Little boy, do you not write anymore?
Do your words not flow forth?
Do you choke on their warmth?

Little poet, does the pen cramp your hand?
Does it shake and shiver?
Does it sneak and sliver?

To that place in your heart
wormed away in darkness
secreted away when there are others about

only to be taken out,
picked apart,
leafed through,
when you’re alone.

Do your memories haunt you?
Do you comb your fingers through them?
Do they slip and slide and gleam in the night?

Are they solid like stone?
Are they fleeting like water?
Are they snapshots in time?

Little poet -

I lie wake at night
I take them out and feel with fingertips.
My eyes play over the familiarity of your
pale figure in the winter moon light.

But when I can’t breathe for lack of trying -
When I can’t see for lack of lying -
But when it all becomes too much -

I sit back, and I grin
And I pass the time thinking if you’ll ever write again.