I'm standing on a ledge
Looking out over a vast ocean
I feel small, insignificant.
Yet I admire its beauty, it's wonder.
What secrets lurk beneath those depths,
Will they ever discover,
all there is to know?
These feelings aren't shallow,
they aren't just meat and bone,
These thoughts aren't skin deep.  
Think deeper
Deeper than the deepest trench
I'm standing on the sand
At the edge of the water
As the waves from the ocean
caress the shore
The water sweeps over my feet
I feel calm, soothed.
There's something in the ocean
I just find relaxing
It seems to heal all the wounds
Even though the salt may sting
I know that these wounds
will fade with time.
The sunsets over the ocean
revealing a beauty in which only eyes can behold
turning skies to the most captivating of pinks and soft oranges.
But it's the reflection of the moon upon the water.
That totally connects with my soul.
A light shining brightly over a vast ocean, yet it still gives hope,
that there are many beautiful moments within life.
No matter how vast or deep the ocean of your mind is.
I can hear waves crashing as I close my eyes.
Serenading my ears with its song,
they aren't rough like the pain that swirls inside of me.
it feels as though it is cleansing me of my sins,
with each wave that I hear
Another terrible feeling washes away.
All my hopes and dreams though far and distant.
Just may be reachable.
All I have to do is sail to reach them.
but for now, I'll just admire the view.
look at these stars from a distance,
one day I will shine just as bright
Somewhere in the future of my life.

©2017 Written By Benji James

I want you.

I want to know your favorite color and your middle name.
I want to know about the people you hate and how you found out you loved women.

How do you make your sandwiches?
What foods do you like and can’t pronounce?
What places do you want to see and what words do you know but can’t explain the definition?

Can we cuddle?  
And by cuddle I don’t just mean lay on you, because trust me, I can do that without cuddling. By cuddling I mean let me hold you till you forget your problems and I finally stop talking.

I want to call you baby. I want to sit in a room, with you, listening to jazz music.

I want to feel your pulse and you feel mine,
I want to hear your heartbeat dance to the rhythm of the same songs on the corny playlist on Spotify I made that remind me of you.

The Special Playlist,
(I call it)
The Makeout Playlist,
(you do).

I want to only be about to hear our synced hearts
and the slow songs
and the weight of the world leaving our shoulders
plopping onto the floor with your worries
and the jacket I took off of you when you first came in.

I want you to tease me
because I significantly failed as a former lesbian
because I’ve never watched Orange is the New Black
or The L Word
“You’re not Lesbian certified”
You’ll tell me.

I want to speak to you
In my limited German vocabulary
and watch gay movies
and let you tease me even more
when you find out I can’t sit through *** scenes
even the really gay ones,
and ****** isn’t my thing.
It’s okay though,
Your laugh is cute.

And I want to kiss you.
I want to kiss you like
we’re those ***** *** teenagers
from Romeo and Juliet,
(but with a better ending).
I want to kiss you like
there’s nobody else in the world
And there aren’t people who hate me for liking you
And your family won’t care if you love me because
****,
I want to kiss you.

Let me buy you flowers,
and want to take you on dates.

Let me take you to McDonald’s
and order off the dollar menu because
I believe in treating my girl right
(And I get an employee discount)

let me tell you why I churches make me nervous
and how I don’t believe in God and
why I don’t like birthday parties
And how I want to have my cake and eat it too
Even though I hate cake
And prefer cupcakes,
But nothing is better than cake if that’s you.

I want you to know why I played trumpet for three years then switched to baritone,
I want to know if you’ve ever done drugs and how it felt.
What are your morals and values?
What’s your utopia?

I want to send you goodnight texts and spend hours talking about nothing
And dance offbeat with you because
neither of us could have rhythm to save our lives.
I’ll let you scream fight me when I let you win in games I would destroy you at because you get that goofy smile when you think you’ve won.

Introduce me to your family and I’ll show you mine.
Let me see your baby photos and we can see foreign movies on Netflix.
Let’s go out for coffee and ask deep questions.


I don’t care, okay?
I just want you.

