I have always loved the words beneath my tongue

The way the spaces between the letters 

settled perfectly between the gaps of my teeth

I love playing hopscotch on lazy, honest summer days

The slapping sound of my feet hitting concrete squares

is the careful turning of a crinkled page

The forests in my eyes still their leaves before I crack open a spine

Only when I see the lines of ink transcending into words 

can they free their air from the chains of unwanted stillness

But whenever I slide open a journal 

like the one I am writing in now

the forests layer with snow like the echoing silence on the blankness of the pages

Waiting for me to feel their empty spaces

What if my stone does not land between the chalk lines?

I am always throwing but missing the mark

What if people mistake my fireworks for flares?

My glowing candle for a lighthouse in a raging storm?

What if they mistake my words for an inkblot test?

Instead of releasing fireflies

I am suddenly burning down their forests

Each beginning starts with an empty space

a newly planted forest shaking from the new breeze

What if I am always holding my breath?