this lyric licks your face,
leaving you-salty-caramel
smiling, while listening to Janis, singing
”(You Don’t know What It Is Like) to Love Somebody”

no babe,
nothing lasts,
not you, not love,
not me,
no matter how hard you
rhyme, theorize,
forget and memorize,
life’s only constant is
constantly refreshing all,
endlessly remembering
and forgetting how to
hold on to a heart, to love...

sometime a breeze, usually a hurricane,
comes along, prying your hands
off what you got, or,
prying your eyes away
onto something new, cause
that’s just the way it is
with human foolishness,
you gotta
“to walk, talk,
rhyme and theorize,
forget and memorize,
always refreshing,
knowing that
nothing lasts”


until it maybe does...









———————————————————————————————

“To walk, talk, rhyme and theorize, to forget and memorize, always refreshing, knowing nothing lasts, except things that last forever, last never, poems and decisions needing completion, choices, reordering songs loved best, replete all sorrowed pains, uplifting prayers, hallelujah hymns, last rites....”^



—————————————————————-

How does it feel
When life doesn't seem real
And you're floating about on your own
Your life seems uncertain
So you draw the curtain
Pretending there's nobody home
Don't theorize
Look in your eyes
They can't tell lies
Though you may disguise what you see
The mirror is free
Song birds are talking
And runners are walking
Be yourself
Be yourself
Be yourself
Be yourself
We need a tutor
So we built a computer
And programed ourselves not to see
The truth and the lying
The dead and the dying
A silent majority
Don't theorize
Look in your eyes
Are they telling lies
The ones that they learn on T.V.
What a way to be free
Be yourself
Be yourself
Then you can free yourself
Free yourself
See yourself
Then you can see yourself
Be yourself


a.s.

the portmanteau has eloquence,
evocative imbrication that
iced espressos & Italian romances are rosary complexities of constricted wants
hushing the bipartisans;
that
I theorize poinsettia's
on a careened need of "fermented" relief
while my nervousness is suggesting you to pick up the suitcase
and believe every word spilling from my mouth
you used to intricate/ scythe
and the interior now contrasting in
a winter tangerine
containment, "alleviate pheromone" to inhale
another vision that wasn't even close
to believing


- G

we live in foggy car windows, spitting out white lies that turn in vain,
white lies that turn black
like your hair, as it caresses your shoulders
like my hands, as every cell in my being reaches for you
but the cytoplasm current is too strong, and swallows me whole
like if your words were quicksand
i would sink
i wouldn’t fight the pull
i would let each needle and thread stitch me to the right side of your brain
with no anesthesia
nothing can hurt more than tiny paper cuts that we don’t know about,
you are the hand sanitizer and lemon juice that drips into my open wounds
i try, and try to shake you away
i don’t recognize my own bed when i sleep alone
my dreams are more of a reality than the actual person laying next to me

i feel the cliff under our feet, i push you first,
but your sweaty palms grab my wild fang t-shirt
and i’ve never felt more alive than when falling to my death
leave the world behind
i don’t know if that is a blessing or a curse
leave me behind?
i don’t know if you are a blessing or a curse
let my lungs fill with each particle of quicksand until it overflows into my throat, spills out of my mouth
onto your lap

babe, i’m not trying to fix you even though i always try to fix people
you like me with makeup and rose petals
i still take rolls of tinfoil, clump them together, and swallow them whole
to fill my aching hunger, the number on the scale means nothing when you are dyslexic
please don’t see me with hives and weeds
that grow from my ankles, straps on me
with a ***** on the end
begging you to call out my name
with mouths open, and gentle kisses in the elevator after i met your mom
pull the bandaid off, rip my onion layers off

i still feel more at home
on crowded buses where i am the only, white person
white person walking in low lit alleys with gazing, men
men beckoning me to come closer till their hands slip, in
in hidden closets dating the opposite, ***
*** in unfamiliar places with temporary, homes
homes in hospital beds and drugs pumped into my, veins
veins in your arms, is where i am still trying to feel at home
trying to feel
trying...

