Spilled Ink
Oh dearest friend what games we played
And to rest so many burdens have we laid
Stared at the world through windows small
Yearned for freedom, to see it all
The tales we’d tell that will live on
In bittersweet laughter and children’s song
Do you remember yet?
The fears you clung to in bitter regret
The monsters we would face at night
The valiant battles we would fight
And how we longed to dance on the sea
To eat and drink so merrily
We spoke of how we’d change the world
Laughed at dancing lights that twirled
We were daring at the time
Never knew to fall in line
Do these thoughts still make you smile?
Or has it been too long awhile?
Has your journey been long and dreary?
Your eyes grown heavy your feet grown weary?
How I yearn to speak with you once more
To laugh and tease as we did before
Know what it feels to have a heart not shattered
To have clarity on what truly mattered
Would our comradery have carried on?
If your things had not been packed nor you gone?
If on one cold and dreary night
The world had not put out your light
Your eyes unmoving with face so pale
Your voice so painfully mute and stale
When you could no longer dance as we dreamed
The world ceased to be what it seemed
You were but a child then
Young we were, I was proud to call you friend
As colors danced in the awakened sky
I could not fathom you would not rise
I sat alone in cold stark silence
Still reeling from such cruelty and violence
A fate I still could not believe
This is not the future we had foreseen
And you packed up, cruelest of all
In a wooden cage so dark and small
I am left to sort your things
Your scent and ghost to them still clings
Your desk still filled with dreams you held
Where your hands, holding pencils, dwelled
And your papers frozen in time
Half written ballads and truncated rhyme
With your life’s work unfinished
Will dreams once held be diminished?
The seasons change and world moves still
Such indifference to make me ill
The bond we had with hope filled eyes
A touch of sarcasm in smiles sly
Oh dearest friend we had our fun
And you must agree it was quite a run
We built a life in our minds
We had a plan we set our sights
For all we had and what would await
All is lost, it is too late
What remains of this unbreakable link?
But the stroke of a pen lost in spilled ink
Pretty Pieces
I hand out the pretty pieces
Lyrical retellings of joyous memories
The words I was told were made to share
Made more beautiful when mixed into the air
I package them neatly
With a brush of my skin or curl of my lips
I dare not ask for anything back
For these things are meant to be given away
That is what they all say
These things grabbed hungrily
Passed around and examined at parties
Picked apart and rearranged
Stirred in wine garnished like sage
Till they are finally handed back
So I may see the changes
And they may be rewrapped
I stack their distorted forms till they take new shape
Then take my bag and walk away
But when I’m left alone in the dark
I run my fingers across the jagged parts
And I do not recognize the place in which I lay
I reach out for what I know
But those joys I lost long ago
Phantom Walls
These budlings were once mere phantoms
Whisps of smoke in the minds of the dreamers
Just as this street was but a painting
Trapped inside the minds of those who believed
When I walk along the now
I hear the softest hum
The whispers of those dreamers of long ago
Trapped inside this urban stone
To watch they all they could not foresee
Corrupting the images they crafted
Built so lovingly in their heads
And their words are powerless
As most do not stop to hear
I cannot help but listen to their warning
Wandering if it is too late
If their dreams are broken beyond repair
What does this mean
For the tasks which busy my hands
They too never are what I imagined
Will they be corrupted furthered still?
Or will I
Unlike the voices in the streets
Find rest
When the sun does deem it time to set
Darcy Mueller is a Junior at Tufts University studying history and Italian and greatly enjoys creative writing in her free time. She is from Jackson Wyoming where she lived with her parents, two brothers, and sister.