April Thirtieth

The comforting blanket of the night
Slowly drifted down over the
Worn
Haggard
Town.
Crickets chorused in the last light of the
fading...evening...sun...
Much had happened in the past month
Followed by what would happen in the next
Made clear by the darkness.
The child-feared realm of
Infinite possibility
Stretched out before her.
When light gave way to darkness
And order to chaos
And the monsters
ROARING!
To escape one's mind
Became intangibly real.
But,
As growing had shown
The darkness that brought real the monsters
Also gave life to beautiful
Impossible
Unbelievable dreams.
Where once stood an
    Exhausted...
       ...weary...
              ...tired...
Town.
Stood a
  Tall
    Strong
     MYSTERIOUS
Forest.
A forest only she could see.
The Forest of Dreams and Nightmares.
Not so different as you might think.
So similar, in fact, that they are one.
Through this forest she traveled
Watching over the
    Deepest
       Hidden
          Darkest and lightest
Thoughts of the town's subconscious mind.
Compared the forest
She had the stature of an ant.
Not half as large
As a half-forgotten dream.
She crawled and climbed
Watching fantasies and sorrows.
A goal achieved
   A test aced
      A friend cheated.
A game won
   A dream followed
       A devastating accident
A first kiss
   A nervous man preparing to propose
      A lonely girl, weeping over the loss of a love never won.
They walked through The Forest of Dreams and Nightmares,
Not as different as you might think.
She shared in their sorrows and triumphs,
Until the Coming of the Light:
   Bringer of order
   Destroyer of peace.
She watched as the darkness reseeded
And the light reclaimed
Furious monsters
  Turned back into old sweatshirts
And previous realities
   Into impossible dreams.

April Twenty Ninth

Tiny blonde fairy
Dancing around
Circle of mushrooms
A trap for the mind.

April Twenty Eighth

Reality's
Predictably unpredictable storm
Envelops everyone in its
Complicatedly simple patterns.
Wondering spirits
Drift past each other
Without realizing they're
Wondering at all.
Small miracles
Constantly unnoticed.
The mysterious wonder of
Life,
Commonplace.

April Twenty Seventh

The word thief
Moves swiftly from
Book to book
And mind to mind,
Spiriting innocent vocabularies
Off into the night.

April Twenty Sixth

She fell,
Exhausted,
Into another
Spinning
Reality.

April Twenty Fifth

He stood at the gallows,
Patiently awaiting
Imminent death.
He had been
Stripped
Of his ice-blue raincoat
And stood now
As any other.
He did not resent
Only hoped
That as he left this world, his
Dream
Of a better one
Would not
Leave
With him.

April Twenty Fourth

Value
Had once been placed
On the great leader
In the ice-blue raincoat.
But as the rebellion
Continued climbing
To a lofty place of
Near...
     ...Victory!
They felt a little too safe.
When they crashed down,
So
Did the blame.
And the once proud
LEADER of the rebellion
Fell prey
To the war
He had created.

April Twenty Third

The dolphins dance before the dock,
As the dark water
The color of ink
Bubbles with their playful splashing.
The heavy aroma of fresh
Rain clinging to the air.
The rebel
With the ice-colored raincoat
Sits on the dock
Watching the dolphins.
A long forgotten smile
For the long forgotten rebel

April Twenty Second

Seconds
Into minutes
Into hours.
Time floats
Languidly by
On the drifting cloud
Known as vacation.

April Twenty First (a.k.a. Both Sides of the Tracks)

Dreamers contemplating
Sunsets,
Waterfalls,
The changing of the seasons,
And the tiniest of bugs.
Wherever,
Whoever,
And however they are.
In blissful
Unknown harmony
They change the world.

April Twentieth

Clarity in the
Midst of chaos
Is a
Very
Scary
Thing.
To be able to see
Yourself and someone you
Care about going down
Without the power to stop it.
Ideas
For change
Coming a day
Too late.
The past
In the past
No matter how much you want that
To change.
Because chaos
Is never as orderly
As imagined
And no one truly knows
What they'll do
Until they're doing it.