honey, i’m sorry if i held your hand too long
if this can’t be as good for you as it is for me
cut me from my shambles
you didn’t have to say you loved me
i read it between your poetry
yet, i still hold my own hand, draped across my torso
sometimes gravity pulls my hand up my ribs, to my breast
so i can feel my heartbeat
maybe this time i won’t forget how to...breath
i will stop digging up my own grave
just to inspect my broken corpse, to try and rebuild this temple
the bricks don’t fit anymore
too many fragments taken away

like my body was used for science
the doctors diagnosed me with a hypothesis
it read if with you, then without me
what is a hypothesis without the theory?
theorize goodbye kisses at red lights
research the car filled with the smell of *** and morning
question **** stains on my sheets
or tear stains on my shirt you wear

i cried for the first time with you there
you were laying next to me in bed, my arms around you
you were asleep
and i wiped my tears on your shoulder without you knowing
i cried to the rhythm of your breathing
spoke hymns in your ear you would never hear
confessed my love, gave you my all
your eyes never opened
weaved your hair in my hands
while i unthreaded stories of my past traumas,
giving you one piece at a time
your heart never flickered
tinkerbell lost her flicker when she didn’t get attention
but how much was too much until it suffocated her?
my thighs in knots from straddling you

I have fears – they are very real to me. But contrary to what the some may think, my greatest fears are not rejection and abandonment.

My greatest fear is that everyone will continue to turn their heads while victims are screaming.

My greatest fear is that survivors will express exactly how they feel, whether verbally, or acting out, and they will continue to be invalidated by being told they need medication and therapy in order to control their behavior, thereby reinforcing what they learned as children.

My greatest fear is that victims will continue to be silenced by therapy, or numbed from medication, and the clinicians, the researchers, will continue to ‘theorize’ and develop treatment that, in the long-run, is not helpful because they, themselves were NOT abused and have no idea what really should be done.

My greatest fear is that survivors will continue to be lab rats in the development of treatment that is not helpful, they will continue to drop out, time after time, and they will continue to self-harm, ‘repeat the trauma’, and possibly commit suicide because they believe no one cares.

My greatest fear is that the statistics will grow and no one will do anything about it because they do not know what to do. These are the facts:
             A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds
             More than five children die every day as a result of child abuse.
             Approximately 80% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4.
             It is estimated that between 50-60% of child fatalities due to maltreatment are not recorded as
             such on death certificates.
             More than 90% of juvenile ****** abuse victims know their perpetrator in some way.
             Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines, within all
             religions and at all levels of education.
            About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing
            the horrible cycle of abuse.
            About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one
            psychological disorder.

And this reflects only what is reported. Imagine what that percentage would be if all of the unreported cases were included.

And of the millions of children that survive the abuse, many grow up to be adults who are able to put it behind them, succeed and present themselves as an acceptable member of society, and many of them do not. But what are we DOING about it? When will people stop turning their heads? When will we finally stop, look and listen to these children being abused and to the adults who were abused as children?

When will we, society, decide that child abuse, and ****, and ****** assault are important, and affect millions of lives every year, and that it can be just as deadly as cancer. When will we finally stop whispering and turning our heads and actually face it and do something to stop it, and effectively treat those who ‘survived’?

I hope it happens in my lifetime, and I hope I can make a difference!

Romantic arson,
a thousand lovers burning
to the blooming flowers
of my accelerant:
amoral, senseless rage.

Because I do not
or will not consider
another vice
for your confessional.

Come shed indifference.
Thumb the holy water font.
Theorize inconclusive evidence
of life apart from love.

