it’s 2 am
we’re sitting in your car, squeezing in the front seat.
you’re holding me in your big arms
you look at me, wild eyed and restless and whisper,
“i love you. and i don’t want to lose you.”
so i looked away and fought back my tears
i held your hand, but then quickly let go.
“but you don’t intend on keeping me either. do you?”
and to that you had no response

so we continued to lay there in silence
because i know you don’t love me.
or maybe you do, and maybe it’s just in a way that i don’t understand.
we always hurt the ones that we love
so maybe you just love me too much.
i can’t wake up in the morning without you on my mind.
it troubles me to think that we might not be meant for each other.
or this entire time you are just a dream.
if you are, how could my mind ever create a creature so beautiful?
a human so perfect.

you come to me with every unbalanced emotion
but i know if i ever show up at your door,
wild eyed and restless,
you will not show me sympathy or let me in.
you will tell me to go home.

A vehicle rumbled along a sorry excuse for a road,
A convoy trailing behind it

A soldier looked out his window
Watching the dust swirl up in clouds beneath the
Heavy vehicle's tires

He said nothing to his partner and they rode in silence
He, thinking of his perfect baby
Whom he had not yet gotten to feel the warmth of
In his arms
And his partner, he was sure
Had nothing but the image of his fiancée racing through his mind
She was all he ever talked about

They were close
As close as a pair of friends could possibly be
But rides were becoming increasingly more solemn
Unspoken yearning for home had become almost unbearable
These days the soldier missed home so much
And longed so badly for his wife's warm embrace
That he swore he could feel his heart aching

The solemn silence was broken as something caught the soldier's eye

"Stop!"

The convoy came to a halt
The soldier jumped from his vehicle
His boots making a hard thud on the ground below
He called to a group of Afghani children who had been
Collecting shell casings they would later exchange for food
In the middle of the convoy's path

The children looked up, alarmed
And scurried away

The rumble of the military vehicles again resounded
Through the desert
And the convoy continued on its way


Looking back
At the men in the strange uniforms
With the huge trucks,
A little Afghani girl
Caught a glimpse of the sunlight
Bouncing off of something
In the middle of the road

She rushed into the street to collect it
Thinking only of how pleased
Her mother would be
With all the money they would earn
From her painstaking hunt

The soldier saw the young girl
Dart into the path of the convoy

He shouted
And leapt from the vehicle
The girl looked up in terror
As she saw the big trucks
Getting closer
And closer

The soldier leapt into
The path
Of the oncoming sixteen-ton vehicle
Toppling the girl to the ground

As she sat up, out of the path of the convoy
Dusting her self off and
Trying to comprehend
What had just taken place
She looked into the road searching for her
Treasure
And saw it
Reflecting the desert sunlight
Just inches from the still form
Of the soldier
Who had just
Given her
His life

As I look over a cup of morning tea
                                                 through the wooden panes in
                                                             ­                  my breakfast window,
                                                             ­                                             I remember                              
                                                             ­                                                             and the trees remember.

Red and blue still covers the top of your treehouse

and my many memories of you playing there......
          
........ but a hundred Fridays have passed

................since then.

Those tired trees used to moan in wonder as your music pierced

their leaves and prevented the forest from closing its day to sleep.

The woods were once alive with your laughter and music.

The rungs on the treehouse ladder are now brittle, brown, and broken.

They are no longer sturdy enough to hold up a curious boy with a curious mind.

The trees now tower over a forest that is no longer filled with winding

paths for biking and afternoon walks.

The underbrush has spread so far........

...it is tangled in my memories of you.

Tangled memories of laughter, music, cleaning streams and saving frogs......


As I look over a cup of morning tea
                           through the wooden panes in
                                                my breakfast window,
                                                             ­     I treasure every single                  
                                                             ­                       memory of you                                        
                                                             ­                                               and
                                                             ­                               I embrace the trees                  
                                                             ­                                     as they sway with your spirit.                      





Good Friday 2011 the trees stood still.

