i was too young to care
i'm old enough now to never forget
i miss you

what you see is not always what you get,
like a tiger scared by a house cat.
we sometimes forget
that appearances can be deceiving
just like we’re trained to master the act of concealing
the emotions that don’t serve our audience
in a zoo they all want
to see a tiger at its finest performance
no one knows the struggles of the tiger
since no eye sees behind the curtain where life seems to be a little harsher.

I dreamed we lived in Paris

You made it real
And I made it habitable

Giddy conversations in broken language

Upstairs and down sides streets

So much frivolous love

But the sun rose

Again

About as far West as you can go

And you and me?

We’ll never have Paris.

But oh, mon cheri

The dream of it.

the remains of the day, of lost chances, opportunities gone astray
and now irretrievably demised, a quiet day, of writing, thinking,
letting emotional waters fall over me, draining away the oils of mischance and in the few minutes before the morrow commences, the eyes tear, and the heart too, for there is so much pain and confusion that cannot be done away...and there are needs unmet...one feels lost by a wayside, at a remote railway station, awaiting a once-a-day train, that is always late...

Accused of being generous, and my guilt at this false accusation, makes me tremble, for what I wish for all of you, is the small and the greatest, both be satisfied, but not by taking, but by giving...my poor clarity pains me, but I compose not knowing the secret chords required to please...but my thoughts are of you, alone, solely, my concerns have fallen to a siding. We are all so far from each other in physical distancing, yet so oft, when you write in poem, in message, in shotgun short comments, you evoke my depths, provoke my raw, unprotected, unmasked emotions to rise up from gorge and abyss...hear your cries, the spoken and the ones between the lines, well hid in the spaces between the words, where the kernels and the residuals of the important things exist.

it is almost 11:59pm, July 8th. it is already tomorrow for many of  you who race ahead of time’s relentless measuring, and for some the evening young, you puzzled at this nearly midnight missive, will wonder what has.overcome me.

pure unadulterated emotional fluids, many flavored, washing away the veneers, the coverings, and wanting to fix things that my intelligence says you cannot, yet the urgency of my desire is so great, that I can barely swallow.

perilous close to revelatory disclosures, I will cease here, seize here, what cannot be spoken of, and to think upon the notion of a successful life, it’s constitution, composition and break off pieces of me, that I can give away to you freely to patch the holes, mend the readings, via the ether of skin comforting even if imaginary.

I am drifting into the tender part of the night, when deceit is pointless, and I argue with conviction with myself that in our lives that it will never be too late, but I know I contradict my prior musing...somewhere between the fact that time is a wasting commodity, precocious and precious, lives this idea within, that there is nothing that cannot be navigated, recompensed, even forgiven...the argument goes on, the tide of battle switching back and forth, and for now I must be satisfied with the meagerness of I can’t give up, be at ease by acknowledging defeat, not just yet, and the fast arrival of a clean slate is a chance, a draw, a ticket to ride, and, reaching is a wonderful idea, full of compromise, extra effort, and tomorrow I may yet reach one of us, by reaching inside of what churns within, and have the perfect words you require, desperate need, come forth easily...

I apologize for my being
Such a waste of love to you

Her hands are strong enough
To lift up even the mightiest man’s spirits
Callused from her endless work
But still always outstretched
To embrace those nearest to her

Her fingertips delicate enough
To make the same man
Believe that liquid fire exists
As they dance their way across his skin
After he’s made his way into her heart

Her legs steady enough
To carry society’s standards like air
It’s no wonder these legs
Will one day be the gateway to life
For future warriors and peacemakers alike

Never be ashamed to be a woman
Because every man came from our womb
We are just like men but with the fire of life
Raging so strong inside of us
That we cannot keep it contained inside

Dimensionally adjacent
To my "first world" angst
Life is on edge
Existing
Perhaps
Not spoken
But seen
The dream
Is
To
Survive

Now there were two of them
Separated between thousands
of read texts and timely
chats touched by sound
but not skin  
Awake in the others sleeping
Sleeping in the others awake  
Restless as they wait
Restless as they wait

She was stuck
in endless cycles
it seemed to her
more harm than good
to be a girl
in this world

When I was a child,
I was taught poetry wasn't mild,
It was deep as the sea,
And it seemed truly unachievable for me.
I was taught poetry had to rhyme,
Every single line, every single time.
So poetry seemed out of my reach,
Like chasing a seagull down a beach,
Jumping ever so slightly away,
Or soaring into the sunny day.

