To the wind blowing at my front door and to the leaves dancing beside the sidewalk, sorry. 

When I step out that door, I feel six feet tall, invincible.

Black-Bose headphones and a narrative flowing through my mind,

endless streams of sentences-like a whirlwind

or a small-little kid dancing in puddles with her little rain boots, 

those splashes morph into my bursts of ideas and the puddles are my collections of inspiration.

My little-little head dreams of clouds reaching places higher than the atmosphere.  

When I step on a leaf tumbling down, down, down

the first impact feels mirrored,

I've done this a million times 

I have twigs as arms,

a stone for a brain,

and I have a plum for a heart.

Feels like I'm moving but my eyes aren't.

the tennis ball leaves the ground, 

then appears in a flash, 

stuck in a moment in time, 

my stone brain is too heavy to keep up,

my eyes as wide as saucers,

it barely misses and I can't register.

some people overreact,

others laugh it out 

but I can't pass the fact that I nearly lost an eye. 

Sorry.

I push the thought to the back of my mind, locking it with a chain and key.

It's easy to leave problems as is,

ignore a destined fate until it's sealed,

What can I say, I'm the master at a poker face,

no friends.

no life, erased.

my choices are made, 

and by the time my brain de-fossilizes, it's too late. 

By the time I get on that yellow, crowded-humid bus, my eyes find comfort staring down, down, down, 

my feet crushing the crispy, red-tinted leaves,

and the tall me shrinks, 

back home I go, to the four-foot-tall me, 

with a hunched back and feeling ten times as old, 

welcome home.