The apple rising always higher
Proportionate to the desire
Not a mountain cliff
Or an eagles drift
Ever will or can conspire.....
The height to which a man will go
In pouring rain or lashing snow
No distance of sky
No bar set too high
To fuel a hearts true fire.

When the coffee turned into tea
And she was faced with that real-i-ty
Her world suddenly stopped spinning.
The walls rushed in... not one by one
The ceiling fell in to shut out the sun
And she called this the beginning.
Of life without truth and reason
Over and over...no change of season
Would ever breech the tomb within.
And over time she did go blind
Left with only the echoes of her mind
And she was never seen again.

In the midst of grey
It feels safe
Within the gloom
There is calm
Time passes differently here
Silently like a phantom
Slow enough to touch
And hold the moment

Knuckles white...
I held on
As long as I could
Sweaty palms
Gripping the corpse
Of our love
As if I could squeeze
Life back into it.
I tried my best.
Failed.
Then let go.

I knew the exact moment
That I died.
Watching 14 palm fronds sway in the wind of dusk
Peering through a 5 inch opening
Of black and gold
Striped curtains
From the 3rd floor window of a motel shared with someone who would never know me.
In that moment I hated you.

All along my heart did love thee
And thougb I never did thee wrong
Thy mind was resigned to hate me
And still I loved thee all along.

When I see your face my heart twists
And wrings the tears out of my eyes.

I still feel the tug of the fibers on my heart
The ones that grew us together and kept us close
Despite everything.
I can't seem to detach myself from you.
It doesn't feel even partly good when I try.
Why would I want to anyway?
I still have conversations with you in my head.
Still imagine your eyes looking over your readers at me.
Still replay everytime you felt vulnerable enough to cry.
The love I feel is one of greatness.,
That once in a lifetime love few find.
I will be forever grateful I had it with you, if even for a short time.
With those fibers I will keep you forever close.
With those fibers I will still feel your love and send you mine.

How is it that the days get longer
Yet shorter be the years?
Just how does a very old memory
Bring about brand new tears?
Why do some things never dissipate;
Others? .....always vapor be?
How do we blindly move along,
And yet stall when we can see?
How dare the moon eclipse the sun,
When it's the sun that outs the moon?
Why does some sadness stay so long,
While joy always leaves too soon?

He had a way of turning white to black
And contaminating the pure
A smile up front, a stab to the back
Making certainty so unsure

He could turn the future into the past
Find coincidence out of fate
Promise a forever that would not last
And turn a great love into hate

With him there were no losers or winners
There was only the weak and strong
Saw his sins as less than sinners
Was always right and never wrong.

I learned the meaning of "absolute,"
An early morning in December.
It's carved right into my very soul;
So there's no effort to remember.

It is scarred and crusted over now
And yet, it still seems to hurt no less,
Than the day I had to just give up
And give up all hope to hopelessness.

Some hearts just will never be altered
But mine is not what it used to be
The day I learned what "absolute" was,
Made me a sadder version of me.

The sun drained a little more out
Of me today
Exchanged for the dim lit space

How good it was to return
With salt swept eyes
Into the cold to sleep

Tossing crazy thoughts all about
I cannot say
Enough about this safe place

Where we go,  fog-ged to learn
What holds the skies
Also what makes them weep

How a dream can take the subtlest things
We dont register in the day
And make them play like a movie
In the most fantastical way

Strange creatures that sing Sinatra
And fuzzy slippers in the snow
A camp party with beer gardens
Faces we know but do not know

Always looking for the bathroom
Where the gay men pray for me
And everyone there is naked
Yet while I know this I don't see

Upstairs to get left-over food
"Will you get in the picture too?"
"Oh no," I say, "I don't belong."
And there's just so much to do.

A lawn mower that's finally fixed
But is barricaded just so
It takes a very funny man
Knocking down everything to go

And he plops me in the bucket
While my love walks along beside
Saying I'm not pretty enough
He'd rather a mail order bride

A pickup truck....the color red
Which being sober I must drive
After admiring the city cats
That keep the handicapped alive

Right after the hall of xmas trees
That even Satan would admire
Filled with all the chattering squirrels
That stare at me as they conspire

I keep watch over my shoulder
Certain someone is there behind
I wake and make perfect sense of
All the oddities of my mind.

When all the stars are in their proper place
And the dead ones have given up their space
When equality and equity are one and the same
And goodness is sought for in place of fame
When we are able to redact our every mistake
And truly learn lessons from every heartbreak
It will be the day when the immortals die
And their souls rise up to embrace the sky

The atmosphere has always pulled on me
Like a single sparkle in tall grass at night
To discover the flight of soul
It whispers of great things in the wind
Tugging always against my gravity, the
world, and what is called reality.
I must learn to fly.

