It’s hard for me to tell

What color the plants should be right now.

All the grass keeps dying and waking up again,

Like the predictably invincible characters

In an anime that should've ended

Three seasons earlier.

It’s March,

And the trees, eternally half-blooming

With tiny bright caterpillars of warm green,

Are still caught in the prolonged stranglehold

Of the mistletoe that thrives in cold winds

And frosted bark.

In my eyes, It’s almost as if

The parasitic chandeliers could be hesitant;

Lingering around, uncertain,

Loitering and pacing

With invisible little plant legs,

Tortured by the annoyingly realistic possibility

That there might be

Just one more cold morning,

Just enough time

To squeeze one more drop of life

From the thin fingertips of another

Before it wanders off again

In the heat of the evening.

As my world burned, I sat down on a soft patch of grass amidst its chaos. The citric scent of my steeping Earl Grey pierced through pungent fumes of ashen smoke that clung to everything it touched. The two odors blended together, invading my senses with a turbulent redolence as I turned to the next page of the book that was resting on my lap.

Stop.

Look around.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Open your eyes.

No, actually open your eyes.

…Ah, but that’s where you’re mistaken.

What you’re seeing right now

Is the back of your eyelids.

The burning intensity,

Overwhelmingly painful darkness

And infinite nothingness

Of the back of your eyelids.

…Oh, really? Are you sure?

Because if your eyes were already open,

I would think that by now

You would’ve noticed

The soft clover underneath you

Splashed with violets;

The arm around your shoulder

Warming your shaking body as you cry.

You would have seen the sun

Rising through your window this morning

As you struggled to revive your tired mind,

And you’d have watched fiery light bounce off the sleek fur

Of your loyal fluff-armored protector guarding your pillow,

Ever-dozing, but always with one eye open.

You would have caught a glimpse

Of the prisms of color

That danced between the sparkling droplets

Last night when it rained.

You’d have been entranced

By the rippling reflections they left on the concrete

That mirrored the sky, swirling with the stars of van Gogh.

Open your eyes, little one.

Witness the beauty of the little moments

That dot every second of your existence.

So. Whenever you’re ready…

You ask how I plan to change the world.

I don't.

The world does not need

Any more changing.

Far from it.

Look at our surroundings.

Our trees filter sunlight

Through millions of green pages,

Like books that ache to tell a story

Through shadows dancing on the forest floor.

Our skies sigh softly

In cool billows of crisp wind,

Carrying dots of rain

To land on unsuspecting eyelashes,

Leaving morning dew

To be blinked away from wandering eyes.

Our artists beckon us with graphite lines

And textured mountains of color

And pages and pages of original combinations

Of ancient words and immortal sounds;

Redefining culture

By redefining the light spectrum and the world's acoustics,

Altering how our senses absorb the universe.

I am one of those artists.

I do not change the world;

I change our perception of it.

I am an artist;

But I am not your artist.

This is a planet;

But it is not our planet.

Earth is an artist alongside me.

She is a creator of new ideas,

A writer of songs,

A painter of landscapes,

An innovator of intelligence.

She has a portfolio of towering sculptures

And intricately carved woodwork,

And music that took eons to compose.

She is not ours.

No, I will not change the world,

For I am an artist.

I do not vandalize or take credit for

The work of other artists.

I will bring a shift

Into the minds of those who do.

your name is written on

each of my tears

they’ll stroke my cheeks

momentarily

only to fade away

just as you did.

how is it that you gazed into my eyes

(which are a duplicate of your own,

by the way)

and still ruled that i

wasn’t enough for you to stay?

ive spent these years

hiding the ache in my heart

that you left, when

you did

after all this time

i've spent trying to heal

and still, i have no progress

to show

oh, where did my

daddy go?

You can act like it doesn’t matter

You can act like you don’t care

But I know that look in your eyes that this is all too much to bear

You can shrug it all off or you can blame it on the rain

But sometimes you need to allow yourself to just feel the pain

Healing comes from within

Or so I’ve heard it said

Just breathe in your surroundings and take a step outside your head

Colors will begin to shine again as the stars spell out your name

You can dance among the flowers in the wild winds you tame

The world will unfold for you as each day starts anew

And all you have to do is be you for the sake of you

I hid behind "hungryhobbyist"

on another website.

But on theprose, I determined

I would do it right.

I'd use my real name

so that, maybe

one might search the web

and find me

selling my written words

for a living.

Can't pay the rent

by constantly giving

away for nothing

what I've created.

I decided, before

getting cremated,

to finally say,

"Oh, what the hell."

That's why, on Prose,

I'm LEHertel.

I write when I’m angry

I write when I’m sad

I write when I’m lonely

Or when there’s a truth to be had

I write to hold on

I write to let go

I write when it hurts because it hurts when I don’t

I write to stay sane

I write to understand

The machine that’s inside me I control with my hands

I write to find peace though it never shows it’s face

I write to light up this dark little space

I live and I breathe and most days I don’t know why

But if I write out my thoughts I feel less the urge to cry

I write because life is a harsh and desolate range

I write with the hope that one day things may change.