after a person does their laundry,
they go about sorting their socks.
mixing and matching pairs,
finding what goes with what.
and - inevitably -
no matter how neat they are,
there will always be an odd pair.
a high cut with a low cut,
a white with a gray,
two that no one would say could match.
but they stuff one inside the other,
having nothing else to do with them,
lest they throw them away forever.
that's us.

i don't really mind the heat,
and i can always open a window.
that lets all kinds of bugs in,
but i think they help build character.

maybe one day i'll stop killing them,
and let them crawl around freely.
all that exists is all i create,
and death occurs by my hand.

like i said before,
by myself i can take a lot of crap.
sometimes it even scares me,
how happy i can be when left alone.

13 out of 43

the odds she had to live,
30 chances not to die.
i spin the roulette wheel,
and watch it land on death.

she had asked me,
"if i have to get up,
will you carry me,
in the middle of the night?"

and i said yes to that,
and to many other things
that she could not do on her own,
for lack of functioning legs.

"and if i die?" she asked,
with tears streaming down her face.
to which i had no reply,
but to hold her close.

a delicate, red poppy,
sprouting in the snow.
a tear runs down my cheek,
it was one of the 13.