The Shadow

There is a pit, and if you look carefully down it,

Perhaps you'll be able to trace the outline of a shadow down there.

The shadow might seem to be to be something good,

A prescence to peel away the loneliness with.

But don't get too close with it.

The shadow might entice you with supposed beneficence,

And with a sigh and a muttered apology,

It might pull you down into the depths of the pit with it.

The shadow didn't mean to.

The shadow did all it could to be anything but what it is now.

But in all due respect,

It is a shadow.

Shadows are meant to be solivagant creatures, 

They are created to melt into their own darkness.

So stay away from the shadow.

Stay away from it's pit.

The very existence of the shadow overwrites it's good intentions,

And resolutely, it will tear you apart with it.

Flies

When I was younger,

my mother taught me 

not to touch flies.

Nor to let them sit 

upon the peach skin of my arm;

they brought along

bacteria and disease

and everything that was

a certain shade of sepia.

I quite enjoyed watching

the flies trapeze along my skin

in a ticklish sort of dance.

A few steps to the left

a curt bow

and a small rubbing of their hands

as if they were asking

for that one dance

in the small cubicle of the toilet.

I found no fault in these creatures;

they were ever so polite.

They asked for permission

every few hasty steps

before pausing to renew my approval 

for them to tango 

with my gaze.

It is now that I sit

with a book

submerged in my lap,

engulfed in a messy arrangement

of worn out fabric

and dandelion petals,

that I give up swatting away

the flies

and instead let them

have this one last dance

before watching them 

fly off in a 

whispered dalliance

with the summer wind.