasing an impossible dream, giving up the life I had for one that could never be mine.

I got lost in the woods looking for you, and as the pale moonlit fog envelops me, I only wish I had known what a hopeless endeavour it was.

-Zero

Through your cracks grow daisies (poem)

I wish I could take away your pain,

all your doubts, fears, and guilt,

turn your tears to laughter,

and replace what you see in the mirror

with what I see when I look at you.

You're not broken, and if you are,

your cracks are like those in asphalt

that form when life erupts forth,

so maybe it's not intentional,

but daisies grow through your cracks.

And you're so damn beautiful,

but like a flower in full bloom

you can't see it for yourself,

like how the room lights up when you smile,

and that's just on the surface.

You carry with you the force of the ocean,

capable of sinking any ship or island,

your depths are mysterious and terrifying,

but I'm thankful for every glance,

every opportunity to anchor myself in you.

I would give up my own sight

if it meant you could see yourself as I do,

not some broken, lost, ugly mess,

but a beautiful, intelligent, incredible woman

who deserves to be happy.

-Zero

Wandering drunk through the night (prose poem)

I want something again. Oh god, do I want it. Give me all the love stories you want, but I'll still feel like something's missing, I'll still crave those first moments of love like I crave a pint (or two) of beer after a long day. Anything to feel a little love, to have a love to proclaim, to have those passionate moments before a kiss, the playful pillowfight on the couch, to have someone to hold in the heart of the night.

Like a flame with no light, I felt the burn of desire but couldn't see any further so I let it die.

My life's become a long night out, and I'm just drunk, trying to function like a normal person, only to end up nonsensical and impulsive. I've already closed the bar, town's all gone to bed, and I'm wandering through the starless sky. I think I'm going home, but I can't see, I can barely walk. I'm lost. I don't know if I will survive the night, or fall off the bridge into the river.

But every motivational speaker will say the same thing, that old cliché : the night is darkest before the dawn, and spring follows every winter, so don't give up. But just because spring follows winter, doesn't mean you won't freeze to death first.

I want to say I see the first rays of sunlight over the horizon, but I don't know if I do, if I'm telling myself I do just to be able to continue going. Dawn seems a lifetime away, and I've already spent a third of mine.

Maybe it's better to be drunk and stumbling, if only to numb the futility of this long walk to death alone.

-Zero