Scott Waters is a poet and songwriter living in Oakland, California. He has an M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Scott has published previously in The Santa Clara Review, The Pangolin Review, A New Ulster, Amethyst, Ink in Thirds, NatureWriting, and Verse-Virtual.

Ruins
In 1990 on my way to a new life in California I stopped in New Mexico to investigate a point on the map marked "Ruins" steering my Budget rental truck off the freeway ramp and down a two-lane highway toward cobalt mountains I had a sensation of vanishing along with my cat into a landscape of pastel mesas parched yucca and quavering sky. ~ The ruins weren't much: a low wall of stones on a hill and a jumbled outline of what used to be rooms in a dwelling with a 360 degree view of whatever might be approaching across the desert friend or foe. ~ My cat is long gone and so are those ancient humans and their customs but I am still here gazing out from the ruins of this poem.
At Thirteen
a girl no longer is a girl a boy not quite a boy the friend you played with yesterday at schoolyard, park or beach becomes a magnet pulling eyes from sockets blood from brains and after that your heart will teeter on a windy cliff never knowing when it will go over.