April Nineteenth

An absent daydream
Turned into a waking nightmare.
One moment coasting along
To the
Lively
Beat of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun",
And the next coasting
Past the pole and
Off the road.
Rended metal and a
Giant explosion.
Ears ringing!
Smoke!
But from where?
A yell
And then running
Out of the car
Away from the disaster
Back onto the unexpectedly perilous road.
Too many people.
Too many questions,
And too many empty undeserved accusations.
Too much pain and
Too many tears
On one used-to-be peaceful Spring day.

April Eighteenth

Drifting

   On a sea of darkness

        Into a...
      
                ...peaceful...

                            ...oblivion...

April Seventeenth

The full
Beautiful oak
Had but one flaw.
A single and overall
Insignificant
Leaf.
It sat
Small and undefined
Among the large
Deeply colored
Full leaves.
They rustled together
In a soothing cacophony
Each time the wind blew.
Together they were louder,
But the small
Insignificant
Leaf was not heard.
As they had always seemed to
The leaves acted in unison.
All at once they started to change
Fade
And yellow.
As usual, the
Insignificant
Leaf remained away
So that by the time the other leaves
Were brilliant shades of orange and red, the
Insignificant
Leaf was just starting to
Fade
And yellow.
In small groups the leaves
Fell away from the tree,
Following each other unquestioningly
Into what none of them had ever known.
As per usual, the
Insignificant
Leaf stayed behind.
It watched.
And it waited.
It saw as all the other leaves it had known
Without ever really being a part of
Faded away.
It watched as some fell straight to the ground
Cold and unforgiving
Never making it beyond what had always been.
It watched as some leaves
Carried by a great wind
And maybe a little bit of something else
Were carried off
Headed towards no one knew what.
It watched as some twirled through the air
In complex patterns
Looking as if they would go somewhere
Before falling back to the edges
Of what had always been known. The
Insignificant
Leaf waited, and it waited.
It waited for something to happen.
It waited for a certainty that would never be known.
It waited until that
Insignificant
Leaf was the only one left on the tree.
The leaf waited and waited
Because it was afraid of what was unknown. That
Insignificant
Leaf did not want to
Waste away being
Insignificant.
It did not want to fall
In its one chance to succeed.
And so the
Insignificant
Leaf waited some more to be
Insignificant
No longer.
One day a great breeze came,
The greatest the leaf,
Or the tree for that matter,
Had ever known.
In this breeze the
Insignificant
Leaf clung to the tree
With a surprising amount of tenacious strength.
It clung
Until it was nearly too late. The
Insignificant
Leaf hung on
Trying to decide what to do,
Until the chance to do it nearly passed.
Until finally,
The maybe not-so-
Insignificant
After all leaf
Just let go.

April Sixteenth

Spring time once again;
World beautifully renewed.
Too many damn bugs!

April Fifteenth

On a rock
Beside my house
Beneath a curved pine tree.
This is a place
Where I do find
Complete serenity.
The birds do sing
The squirrels do play
A peaceful cacophony.
In this place
Surrounding me
Complete serenity.

April Fourteenth

Darkness
Is a fiercely misunderstood entity.
It blankets the world in a comforting black cloak,
Leaving room for thoughts, rest, and peace,
And yet the night is feared.
The night is feared because thinking
Can be a frightfully dangerous pastime.
Is there anything lurking in the shadows to be feared,
Or do we fear the perceived "darkness" leaking from our own souls
Made harder to conceal in the night's inky blackness?
The darkness is beautiful.
Were it not for the dark,
We would never see the stars.

April Thirteenth

Where does inspiration go
When it wonders off for a while?
Does inspiration need to be
Inspired?
Does it go on a grand adventure,
Travel all across the world,
The known and unknown universe,
To find a muse for the muse?

April Twelfth

Forgetfulness.
Fleeting thoughts that
Flutter off into. . .
What was I going to say?

April Eleventh

Humans...
I wouldn't go as far as to say
Bleak.
All I did was ask
A question.
Why?
WHY?
WHY?
It would've been okay
If it was
Just me.
But he messed with
My best friend.
Some of us believe in trying anyways.

April Tenth

The stars that twinkle with such light
Tell me it's time to say good night,
But still I wonder what is right
The dark unveils the mysteries of life.

April Ninth

Burning the midnight
Oil. I could really use
A decent night's sleep.