Crawl into
the vacant church
which is my heart.
Idolize Me.

epitomize
and optimize
imitate
and recalibrate
streamline
and recombine
the evolutionary "line"

fireflies  
and theorize
circulate
and gyrate
guideline
and divine
the galaxy and the stars

moonrise
and clockwise
death rate
and procreate
sunshine
and lifeline
laws of nature are defined

maximize
and re-size
penetrate
and migrate
bloodline
and decline
the story of our world

allies
and despise
prostate
and dictate
enshrine
and benign
generations throughout time

endings
and beginnings
losing
and winnings
and everything
in between
is what we find

These subcategories of articles
That separate theory from fact
Are lines that, really,
Are quite unclearly drawn.
Categories for theory and qualia
That put me under the impression
That everything is based on a conjecture
And it's all in my head.
Qualia is defined as being subject
To your sense perceptions
Brought on by stimulation of phenomena.
Theory is a system of ideas used
To explain something.
But don't we theorize everything,
Based on our qualia?
If we perceive that a rose is red,
And we theorize that this type of rose
Will always be red because we will always see it red,
Does that really make it red?
Is my red your green,
And you only call it red because to you need to call it something?
Or is that just our theory that to be comfortable
Is to fit in and be accepted by everyone?
And that to challenge what is called fact
Is to be rejected?
Where do we draw the line
In these thickly worded and sinking articles?
Is it where we can finally say that
Everything is based on theory that our qualia subjects us to?
If so, am I under the correct theory that
I really am alone?
That my sense perceptions just play tricks on me
So I don't think to hard, or go insane?
Is insanity just theory based on qualia?
Or maybe I should be under the theory
That being a thinker like this
Subjects me to the unpleasant qualia of a perceived headache.

In dreams
Allowing oneself
To be
Within
Without interruption,
Without distraction,
Without aberration,
Without confusion,
Is to dance among with stars of space
Void of the fear of the death.

In dreams
Swimming among the
Stellar ethers
Of interplanetary mysteries,
We see all that
Was,
All that can be,
But not,
All that will be.
Here we theorize
Or potentiality
Floating in the first and last
Of
Spaces.

But,
Because of fear,
We see such places as Death.
The deepest oceans
Hold monsters beyond imagination.
The darkest caves
Pits of fall jagged, wet, and sharp.
The dankest of houses
Holds pasts too painful to see.
Because of the fear of Death
We hold ourselves back
From being free.

A light in the dark
Is but
A comfort.
Trust oneself.
See through the dimness.
Let go.
All angels who have been
And are and will be
Have walked the dark road,
Washed in light when they arrive.

Are they they?
Are we we?
Am I you and you me?
Can it be
That we are the same,
Just molds of longitudinal and longitudinal
Circumstance?
Close your eyes and become
What you see.
Feel the cool water brush
Under your fingertips.
Above, the clouds break.
A shot of light.
Presence of a million souls unite.

We have been.
We are.

Do not let
The Fear of Death
Tell us

We Will Not Be.

The day begins when
moonlit sky
smothers the land in darkness
while sun
is shy.

I light
the hundred candles
slowly
gazing into each one
one at a time
time, the measure of
each flame.

Time is that length of stride
It is the path upon which
all life ambles
fighting the mysterious current
but unable
to avoid
the departure we call inevitable.

Each candle's light is power
it cannot be measured with the mind
we ask time of the flame's life
but
does the flame truly ever die?
I see a hundred flames and
from where did they come?
I imagine them as humans.

Does a man, born into darkness,
imagine the convenience
of sight?
Does a man, born alone,
imagine the blessing
of another?
Men dream of an afterlife
of a god
of an in-born purpose to one's life
so,
what is so impossible about that?

We measure the machine's intelligence
by its ability to think for itself,
but
surely the irony
is in what gave us such ability?
Or in whether thinking for ourselves
"is" life?
It is too much for a man
to give in
to imagining
the true power of creating,
when to create,
a man can only put carved wooden head
on carved wooden body
and **** the strings
in so doing, create life.

The atheist
will latch onto the popular reason
against a father
and will tell us that
we must not believe in anything ruling over us
believe instead that this made us
this
anarchy
luck
randomness
something
I don't know
lets theorize
let's not answer the question yet
let's not fool ourselves
let's not trust that book
let's make our own
let's make ourselves
let's change man to woman
let's ignore the conscience
we're not alone in that
laws are meant to be broken
when we can't make anything new
let's...
let's...
let's...
destroy the world,
because that's also an unbroken rule
and humanity
is already
broken.