People the world over suffer
They suffer from:
Hard circumstances, warring institutions,
Famine, lack of education,
Drugs and abuse, poverty, the list is endless.
But they are also addicted...addicted to hope.
Hope that things will improve
Hope that their dreams will one day be realized
Hope that what is so hard will finally be a hurtle passed
Hope is their mind's addiction, the fuel for whatever
It is they are striving for
If the temporary satiation of a drug is finally found,
Then their hope for the drug and their hope for the feeling
And their hope for the escape from reality are fueling them.
If they are struggling to make ends meet, to feed themselves,
clothe their children, escape the debt collector, find a place to sleep
Their hope is to not to have to face these same issues
Every day for as many days as they have living.
If suffering from illness, they hope for healing or death
Hope is their addiction when the young children sit in hot, enclosed spaces
Ill, hungry, malnourished, traumatised
Hope for something better, better than what is before them
Hopelessness is acceptance, it is living in the day to day
Knowing what is is, what can't be changed can't be changed
what can be changed for the better,
Well steps towards that then are slowly taken
And the absolute beauty of life, the wonder of these moments
Begin to sparkle and shine in a way that is subtly impressive
Small is sometimes the most beautiful of all
it is solid, it is simple, it is a sturdy brick upon which one can
Always grasp and stand upon...over and over and over
Refreshing and truly adventurous
To see the nature and artifice of the path one is walking
Realizing that each step is a changing landscape
Of environment, perspective, emotion, situation
When one is down they look up with hope, their addiction solidly in place,
To get to the top of the mountain for a finer view
An accomplishment and relief at having succeeded
but the top is always just the pinnacle
And hope to remain affixed in such a perilous place
Is not in actuality possible
Be it a very violent gust that blows you off,
For we all know the wind vortices are something fierce in mountainous terrain,
Or a misstep, a loss of footing as the ground suddenly whithers away,
Perhaps the grasping hands of others trying to join you,
Their hope addiction now at an all-time high because they
Are. Right. There.
Clawing like animals for the last little handhold to hoist themselves up
And in shouldering themselves into a stand,
They accidentally knock you off, or not accidentally perhaps.
Whatever the case, hope addiction swings back into full force
and if it doesn't motivate, it at least satiates the mind
But hope addiction is also deceptive,
It rallies the wild dreams and ignites the heart with delusions
When hopelessness and acceptance and disconnect are a wiser course
For to live on hope addiction alone is not sustaining
It isn't real.
When alternatives and different paths may be wiser, better
To begin walking upon for now
Hope addiction can be misleading, blinding
He beauty of hopelessness is looking then without the hope addiction
At the possibility that this new path, albeit much different from the other
Is only visible up to a few steps ahead
Does it curve? Does it stop? Does it merge further down
With the original path or perhaps another different one?
Hope addiction...I have been addicted to hope
We all have, it is beautiful and it is scary
I live in hopelessness...content, happy, busy, progressing, adventurous, never knowing what little chocolate from the box of life my day is going to taste like.
I must admit though, one a day is not enough to really enjoy a full day...fully.

I'm going to have to be the one
No one else can save me,
not one human on the earth has the time to constantly be along someone's suffering side
So it'll be me, to do the duty on myself, to get through this never ending battle
& I'll be stronger at the end of it
But it's just so hard to do it alone while feeling so alone,
it even hurts to know that there are not many people who consistently reach out enough to grab  me,
to lift me up and get me going
I'll have to be the one
I'm me, no one else can do it for me,
independency
But when you've spiraled down into such a deep dark place and you try to get out,
every inch doesn't feel that much closer to the light
I fall back in the mud again
Just to fail once more
To be a failure again
To repeat the cycle again
To never get out
To be stuck
Stuck in the mud that I fell in
Thank god it's not quick sand
If it was, I'd never get out
That's how I know there's hope
There's gotta be
Nothing lasts forever
Besides life
Life is infinite
Infinity is what?
People keep on smiling and thats great,
no jealousy,  just envy for their days that keep on  going, their routines and lives that are naturally just flowing, while I space out & sit in silence and wait to disappear in a sphere that's not crystal clear
My bones ache and for gods sake,
I try my hardest to appreciate
That I'm alive today
Even though my days are grey
Getting out of bed never felt so hard
It's like I've lost all my strength &
the power of my body and mind
I'm lost, but no ones there to find me,
I'll be here to find me, there's a little hope inside of me
Reading is such a chore,
since i lose track of everything,
feeling like a bore
No energy to take care of me,
well this is how it'll have to be,
but hopefully.. this is just temporary.

Easing from the center of a
Six foot ever-green hedge
As if thru an invisible doorway
From Zombie-land
Head first
Eyes like headlights
With high-beams on
Swiveling on too thin neck
Checking the scene
For a victim...
Emaciated shoulders
Pointy knee
Stretches
Ragged pant legs and
Ashy ankles
Flopping shoes… with
Empty lace-holes
Until finally
An entire man
Or what used to be one
Spies me…
But not before I see…
Just trying to get to work
But it’s the two-legged animals
That one must
Beware of
At five a.m.
In the city

≈

Police car cruising
The complex parking lot
Spotlight shines
But I don’t mind
Check me out Mr. Officer…
If you need to …
Cuz I’m not the one you are looking for
So he passes… as
Dusty Perpetrator
Rises
From inside
The dumpster across the way…
Scabby,
Crafty face
Uncomfortably resting under
Debris filled hair
Turns on
Boney neck… and
Spies me…
But not before I see…
Casually shut the door… and
Engage the locks
Cuz it’s the two-legged animals
That one must
Beware of
When the door knob jiggles
In the city

once again i am
staring at the black ceiling
listening to the sounds
that are creations of my mind
hearing silent humming
passing through my eardrums
telling myself to calm down
and forget all the regrets
forget all my terrible decisions
all my botched actions.

but i cant.

racing and running around my brain
through my eyes and ears
with every inhale and exhale
i hear, experience, feel
everything that has passed.
all the people i've hurt
all the insensitive comments

i lay in bed
hating myself more than i've ever had.

I knew it when I woke up today.
It was something in the way the sky seemed to droop
The way the rain was barely there, but it was.
I knew it when the sweat gathered on my neck as I rolled over, wondering what the point of leaving my bed was

I felt it as the image kept replaying in my mind as I tried to scrub myself clean of it
It was in the way the notes in the love song didn't have their usual meaning, but seemed to be the explanation as to all the reasons I didn't want to leave my bed.

I knew it'd be one of those days I'd put myself on autopilot
Trying to silence my emotions from the world
because they wouldn't know exactly what it felt like
They wouldn't know the nausea that is this recurring image
the droop of the sky that makes my heart sag along with it
The barely there rain that brings with it barely there tears.

I knew it when my eyes peeled open today.
Another day passing without you.