Vandalized

I move through a book on my imagination's feet,

Which is why reading keeps my mind fit.

Every book is a playground, too, so reading keeps me young.

It takes me back to my own playground days,

and sometimes, to the first time I saw one vandalized.

The first time I ever came across a bad apple in a good batch,

A book all wrong in a genre I thought was alright.

It was like someone had torn down the monkey bars and the slide.

Now, when I dive into a book, I make sure to bring some cement.

Miniature

I live in a world of quantum challenges,

and academic responsibilities,

Of infinitesimal risks

and artificial consequences,

awash in insignificant glances.

Heck, I live my whole life in miniature.

Unsolved

Too young to know better and too old to resist,
We were just close enough to be kept apart,
So we each changed, in habit and form,
If nothing else, to repulse the other.
Neither one of us would turn blue,
If we could hold it more than five minutes.

Solve 4 Ex

Place x and y variables
On opposite sides
Of an advanced problem.
Add novelty and desperation
and the equation is unbalanced,
But all you need to do
Is subtract attraction
To divide both sides
Before they multiply.
There should be no remainders.

Ex Plus Why

The value of ex plus why is often negative.

It wasn't that we stopped getting along,

But we so rarely came in together.

I was late when you were early,

and I was playing when you were resting,

So either I can syncopate my life for you,

Or we can never hear from each other again.

In the Keeping

Secrets swell in the keeping.
Sometimes someone sniffs them out,
But there is nothing that does not turn.
Nothing can grow as big as the world,
and all things forgotten dry up.
Some secrets don't need digging for,
Now that they are just more dirt.

The Breath of the Past

Two decades of my life were brisk,
and they blew by,
One day never having a scent of the next,
Or a clue about the last,
But now the breath of the past
Blows cold upon my back.
I can't move so fast,
But perhaps if I remember, I'll adapt.