Sometimes I feel like I'm a paper key
And you're a giant, cold steel door
I don't really know why it is I try
To unlock the person that is inside
Perhaps that's all I'm meant to be
I'm nothing less, and nothing more
These words are met by heavy sigh
But at least I can honestly say I tried
I may be a ragged old paper key
But somewhere there's a paper door
Asking, wondering, pondering why,
"Paper key, where is it that you hide?"

I like to play a game of tick tack toes in your too small snow shoes

You like to play a game where you pretend not to love it

I like to pretend like we dont know how to turn these couch cushions into Schrodinger's box

You and I together - at once both alive to each other and dead to the world

Snowflakes and eyelids both fall softly as we re-watch, for the third time, your favorite sitcom

Your fingers sign syllables with mine that we have a long season ahead of us

If nothing else, take comfort in the rhyme
"The world is ending", was said the last time

I think too much and act too little
Stuck in some kind of twisted middle
Why do I hesitate to act on thought
When it brings answers I've so long sought?

I have stared long enough at my ceiling that I confuse it with the back of my eyelids

I have named each of the tree branch textured constellations found there

My point is, I do not know how to talk about the rabbit hole without tumbling down it

If there were any paint left to dry, the blanks fired from my eyes would make for the most curious graffiti

The word restless comes to mind, but it erroneously implies that being asleep is the same thing as feeling comfortable when alone

I have fallen deep into the back of my head

My eyes, a distant stained glass window, casting the rainbow bridge back to where I need to be

This is the way

This is the way I deal with it
The venom between the lungs which sinister stirs on the shortened breath of shaky self-esteem
The poetic palpitation pleading please write your wrongs before they putrefy
This is the way I deal with it
It is when words dry up that the ink bleeds
Dance around your feelings, call it a campfire
Let others at least roast with the remnants of yours
This is the way I deal with it
For some it is to light the fire
For others, to follow the smoke

A tick and a tock
The whispers of the clock
Does it count ahead?
Or remind you of the dead?

Dear god of feathers,

Father to flight
Cousin to pillows
Step-father to sneezes
Brother to quills
Other brother to bad poetry
Godfather to just going with it
And weird uncle to Icarus
It is to you that I direct this prayer

First of all, how dare you
How dare you give flight to a bird with a brain smaller than its eyeball and not to me
How dare you fill my pillow with stuffing that is somehow hot on both sides. How does that even work?
How dare you tickle my heartstrings long enough to make me watery eyed but not long enough to make me sneeze
Letting me love somebody who - wait, no, sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself
I'll start over, because unlike your pillows, I know how to keep my cool

Here is what I really wanted to say, oh god of feathers
Thank you for inked quills. Even if you bully me with your beauty, at least you give me an out
Thank you for reminding me that bad poetry and just going with it are really just the same thing
Thank you for Icarus, who fell from the sky believing 'soaring' and 'human' deserved to be used in the same sentence
I won't pretend to know what it is like to be you
Though, I know what it feels like when you're present

It is true that I will never be able to take to the heavens
But I have known love, and that gets pretty close

By the way, peacocks are crazy

Amen

She was an umbrella -
When upright, she shed burden with ease
But when caught upside down, she held it all in

My jersey is worn
My pants are torn
My pads are busted
My joints are rusted
My shoes are old
My gloves were sold
My gear is out of date
My helmets not so great
I may not be the norm
But I still wear my uniform

The saying goes: airports and funerals see the saddest people
The saddest people are those at Walmart at midnight
Dressed in the lazy pajamas of tomorrow morning
And baggy eyed in the missed responsibilities of today
Being at Walmart at midnight is like going to church on Tuesday
Your timing was a little off, but at least you tried
Aisles full of 'clearances' and 'don't look at me's'
(but also please acknowledge my existence)
And then I realize that I am at Walmart at midnight
I am sad. But I am not cat-food-road-map-cart sad
So, I got that going for me

Being kind is being thoughtful, the two are one in the same
Not every battle is uphill, be grateful for those who care
Clouds and wind are looming, shortly falls the rain
But a world without a washing wouldn't look as fair

And what does it mean when the rush of the fall comes with the acceptance that you could - and probably will - crash, but you leap regardless?

And what does it mean when her silence is the second loudest sound after your heartbeat?

And what does it mean when you realize you've never dreamt of having one?

And what does it mean when you have the same dream again and again with different faces?

And what does it mean when her face is the form, and the form is the dream?

And what does it mean when you realize hers is just the latest to fill the form?

And what does it mean when you wish the hurt of the dream over the truth of the day?

What breath he borrows from your question
That he might live between your punctuation
And Death, in its mercy, avert its gaze
A resurrective reprieve if only for as long as to say
He had a predilection for cold sores
For pushing harder than was required and giving more than was needed
When he appears to me, he shares a knowing glance
A promise of explanation to the sudden unanswerable absence
As he moves to speak, and share the elusive truth
I awake
I always wake

There is a silence to be heard
When at our loudest
There is a word to be shared
When at our quietest
There is a poem to be written
When at both

I once knew a white shoe girl
Who met a soft and quiet red shoe guy
She'd never seen a shoe but white
In fear and confusion, she ran away
She ran so far, her shoes bled red
Only once she'd lost his trail forever
Did she look down tiredly to see
Her shoes were no longer white
But red...
Just
Like
His

Its hard to see the whole picture
When you're just a part of it -
One color, one piece, one shape
Of a cosmic artwork
Strewn with stars and emptiness
Ever expanding and eternally mystifying

No words for thoughts too many
A hollow shell of times to come
Plug the holes with poems of own
My wishing well takes no penny
You've heard the stories of some
Of a time with no wings they've flown

You will want to tell her everything
And you will
But it will be in wordless ways
Passing by, just below the surface
Shallow enough to be just audible
Deep enough to be confused for something else
Faint enough to live in the time between blinks
Real enough, but never quite real enough

I set alarms in the morning
So that I can get in more words
With the version of you
That isn't with him

It was like any other day
Followed by any other night
The stars still shone down
The lights still lit town
And cars raced around
Things were lost, things were found
But on that day, unlike any other
Stood a proud but tired new mother
Holding her new child to her chest
Whispering softly, "You were worth the rest."

You are in the cracks in the sidewalk
I dare not step upon
You are in the leaf ladened winds
I care to listen to
You are in the way I tie my shoes
Or the way I don't
You are in the lock and the key
I don't know which  
You are gone but you are here
And I don't know which

You are a diamond among finite rocks
You are your perfectly mismatched socks
You are your favorite radio songs
You are a right, among many wrongs
You are a Queen, of hidden crown
You were lost, but now you're found

Sanctuary
Looks a lot like four walls and a bed
Sleepless
Sounds a lot like get out of my head

People are composed of little bits we can not do not see
Bits in baskets handed out, these are the bits that make up me
I don't know what you'll do with em, but I want to trust
Mine in exchange for yours, my stardust for your stardust
A fair and even trade, an open sentence plea
Please be good to the parts you can not do not see