“I love you still.” (Original Poem) Ferns upon a valley find Curious stories of inquisitive minds Yet emeralds of the sea within Saturn’s orbit beyond your kind I believed in you and me Mined the scars of Adam’s fall In the ridge of Victorian lace Heavens will kneel at the hortus face

If atoms of burning cells painted in resolution Would the molecules of your fiction exist the same? Through the cellular planes of our twinned ambition Will the atrium of emotionality become more than a game? Spliced through the stars of nature and nurture Pixels completed of our inner solar flame Yet beyond the grasp of Valentina Tereshkova Perfect harmony always seem lightyears away Within your galaxy of hidden knowledge

The pungent bloom of an uncultivated variety Nurtured through nature yet salient in strength Growing freely within a sculpted society The obelisks of bio-inspired faith Our embedded wonders of the natural world As though life flourishes without intervention Delicate gems biding through the observed The most sacred ripes with pure intention

Spoken only in the truest form Plying to be heard yet ignored Inside the light that is within Reeling raw of inner power Isolated from the mind and soul Texturized essence in young and old

If I had a daughter I would tell her to be brave Like the raw confessions of a sinner or the choices we are too afraid to make If I had a daughter I would tell her to be aware of both hope and fear To re-imagine and to listen…

History is his story and manmade by his hands Power shifting upward from scape to land Myths of fables disguised as new Yet if you asked to be included there is only the ‘why’ in you? Generations of wealth given only to the chosen Like how manifest destiny was just selective pre-destination If black tears and dark labor can be justified through time Then who are the ones that should be truly vilified?

If adventures were a raindrop then journeys are the sea Yet if it called my name, there is nothing I can answer in return If paradoxes became paragraphs, and the present became history Then what are the future lessons that I am supposed to learn? If resilience was armor and ambition the sword Then why is sacrifice the bullet rather than the shield If prayers go unanswered as if whispers became holy word Then what is the negation for those that yearn to heal?

Being alive is not the panacea for living But what if being alive meant being in pain? Perhaps there is a solitude in simply being Stemming for the drive to live yet another day If there is some solace in the constant giving Projections from wounds half-healed away Fantasizing between mental living The acrimonies of a brain in hearsay Colors of social norms built-in paradigm The insanities of bare subsistence Melting away only to freeze stolen time As though being alive is mere existence

Is it senseless or is it sensory? Is it my imagination or a perfect memory? If two eyes can speak and lips can touch Then what happens when fate runs out of luck? If hearts can hear and tones can feel Then what if the memories are mine to steal? Beat by beat, page by page Do chapters of moments bleed into age? If attention was not driven by passion If fear was not driven by cognition Then what happens when you dream of salvation