April Eighth

Each spring,
Golden
Buds emerge cautiously
From the forest.
The longer the
Golden
Buds are exposed, the less
Golden
They become.
But in the final weeks of life,
More muted and diluted shades of
Gold
Return before the trees are left
Bony and bare
Waiting to find the
Gold
Of life again in the spring.

April Seventh

Life as a teenager is a
Contradiction
You are expected to
Simultaneously
Be a child and
An adult.
To be independent
And needy.
To be competent
And to accept our
Incompetence
At the first contradiction from our "superiors".
In the same day we are told to grow
And to stop growing,
To go and stop going.
Being a teenager
Is to always be underestimated when you can do it on your own
And overestimated when you really need help.
To be a teenager is to be a
Contradiction
Wrapped in irony.
Constantly trying to be both you
And who you "should" be.
To do what you want to do
And what you "should" do.
To fulfill the destiny you want to choose
And the "destiny" others would choose for you.
Being a teenager is learning to make choices
In a time when no one wants to let you choose.

April Sixth

Bloodstained fields and
Cities so decimated they're more like
Ruins.

Raining bullets
A red moon on the rise
Promises of bloodshed this night.

Doomed dreams of
Doomed individuals
In doomed situations.

In a time when
Victories are tragedies and
Tragedies are victories.

When a horrendous explosion
Turns into a
Shining opportunity.

When one mans hero is
Another mans
Murderer.

And nothing

   makes sense
      
        anymore...

April Fifth

The fleetingness of
Inspiration that is gone
As soon as it's here ...

April Fourth

Tick tick tick
Tick tick tick

The audible passage of time goes marching by.
Time for learning.
Time for growing.
Time for exploring.
Time for fingers flying across keyboards.
Time for leaving a mark on the world.
Time for becoming.

Time that sometimes,
Only sometimes,
And only for a day,
I wish could be rewound.

Back to the days of chocolate chip cookies and apple juice.
Back to the days when your crush was just the friend who shared the most animal crackers with you.
Back to the days when life's greatest disappointment was not actually flying when you jumped off the swing set.

Back to the glory days when digging up rocks in the river made us treasure hunter adventurers, and a big plastic pipe meant a cave expedition.
Back to the days when a splash of coffee in my milk made me feel like such an

ADULT.

Back to the days when the monotonous chaos of every day life was an adventure.
To cling to a fleeting moment in time for one more fleeting moment when life was a fairy tale.
When every hill was Mount Everest and every lizard was a great dragon,
And you were free to believe any dream you wanted.
Back to when imaginary friends were just as real as accepted versions of reality.
Back when peoples minds were the most free,
And being yourself wasn't like being a grasshopper pretending to be a tree.

April Third

The sun comes up
The sun goes down
The found get lost
The lost get found
Sometimes you laugh
Sometimes you frown
Sometimes life's just upside down
But every time you get turned around
Someone somewhere finds solid ground

April Second

Fleeting thoughts
  Scribbled on blank pages.
    The trademarks of my life.

April First

Each day the sun rises
And just as seamlessly it falls
The routine somehow providing a break in the monotony of life
And so it begs the question of which is more beautiful
                         A sunrise
                               or
                         A sunset
A glorious dawn, radiant and shimmering
                               or
A glowing dusk, swathed in golden remembrance
And
      Finally
                I had to decide that the ending was always more beautiful than the beginning
Everyday things begin, good and bad, and go unnoticed
And as often as things begin, they end,
      but the end is almost always more
           proclaimed than the beginning
Each morning the sun rises, unnoticed by
        the millions of slumbering creatures
             on Earth
Each evening the sun sets, bathing each
        individual in an unmistakable golden
                        light
Whether everyone notices they notice
             it or not, they notice it
And I find that as the golden glow
       shines in through my window, enveloping
                 my room in its warmth, I can't help
                      but think positively
I see triumphs
  Small victories
    And the good things in life
Little tragedies become insignificant
         amongst the many little victories and beginnings
Noticed only because the day has
                                                                                                                                                           Ended.

National Poetry Month!

Hey guys!
As I just found out from my English teacher stepmother, April is National Poetry Month! In light of that fact, I am endeavoring to write a poem every day for this month, which will be posted here for your (hopefully) enjoyment!
Happy Poetry Month!
~Alyssa