Lord:

no bequest requested.
no grant, no teach,
no need or greed asked
just a hey listen up,
if your attention is elsewhere

this is an
all-on-my-own
prayer that
my eyes only utter,
my tongue,
self-silenced,
can only watch
and must approve

in fact,
this is more
of a post
than a prayer,
updating you
on the state
of what we Earth temporaries
call the heart, mind, soul
and even our,
your-designed
crafted carrier,
my body

Mine enemies call me
cursed, embittered,
they are right - but fools,
they are
so much more than wrong,
for in this they err grievous,
for they cannot see their own
bile provisioning their end

ask for no interference
from the sidelines
neither from the
sapphire mother sky
that raised me up gloriously
this morning

nor the emerald earth
that this day
both gives and gets
common bounty
gives me sustenance,
as much spiritual
as grained cereal delights

lest you think this
just one more
me-centric rants,
let us recall this prayer,
is his very own,
prayer of gratitude

woman's head
rests on my chest,
her blonde highlights,
highlight our bed
and our
life

take and tuck her tresses
from eyes and forehead,
gentle them into place,
behind her ear,
and my hand journeys on
to the skin,
flesh of her backbone,
where my fingers
spread wide,
five messengers unique,
advising all of the 120 provinces of her
heart, mind, soul and body,
she is my beloved,
and I pray,
I am hers

learning still to
live with my means,
such as they are,
sometime mean,
sometimes extraordinaire

even this skill,
to express

is a gratitude
that though
comes and goes
like summer breezes
that as now we pray,
cools my AM coffee
while studying the
patterned mystery
of the bay's
Ave Maria waves
from that
dock-by-his-name

where my heart, mind, soul
drink wet inspiration
from the still-oak-tree'd-strong-surfaced waters,
the blue glue of
our common delighted,
uncommon existence

this skill,
at this moment mine,
to share and
not to keep,
for have I not,
been blessed,
by comrades-in-arms
that kneel beside me,
asking, imploring
to be stronger yet,
for their sakes,
for them!
I pray for
best they-can-muster
sustenance of peace
of heart, mind, soul
and body

here now,
my shills,
my failing skills
cannot help express
in new ways,
a gratitude
that has a shapeless shape,
no measurement app enabled
for their comfort,
our comfort,
best grasped as
an unbounded divinity,
how so I wish I could pray for them better

focus this prayer
on the good ones,
who so greatly honor us
with a greater-than-a-creator,
gift glorious of
friendship

this walnut crack'd shell,
this container ship of
heart, mind, soul,
here there,
a few leaks sprung,
no nicotine patches
to cover

this dented car,
this dented body,
new dent every day
from only-you-know-where
still gets me there,

but
other than taking care better,
it plods along and houses
the rearrangement of this prayer's words,
and that is what is called
plenty good enough,
self-sufficient

prayers that are too long
go to the back of line,
so here we be,
but here we do not wait!

for prayers of gratitude
are instantaneous fulfilled,
and thus granted even before
they are completed

Inside this
depth of the perpetual,
I hold onto the light,
learning that
it is not an illusion
but a constant
            fire within
hard as metal
simultaneously lava soft
no longer boneless,
lumped jelly
              in a flaccid bowl
Instead I am bowled over
with new power,
plugged into
my own electric universe
in rushes of ******* voltage
that was always waiting for me
to see it
to allow it inside
the tissues of my body
to flow up and through
intestines, muscle, heart and bone
threads from
                 a glowing orb
that slake
and snake through me
like a river's glory
leaving the spirit on edge for more
and I am ever grateful
to take that light
                  spin it into a gift
                       unwrap it slowly
                            drape it
                              over me like
                                 a flowing,
unstitched garment        
pour its liquid-tipped velvet
onto my follicles, sensitive
tender luminosity
touching all the right places
its silvery essence
flooding me in
drips and slips
healing all the lost
and lonely places,
desolation's imprint
hollows of brimmed-over    
                        despair
I have become
a quivering, stellar bud
bursting forth, each day
                       burning into new
rebirth in quenching torrents
ripe as ovarian silk
soaked in
cellular juice
inner seeds ready to be flung
unto the earth
into the wilderness
into expansion
ready to
bloom
          and bloom
          and bloom
   again