I scratch my head.
What do I know anyway.
After all, I'm no one important.

The herd moves:
he who leads the herd, is no less the herd,
than he who worships the herd.

The first candle goes out.
My eye cannot measure its lacking.
Candle... after candle... and the next candle
snuffed in its own time.
It is only when the tenth candle goes that I notice the difference.
The room grows darker, like a misguided world.
When the last candle fades,
I feel the shame of destruction weigh heavy upon my soul,
but,
then I see it,
reaching beneath the door.
I ****** open the windows
and a wondrous dawn's light floods the room.

Yes, I forgot.
Where does the flame come from?
I will never know,
but I know, whenever it seems darkest,
something will catch fire
and the world will be illuminated
once more...

A Ballad For A Thin Man.

Understood backwards. Lived forward. Life.
Haunted by diverging others. Us but not. Wraiths.
Ghosts of what if? Who then? What might have been?
Leave room. Turn left. Lovely house, wife, retirement.
Leave same room. Turn right. Shack, loneliness, poverty.
Theorize games. Physik quanta. Slide down strings.
Into Wonderland, Oz, Middle-Earth. Narnia.
All the places that don’t exist and matter the most.
Where doors open up to impossible possibilities.
Fight your way through every day. Pit bull of potential.
Just do your work and be kind.* That is a separate peace.
We may be others in other universes, but here we are just us.
**** it up. Love your life. Do what you must. Soldier on.
Real realities can really hurt. Take it like a Man. Or Woman.
Be grateful for your trials. Trials are you. Struggle.
Mount the philosopher’s donkey backwards, advance.

a bean or a pod having motivation inside recreating
life more energetic and clever than any parent
then get ate or flushed down ten million toilets
infiltrate society with words because it is in sewers
sanguine and quixotic indifferent
a breath is toxic to me
I venture Walter Mitty like fantasies theorize
tomorrow when I forgot yesterday,
introduce substances to discourse entertainers
abstract the emphasis transcendentally
blue-sky enterprises authentically created  as I
turn around and cry.

i can picture it
dusty desert roads
old motels when the
sky opens up and the
holes in the tent leak
the empty rooms and
bare mattresses of a
creaky single wide

a patch of wall where
a cross once hung for
so long the wallpaper
holds its faded image

payphones and
diner booths
card games and
cold pews

(sunbeams dreamily
landing in your eyes)

i can almost taste
cola flavored slushies
cans of beans and
cigarettes and coffee

and smell burnt pancakes
egg casserole the way grace's
mom made it at home
secondhand smoke a bonfire
made from incense and an
abandoned white church

i can hear the songs
the laughter tears and
screams to heaven over
rumbling rubber tires

i know the way they
talk and theorize
argue and laugh
cry and pray

i've felt it before
somewhere here
and there in
twinges of time

but nobody ever claimed
you could wander the
world in one day or that
writing a gospel was easy.

No way for her to ascertain
the ashen carpets of erasure
randomly assigned to the tapestry of garish
hope's circumstantial hopscotch squares
with a body already incommodiously perched
upon legs submissive to the here and now's
drunken mercury
Alone she has been left to sweep up
the gravity that hobbles optimism
in the hops of faith around the ambivalence
of horizontal authenticity
Left alone to weep on twitching roots
and theorize a rally bloom in spite
of severance in tune with sparks of closure
The shadow of her sunken chin emits
embroiled tributaries of respawning yesterdays
Queen of checkerboard embodiment
her rhythmic rule entails zephyrs of endurance
in the vacuum of fulfilling prophecies

sometimes you wish things were different
that every day wouldn't wake up the same homely person
somehow you could be ****** into something less generic
less like your life, where each boring second

is dripping a canyon in your heart's ice age
theorize that maybe you speak a hidden language
something ancient, that can unlock dead secrets
by virtue of how your eyes drift in a set of hexes

if you drew white triangles on the right misty morning
you'd wake up anew to a beautiful sun dawning
and a garden of different faces to choose from
pick one that smells of fresh rain on iron

that never distorts into angry clouds spitting caustic words

you dream about that perfect jawline and how the hair falls just right

but then

you remember

oh

...

