Ice Castles

(written December 1, 2007)

We held hands and walked around campus
As though careless was a game we played,
But we both lost when the tie broke.

Now it's freezing in the snow and I wear half boots on the ice,
Treading or falling at will.
I am being careful.

I don't know how to get back again
To that place where happy and sad mix,
To holding hands in the summertime glow.

But the spirit will change
Again, and then, again.
I am anything but constant.

Maybe I'll wear myself thin on the ice,
Ice castles where the waves crash
The ebb and flow of an inconstant beat

The only thing in me that beats,
Beats in meters and rhymes
Until nothing but those beats make sense

And I don't know how to fix it anymore
How to float that ice castle
And still want to live in it

The beats are beating a soft stacato
A sound heard in the dark,
Can you hear it?

I can't.
A shallow breath in a caged heart
A rickety step to the future...

These are things I'm careful with
Things that only time will break, or mend
But careless, it's a game I play.