here, 26, and by the sea
where my body finds
the first rest it has
ever known

i close my eyes
i go back in time
i travel into the mountains to
find her

myself, a small child,
braided hair and shellshocked

i ask her if she wants to
catch fireflies in a mason jar,
she does so with splendor.

i ask her if she has ever seen the ocean
i ask her if she wants to come with me
i ask her, softly, if she wants to leave

we drive to the coast
she picks the music
she delights in the journey

i arrive and save her
just in time,
that she may never know
the taste of blood.

on her lap, her jar of fireflies,
a little light to
guide us home.

i arrive enigmatic,
i carry confusion to
the sane mind,
i carry truth, cut the
curtains, for just a moment
freeze time.

i leave quick.
i leave fingerprint stains
on darkness
i leave bloodstains on
broken paradigms.
i leave lipstick stains
on broken hearts,
and i leave all the same.

i seek within,
find comfort in
the aesthetics of
solitude
sights and sounds
as fresh as rain.

i watch long shadows of
telephone lines,
bending trees
highway signs
blurred and blending
as if one

a landscape of freedom,
the freedom of emptiness,
the unknown.
what is done, is done.
nothing to lose,
no such thing as home.

i am free
bottomless as the sea

i used to think
there was nothing
quite as poetic as
a wound

did i forget how gentle
the soil feels?
how powerful the
crashing waves,
how quietly a flower
blooms?

the lullaby of crickets
the warm nights that come in june
and that once in a lifetime
the sun eclipses the moon

in the pool of your mind
in the calm of your wave
i sink forever
just us together
floating through tide,
not a soul to save
held in your palm,
the moon pulls us closer
to an early grave

static on the television
reminscent of an empty mind
flat lines and falling snow

today i'll sleep away the sun
tell you that i'm doing fine, and
at night go where the wind blows

no sense of direction, no guiding star
no compass to show the way home

i need divine intervention
i've gone too far
it doesn't matter
i don't know

in your eyes
a reflection of me,
as if you froze time and
reversed it.

same gifts, same wounds
half blessed and half cursed.
of course it's beautiful,
of course it hurts.

i never met you for the first time,
i just wondered where you'd been

can you unfreeze time,
shrivel up space,
and find me in the end?