It is a sacred place
Where statues of memories stand
And familiar voices echo from wells
Where the wind blows the dandelions
To grow the falling stars
That I wish upon

If we could take all the tiny impressions
And all the memory shards
Of the overlooked insignificant moments
And put them altogether
With the great ones
Perhaps a full soul could be made.

The pulse is thready now
What once fed life is gone
The eyes and mind flit away
While the change is sown
And nature knows just how
To make all else carry on
As if it were just a day
As if it were never known

A mere millisecond
Is all that lies between
Good and bad, life and death
What is and what has been.

The time I have left with you
Will not be marred by hope
But rather acceptance.
Our final days will become
Snapshots inside my head
I will memorize your voice
But most importantly
I will treat your pain
And tell you that I love you.
I will hold your feeble hands
Within the warmth of my own
My face will be fearless
And my eyes will be dry
It is the least that I can do.

I'll help you take the pictures down
Pack away the years
Read to you the letters she wrote
Wipe away the tears
You say that she would have liked me
That I would have liked her too
And I pledge I will do my very best
To take such privileged care of you.

I lose a bit more of you every day
Relax my grip and you slip away
Each day a single sacred tear
Rations the loss of you, my dear.

I shared
A billion pieces of what they call me
A million times 'cause I was lonely
Hoping for a bit of madness
To match my own without the sadness
I took
A black and white of every memory
Knowing loss is all we foresee
Tucking them into their own space
Every word away with their face
I formed
Beauty out of a delusion
Lost myself in the confusion
Made a bed out of every mistake
Formed an idea that I could not shake
I found
That life is only what we make it
If we aren't then we should fake it
The time will come and it will fly by
Some things we loose the day we die.

I was the collateral you used to buy something you had no intention of paying for.

It is the fickleness of man
That I hate the most.
No one cultivates anymore.
They just give up because it's easy.
No one ever becomes too valuable to lose.
We just keep starting over
And moving on and on
Complaining the whole way
How we never got what we wanted.
Shameful,  that as human beings
With the greatest ability to truly love,
That we rarely do.

And he said. "I'm afraid that one day you will wake up and realize that you are wasting your time on me."

And I thought to myself, he doesn't even know that I knew that from day one.

But I have always loved wasted time.

Hell, the best times that I remember are the ones where I was wasted.  

Wasted with people who didn't know me at all.

To know the subject of the words
Makes no difference don't you see
Be it river, lover, universe
All be but the same to me.

'Tis nothing but a chasm now
Much easier to melon ball out the rest
Than try to refill it.

It is the purest form of love,
The type that I have found with you.
The color of you engulfs me;
Makes my own a different hue.

You accept me just as I am,
A task that not many can do.
You chisel cracks into my heart
To let the light shine right on through.

We used to climb trees.
Scramble up them with our friends
There wasn't anything in those trees we needed
Nothing waiting to be claimed on the highest branch
It was just a tree
And we climbed it for fun's sake
Coming home with splinters,
Scraped knees and embedded dirt.
And the next day, guess what we did?
We climbed the ******* tree again.
Until the world taught us fear
And the tree wasn't fun anymore.
And so it goes on and on really.
Until simple seems so difficult
That we no longer have the courage
To truly live.

I must sit while in my chest

An infinite realm there be

More, oh more within the breast

Than awkward mortality

Minuit in its east to west

Too narrow a soul to free

Just how far from trough to crest

And here to eternity?

It is a feeling.
I become all feeling with it.
And though I have only felt it once before,
I recognize it so clearly.
Denial of it isn't even a thought.
I would be foolish to think that.
And I am no fool.
Its not a heaviness, more of a shift.
And it doesn't come slowly.
It's a snapping of twigs in the dark;
At different decibels, on all sides,
Giving away the proximity.
And I flinch with each one.
Like tiny shocks to the system.
Internal twitches.
And I suffer it for a bit.
Until I just am unable to suffer it.
And with a sort of keen guage
I know just how much wrath I will need to overtake.
To silence the twigs.
Derision yields to Decision.
And there will be no pause.
Only. Linear. Forward. Movement.
And then I start bruting myself about;
Not in an attempt to protect myself at all. No.
That motive will be thought of much later,
In a vain attempt to pardon my action.
No.
I stand up tall now... not out of fear.
But to become the threat.
To BE the aggressor.
And I desire that power
With such a fierceness,
That just injuring, will never do.
No. In that moment, I MUST destroy. Completely destroy.
And I do.
And the satisfaction I find in doing that, and in doing it so well,
Is the most dangerous thing
That darkness ever held.

