I used to believe . . .

. . . that everyone needed to be heard. Now I think that we get so caught up in pining for understanding that we stop paying attention to what it is that we have to say.

Sometimes I am guilty of sending flares up, crying out to be heard.

But no one can ever walk in our shoes. And I'm not so sure we even are well-acquainted with the actual person who does wear our shoes. 

It would be better if I listened, it would be better if I felt the pulse of the universe instead of always yearning to be listened to and understood.

The sky cries, too . . .

. . . and sometimes, like tonight, even the vegetation agrees with me: it is too much.

I wonder if my tears are like the stunts I pulled in adolescence. Am I simply pouting so that I can get my way? Well, it never was entirely about that, was it? It was about being mixed up and not knowing how to sort through everything. 

I think never having grown up--in this case--is not a good thing.

Once I dreamed . . .

. . . and I matched my dreaming with dedicated hours; I stretched and reached and kept the hope agile and alive.

Now, if I raise my eyes to glimpse the star of what could have been, my neck will snap, brittle from neglect and disuse.