this isn't my perfect picture, this is human
this is
bleeding
broken
bruised
a flurry of imperfections
a talented accident
an impossibly improbable confluence of the shy words love speaks
planted by chance
abruptly lucky
forcing a hand out of the ground to grasp the air that flees
as though you knew this destination was perilous
by virtue of murky precognition through your electric embryo
as though your mother had muttered all the secrets before she killed you
and sent you again through the white door to cold air
so now you chant and you pose and you powder your nose
forcing yourself behind glass
into a frame
stood up straight
leering into the mirror just to steer yourself queerer
fighting natural finesse [in compatible] dresses
used to be so perfect
under the knife you're worthless
wishing in wells and walking on shells
someday you just might reverse it

In meadows, rich with clover, I have seen them here before;
those industrious little creatures at their pollinating chore.
Now the land is strangely silent, was Rachel Carson right?
Are we killing all the bumblebees? Have they made their final flight?
There are those who point to climate change as the source of all our pain.
If the bumble bee is dying, it is heat stress that’s to blame.
Others theorize a virus as the cause of their demise;
an illness ravaging the hives and emptying our skies.
I even heard one scientist make the hypothesis
that our overuse of cell phones is the cause of all of this.

Could it be that our usage of glyphosate is to blame;
As GMO spreads on our fields, our crops are not the same.
Monsanto is an Agri-Corp with bought friends in D.C.;
A “friendly Legislature insures profitability.
The F.D.A. is slow to act; Congress drafts obstructive laws.
It seems to me, just possibly, they already know the cause.

The highest of all with serving rounds
never ending desire of expectation bound
Hating qualities of whom they despise
trying to get approval impious surmise

They follow and try to please all in sight
watch carefully as they over load on trite
Compelling the audience with their drunken imperfections
watching them tumble over barrels and start theorize direction

when you're there i pine for you
like a stupid little intellectual
i theorize your face

make up stories about your eyelids
how they close like a hardcover book
sheltering your wisdom from the judge

you let it spill out to me
your ***** brine
tenderizing my leathery exterior
into broken down, cured meat
you freed me with your trust
i was savory, salty with your laughter on my tongue

you've been waiting for me
but i cannot come
if we are to ever be in the same room again, together
i would smother you and oppress you with
love, tainted by imaginary things
like the fable of us
like my contentment

like your hand in mine
                                         clasping surely,
                                                                ­     silently,
                                                                ­                                                    home

You're living out a death wish
And I am too
With every cigarette we smoke
Every sip of poison that runs us thru

And life plays this ruse
Where it pretends to be big
But it's all bark and no bite when we remember our future in the clouds

We're excited to live and even more
so to die
The road to awe
The greatest surprise
Wonder we might
About what's upon the other side
I feel we already know
We already see a meager slice

i theorize what we'll find
Is the rest of the whites in our eyes
That ****** mother type white hidden beneath our iris
The teacher of our pupil
Blue vines intertwined with immaculate prospects
Having never kissed oxygen

This is not a love story
This is death
This is the illusion of an end
This life is the speck of gold in a deep brown eye
Small and obnoxious
Beautiful and important

I am speaking of the gateway
To behold our unbloomed glory

Late afternoon, tween twilight but before the dusk
in time for afternoon prayers, ******* followed by
the evening service, The Name reached out unto me
to touch my face, wake me from a lifelong slowing slumber.

My man! My good man, I’ve been numbering those days,
you will have no disagreement that you’re quite the closer,
close by, the chapter finale of our story, your living, a well
thumbed novella, enjoyed by many, and a favorite o’mine.

Do not restless rustle, no busing bustle, the Set Table^ cleared,
tabulations done, the sums and dividend distributed, in sync,
your words well distributed, remainders to be dearly shared, saved,
showings of great love, valleys of feeling, these your humble attire.