It's that moment when you peel your heart
Like onion skin
And start placing the ring-like layers
In so many different places
That you realize completeness
Does not come from trying to fill space,
But rather by extending it.
It is in that moment we find God.

Feathers are used to catch a dream;
Conform-it-y defines supreme,

Hummingbirds aren't able to sing,
And paper buys you anything,

Cotton makes us more dignified;
Too many win.... who never tried,

Curios hold the China Dolls;
Art is hung in such narrow halls,

The loss of life... will hail a mass;
Beauty hides in the broken glass,

We wish upon the falling star;
Alignment tells us who we are,

Angels are made out of the snow;
We celebrate years....as they... go,

We rarely share what we should say,
And shun the bold that go their way,

Sleep is sound on a satin sheet;
We stop hearts so that we can eat,

Elements are no longer free;
High-rises sit where trees should be,

Allergies blow in with the wind;
A ditch, dug, makes the river bend,

We disregard a higher pow'r,
For satisfaction in the hour,

Virtue can't compete with pleasure;
We sacrifice all we treasure,

Joy is preferred within a jar;
We just won"t go.... if it's too far,

The easy come and go of it all,
Pardons pain after every fall.

So it should come as no surprise,
When love gives up its self and dies.

They've been tossed around alot;
I myself have thrown some too;
Right back from whence they came;
Except for the ones from you.
Those... I tucked in my coat pocket;
The very best and brightest kind,
Like the most beautiful diamonds,
Anyone could ever hope to find.
And yet, even with the care I kept
I could not find them later on
Just like post-parade street trash
So very quickly they'd be gone.
Maybe if they weighed a bit more
Or if they weren't so paper-thin,
I wouldn't find just an empty pocket
Where my keepsakes should've been.

Let me live no longer than
The last leaf left to fall
No longer than the songbird
Who still has a mate to call
Not a minute past the wordsmith
Who can no longer write for ill
No please take me well before
The heart runs out of thrill
Let me live no longer than
The second-to-last bell ringing
No longer than a perfect soul
Decides to give up its own singing
Not a moment past the revelation
There are some we can not save
Let me know nothing of hope's demise
Before I hit the grave.
Come sooner than all the loss ahead
It be so unfortunate to wait
Take me now my dearest Lord
Just as love turns into hate.
Before the winter brings a chill
And a furrow sets the brow
Realizing it was all for naught
Take me soon, God, take me now!

The raindrops and wipers
Kept time with the song
The redlights and brakelights
All soon played along
The stop and go rhythm
Of the shifting of gears
So perfectly synced
With my falling tears.

All the heightened minutes
Trying to keep pace
With parallel boredom
And overfilled space
Every touch is counted
Each whisper as well
The overall auras
Like secrets we tell
It's an intrigue of such
Known only to one
Tucked in so uniquely
With webs that we spun
From amateur housing
To seasoned decay
Time's ever-dividing
Day into a day.

Among the scattered granite
Kneels a concrete angel
Watching over the stillness
Of the sacred place.
Crows gather and I
Undisturbed sit
Under an overcast sky
A slight chill will every wind
So fitting and so welcome
Leaves spurting their way along the asphalt
Moss -laden oaks standing in reverance of the dead at rest
And yet there is much life
Bees in the low cut grass
Moving about the daisies
Crows playing games in the clouds
Blades of grass tremoring with the breeze
The ground appears to tremble
But it would never dare
Not here.
Not here where alone feels nothing like loneliness
Where innonence has endured
In the only place where tears can fall without scrutiny
Peace takes precedence here
Where the dead listen
As God speaks

Snip the fibers and just be free
Talk over negative intrusions
Welcome real opportunities
Breathe in my blessings
Give myself to others
Invite hope back in
Care for myself
Utilize pain
Forgive
Forget
Smile
Love

Here....
We celebrate genuine
We admire raw uncensored love
We understand it takes more courage to expose yourself than to hide
We don't applaud actors, we pity them
Here....
We don't wipe tears away, we dance underneath them
Here.....
Is an easy place to be
But so few come
This is the place where inertia
Is found while being still
And divinity smiles
Where brokenness is beautiful
And filters are unnecessary
Fear and pride are allowed in and yet
They will never accompany you out
This is where spirit meets body
And acceptance is born
Where wisdom comes to cast itself off
And admittance of ignorance is prized
Wind moves us here as was intended
Where we set down things we have carried too long
Where breath and freedom are identical
The purest form of joy is here
Where real becomes reality
The place you can go to anytime
And choose to never leave.
Who would want to anyway?