Emily Winters                                                                                                                      

The Dock

Speaking of melancholy:

Tendrils of smoke suspended in the sky

Rows upon rows of empty chairs

Folding chairs awaiting visitors

Funerals awaiting mourners

Weddings waiting well-wishers.

Empty hallways and echoes knocking their way through

Knocking down imaginary walls

Faulty borders blocking hands from holding hands

And crumbling gates and splinter-infested docks stopping

All the foot-traffic

Cockroaches and the feral child named Time

Clogging up the freeze-frames and the joyful noise

The white noise in between smiles

Spawning empty feeling that chills the blood in our veins and

Makes grins die in the midst of happy feelings.

Speaking of melancholy:

Wisdom filled eyes

Eyes filled with tears

Water flooding the streets of the cities

And washing out the houses and hanging us all out to dry

Rivers and streams running away from their beds

Awoken in the middle of the night

To find everything gone.

Wrinkles

The wrinkles of time

Etched into our faces

And onto our fingers go all the places

Gone and done

And seen and been.

Wearing the battle scars

Braving the reputation of infamy and the name

The name of the human race.

Mostly goodness

Not sugar coated nonsense

But good and right

And wrong.

It’s easy to be wrong.

Swaddled with blankets forged on decisions

Decisions formed from minds like ours

Like us

They

Could make mistakes.

Born on mistakes

Born on with a reputation

Expectation

For goodness.

Some go wrong.

Some go right.

Life is,

After all,

A roll of the dice.

Speaking of melancholy:

The thinking sadness

And the learning from scars

The scars the burn and soothe up and down our arms.

Hushed whispers and world-weary faces -

Ready for more?

Docks stretching across planets

Our planet…

Rickety old docks holding up the steps of giants.

Wooden planks from here to there

Standing in silence

Wearing time like a badge of honor

Wearing with humans –

All so that we could hold hands.