Look how easy the (our) words come, the fluids of a man for which
we have been long patient be awaiting, the company all in readiness,
for confession and days of permanent new creation, fast beginnings,
think on it, to be called child once more, how glorious this unknown!

Dimensions recorded, measurements tailor-taken, silk tuxedo deep bleu, luxe, a hint of violet, here-presented, patent, the leather for blue suede winged dancing shoes no airport dare ask you remove, before they beg you, say, save grace, just once, pronounce The Name, the one of Seventy!

To walk, talk, rhyme and theorize, to forget and memorize, always refreshing, knowing nothing lasts, except things that last forever, or last never, poems and decisions needing completion, choices, reordering songs loved best, repleting all sorrowed pains, uplifting prayers, hallelujah hymns, last rites...

You, a world to us, a microcosm of a triathlon life, juggling the many, last of a lineage who could^^ pray, making rain, reading poetry to angels, giving comforting absolution for making storms, plagues, tidal waves, volcanoes, concentration camps, death marches, stillborn children, incurable sadness.

Quick when the curtain calls, listen close for the cue, toe the mark,
take position, hands upward joined, eyes down, ahead are fearless words,
a soliloquy lasting hundreds of years, balances aligned, only now you  needed, to make mercy allocations, putting paid next to all my periods, all in place, properly positioned, now comes an  evening song.

then to commence the writing of only love poetry forevermore.


5:00pm
Sabbath May 23
5780

i was born in the middle of a question
one of those that people theorize about
one of those science tries to explain and religions preach over:
'why do you hate us so much?'

see, my black skin was made in my mother's womb
and that hate has been passed to me through generations
through my father's blood
and onto this skin of mine.

it resides in my fingertips, my digitals contain ****** scars
behind my teeth there are agonized screams
and inside my womb are the children i had taken away from me.

why is it that even though i can move my arms freely, -
i can throw a punch if i lose myself - i can still feel
the shackles around my wrists?
why is it that my neck feels tight at the sight of every tall tree bench?
why
is
it
that you still hate us so much.

even after all this time i can still see, trust me, even though you try to hide it
i can still see it in your pale eyes
and in every thin lipped smile
in every unwelcome touch to my head
in every single word you say to me,
in every bullet you put in my chest
in every filthy word that comes out of your mouth
in every idea you try to spread
in every step you take behind me at the store
in every single right that  you deny me
i can still feel the hate.

and it is the god's honest truth
that i will, whatever it takes, try to make sure
that the black child that shall bloom from my *****
and that shall not be taken away from me
will be able to live with the blessing that is its skin
and without the burden that is your existence.

we both know and accepted the theory of birthmarks, that they reveal how you died in your past life, and the more birthmarks you have only means you've been blessed to be reincarnated as human once again.

it all started when i noticed the birthmark on your neck, and you told me you come up with ideas on how you got it. my favorite one was when you told me it was because you drowned in the ocean, you said it could be the reason why you never learned how to swim because you kept saying you hate the water.

and then i showed mine, which was not as interesting as yours, a shoe-shaped mark on my right arm, i said that i died because i loved rollerskating that i accidentally got hit by a bus, hitting me on my right side first, and yet until now i still love rollerskating, i guess i was a daredevil in the past.

if we ever get to meet someone who has a birthmark we instantly theorize about them, this was our bond, it was what brought us closer to each other.

we were sitting on a park bench, it was winter, and you keep staring at your gloves like it's the first time you've worn something on your hands.
i asked you if you were okay. you hesitated but after a few seconds you took off your left glove and i saw something i have never seen before.

it was a mark, but not a birthmark, if it was then i should have known about it from the start, it was dark and screams violence at one glance.
i wanted to ask what happened but my mouth was voiceless, but you started to speak up.

you said it was a reminder of pain and sorrow, that people who you love could hurt you. you said that it was a mark just like any other birthmarks on your body, only that it reveals how we die in our present and how unlucky we are to be reincarnated as a human who only knows how to love but never to learn.

