stop setting me up
for redemption,
sometimes i just
want to burn off
my own sins.

i believe in you and i believe that the world stops and breathes for a moment once every july and i believe that the pictures tucked between my journals pages can sum me up better than these words and i believe that you are my favorite place to visit and i believe if you listen really hard at the top of a ferris wheel you can hear God whispering lullabies and i believe that the valentines we made as children are the most authentic and i believe that you taught me how to feel again and i believe the later at night it gets the more restless the soul becomes and i believe that i will find you within myself if i look hard enough and i believe that your heart beat is the prettiest music and i believe that you are not everything i always wanted, but what I need now.

i convinced myself that you loved me in the same way i would swear i heard hooves on my roof late on Christmas Eve. it was just so very real, until it wasn't.

I watch freedom dangling on a fishing hook
from a rusty nail outside my door.
Swinging to and fro it calls to me
in a tantalising tone
to take a piece.
To savour the sweet nectar it hides within
but I slip right past
because I've already eaten.
You see I've heard freedom is an acquired taste,
it's something you have to really want
and many just waste.
Although I crave it deep within my soul,
the taste is not worth the toll
and the gruel I get is fine enough,
I could last a lifetime on this stuff.

a scientist on the radio
says in three decades  
a coastal town will      
be submerged in water.  
i picture seaside resorts
& promenades absorbed
& know the same fate
awaits this city, as sea
hungrily consumes
coast it looks to us,
our bones, our docks
& ports, parliaments
& courts, our isle added
to a pile of things extinct.
a future where children are
driftwood blown ashore
with foreign tongues
& dreams of sea;
reluctantly coming up
for air jealous of all the
creatures that get to
stay down there.

i want to crawl
out of my skin
air my blood vessels,
calm their restless
nerves, drinking only
makes it worse
i choose to merge
muscles with elements
hot to cold,
snow covered
organs breathing
on their own,
and when i
put them back in
the blood beats
differently,
on the bus rides & in
the traffic jams
i smell tree pines,
fells, mountains