So I never thrived for what I thought would,
No, Could
Never be.

I guess now I'm fixing the mistakes of past me.

We commonly lay in curiosity and think consciously of biology and astronomy, how people get lost in the monotony,
how lives may change with more autonomy,
how to unravel human psychology and use the knowledge responsibly, how to create comradery and use this to increase the velocity
between two people caught in an apology to listen to the other audibly, sometimes the conversation ends in despondency but I’d rather live in truth with you than in dishonesty

thing is,
most of us here

write,
not to impress
but to express

that's why i love it here.

Unread my buried poems
in worldly words of mouth
Unread the drops of water
from spilled ink on the ground

The breath of mouth
You unread when covered
with the dying roses
unread the doubts
unread the doubts
unread the doubts
of the mouth

Unread the walls of caves
from tongues of creepy lions
Unread the burning love
when falling on the clouds
In dusty foam unread
Unread the words of mouth

your name is
forbidden in
my mouth
or in my heart
because when
i think about
you;

i'll cry a little more,
hurt a little stronger
love a little softer
because you no longer
make me feel sober

i'm drunk on the
memory of you

hey.
so, there was this one day, a few years ago.
i think you know which one i'm talking about.

listens for a moment

right! and i tripped-
that hasn't changed, i'm still a klutz-
and you grabbed my hand and dipped me
just the way your mama taught you in second grade
and pretended to kiss me?

listens for a moment. laughs

yeah. that was the day i knew you'd always be around.
so, even though you're leaving now...

sighs

whether or not you want to...

turns around, paces for a moment

i know you're not really leaving.
because you're still...

listens, rolls eyes

yeah, i know it's corny, but it's true.
you're still right here.

taps chest, right over heart

you can't leave that.

for all your earnest reflection
the water does not seem deep
I see no diver
no leviathan
no distant beckoning crevice
venting a volcanic heat

I see only an expansive shelf of smooth stone
capturing the pale grey illusion
of a limitless and still sky
about three inches below water

If you could read my mind,
You’d see a thousand papers
Filled with broken poetries
And deadbeat proses
Full of woeful verses
With mournful pieces
Of unfinished stories
That are yet to be written
And failed to be spoken;
If you could read my mind,
You’d hear horrible screams
And earsplitting weeps
From shattered dreams,
Kept in a nasty notepad,
Scribbled on a bed
Of bloodstained words,
Ringing in my head.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the shadows
That lurk within me;
You’d hear the bellows,
Screeching the words
“I’m tired,”
“I’m a failure,”
“I’m stupid –”
I know it sounds stupid,
It’s pathetically foolish
And seems like *******.
If you could read my mind,
You’d feel the tears
I had ever failed to cry;
You’d see the people
That make the weak weaker;
You’d see the monsters
That consume my head;
You’d hear the hollers
That failed to be freed;
You’d see the heart
That still bleeds and bleeds.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the face
I’ve failed to show back then,
The face I’ve faked back then.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see a character
I had ever failed to become
If you could read my mind,
You’d be able to read
A book you never wished
To touch and read,
But sometimes I still wish
Someone could read my mind.

frozen to death
its all i can see
smoke in the ear calls to my feens
Im here and Im there
making it hard to breathe
back and forth
falling up but always jumping back down

why or what can make this be seen.

A toast to life
Sad and confusing but beautiful at last

spittoon roof
on a cusp of a balloon
the freak of a seashell

Break my bones;
cut my throat.
Pull me open,
learn the ropes.

Breath me in;
taste the fear.
Shank my skin;
stand and cheer.

Kick my head;
let me bleed.
Unbolt my veins;
enjoy the read.

Gouge my eyes;
punch my face.
Wrap me up
in your embrace.

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

a thousand apologies more will not
make spoken words unheard

Perhaps I had lived,
Just as petals
Of a flower
In autumn.