it's tempting sometimes.
the impulse to withdraw all the money from my bank account
and drive down I70 until the scenery changes,
the impulse to wander without bothering to find anything
let alone myself.
the impulse to disappear.
but impulses are just impulses,
i think this is just the way my mind convulses
and, obviously, i can't do any of those things.
or maybe i just feel like i can't do any of those things.
i mean, i've got responsibilities i've got people counting on me.  
i can't just up and leave my life
even though sometimes i'm itching to like i've got poison ivy
crawling all over my skin.
speaking of poison, i've heard people theorize that
maybe oxygen is slow-acting poison, taking all of our lives
to **** us under the guise of "natural causes"
i think if you stay anywhere long enough
the air becomes polluted, the air gets toxic.
my highschool art teacher,
who was incidentally a real conspiracy theory kind of guy,
once told our class that we're all too locked into our realities.
that life is only what we perceive it.
i had snickered along with the rest of the class,
the rest of the unwilling congregation to his soapbox pulpit,
because that's what people do when they're uncomfortable.
now i guess i wish i was a little less locked into my own reality.
i guess i wish i could be the kind of person
who bought plane one-way plane tickets and could be reckless
without first getting tangled in the repercussions.
i think the problem with running is
that no matter where i ran i'd still be me.
most people tie their feet to the train tracks of inevitability,
they will build a house there until it falls down around them.
they will live there until they're evicted,
with their hands still clenched in the sheets
and their feet planted in the backyard.
most people never leave where they grew roots.
but, see, the problem with roots is that unless you want to die
you can't ever pull them out completely.
i am always going to be from somewhere.
i am always going to be from here.
i am always going to be myself.
but life is a work in progress and i'm ******* working on it,
i'm not where i want to be
but as long as i know where i've been,
i don’t ever have to go back to where i was again.
my head is so crowded that sometimes i think it's exceeding its occupancy.
i think that i'm going to start having to get rid
of pieces of myself to make everything fit.
sometimes i just want to lose all my thoughts along the interstate
like i lose them halfway through a poem
i'm not quick enough to write down.
my head is like a graveyard with good ideas
buried under cracked tombstones that no one leaves flowers on.
sometimes i think of my brain as a black hole,
a place where light gets lost and doesn't come back out the same.
sometimes i think of my brain as a moratorium,
a place where dreams go
to get dressed for their funeral processions.
but sometimes i think of my brain as midas,
any idea can be golden if i get my hands on it.
sometimes i just want to hold my coalmine heart so tightly
that all that's left is diamonds.
the thing is, sometimes my brain is a like a black hole
and sometimes my brain is like a galaxy.
on my good days i'm golden, on my bad days i'm falling apart
and i lose a couple more more of my pieces every time i hit the ground.
but it's all internal; i think if i were to self-destruct
it wouldn't even make a sound.
and so often i think of the world as a battlefield,
i think i was born in the trenches instead of the home front.
i think i found myself in the worst place to get lost.
we went to bed as children
and woke up with the world on our shoulders
we went to bed as innocent and woke up as soldiers.
and you can't save people from themselves,
even though we've spent the last few millennia trying to.
we're like that sometimes, we never learn.
and even when i was drowning six feet under gasping for air,
you never needed to save me from myself,
my shadow is more than just the reflection of somebody else.
so go on, get your armor
so go on, get your battle scars
so take aim, so don't be ashamed
it's uphill sometimes but i kind of think we're getting there,
even if i don't always know where is.
sometimes you don't sink or swim,
you just thrash around until you start floating
our life jackets are all labeled "here's to hoping, here's to coping"
so **** your horoscopes.
you only listen to it when it tells you what you want to hear anyways.
so don't go to bed, kid, stay wide awake.
it's better for dreaming, it's better for scheming.
nobody is going to hand you your destiny,
you've got to ******* fight for it.
and we're all learning how to open our eyes
when we get pulled under by the tide and lick the salt off our teeth.
and if you're searching for purpose,
for something that might be worth this,
i can tell you where not to look.
kid, i've been there.
**** it, most days i still am there.
i built a house out of deflated life preservers there
and was surprised when it didn't float me home.
but this is what i know now:
i know i have a choice in how i look at this world.
am i going to focus on the brutal or the beautiful?
because for all the ugly there is so much that’s still lovely,
so don't let this ******* of a world steal your bright eyes,
cutting your eyelashes down to size.
don't let this ******* of a world tell you to settle for anything.
and when they tell you about icarus like a warning sign,
ask them "what good is a cautionary tale that doesn't **** up?"

Dearest,

       You wrote me a letter once and the last line said

       "I choose you."

       The words were musical to me, but they felt more like they were
       meant for you. I think that is what made them special, that they
       were the words you needed to hear whispered in your ear and so
       your heart opened and whispered them into mine, because just
       maybe I needed them too.
  
       Well I've written some poems for other people before in days
       gone by and I've poured words meant for me into the open hearts
       of other people just to find that their jar was already full, or
       perhaps it wasn't opened in the first place.

       And now I know you're scared because what if their veins hadn't
       been full of predetermined sweet nothings given to them
       unnecessarily by others in this confusingly backwards way? What
       if their jars had been open and accepted my insecurities just to
       sing reassurances into my ear?

       I'll entertain Fate on my doorstep for long enough to tell her
       that I am glad, for if she had allowed this to happen I would
       have been unhappy. Fate crafted the individuals before you
       with a fatal flaw because she knew that I would have
       ultimately been disenchanted, downtrodden, disturbed. And so
       with a gleam in her eye she led me to you.

       And perhaps you'll theorize that this, then, was no choice. Fate
       did it for me, yes? My response is as follows:

       I chose you long before Fate threw her hat into the ring. Or
       perhaps she had thrown it into the ring and blew the wind just
       so on that first summer day when I saw your face, red-cheeked
       and blue eyed, brown-haired and loud-laughing. Even if she
       had, she still let me choose. For Fate only modifies the
       environment, but the heart is a complex, wild thing that is not
       to be tampered with. So when a million fireworks rattled my
       ribcage the second I saw you, Fate smiled. Her plan had
       worked. I did not decide that I would feel a small earthquake
       inside of my body every time I laid eyes on you. But my heart
       chose you. Unashamedly. Instantly.

       Perhaps it once chose the others, too. But upon seeing that they
       were not for me, it paused. It took a while, but it moved on.  
       Then there was you. It was afraid at first, but Fate took it by the
       hand and showed me that your jar was not empty. And then
       you showed me that it contained everything I needed to hear
       within it.  So I did not move on. I chose you. I choose you, still.
       Forever. Until your jar is full and Fate tells me that it is time to
       close the curtains, draw the shutters, lock the front doors and,
       someday, leave the house.

       But something tells me that I will begin to send postcards to my
       former address. And perhaps I'll stumble upon the threshold,
       years later, and find a jar.

       And I'll choose you.

once upon a clock
my house was but a pile
of cards
dealt badly to me
or so i thought
but as time rolled by
riding a mossless rock
i was inclined to think
i could rebuild my deck
using a straighter arrow
and some crazy glue
and make a  cosy nook to
theorize and dissertate
on the new and better
portion, for to sit on
my plate.
for as the wind blows
it can bring fortunate things
of gilded dust and dedelian
wings.
sonetimes it is the choice that matters.
and somtimes it is ok
to just sit on the dock
and watch it all blow away
but don't watch kettkes.for they are just introvert and shy... now the toaster however
is a pop up kinda guy.
ok so now this garden path is leading somewhere a tad weird
down past the zen all calm and white mountains
to the quirky and a little bezerky secret garden
wall and locked where all the gnomes have ned kelly beards, and the lions are dandy and a titch randy.
the dragon snaps are snippity and the roses
are just **** posers and the camelia's would **** for a good cup of tea.

but enough of the garden tour,
we needs must be giving attention to the
matter at hand tho sleight as it be
we have a house of cards to rebuild