Smells of coffee burning leaves
Waiting on you to arrive
First kisses
Looking into your beautiful eyes
‘My love…’
We always got that out of the way
And in the night
Opened the windows
To let the cool air in
The city sounds
Around
Surrounds
And return to bed
Where your arms and body were always
Warmer

Memory of a morning
That time after we had climbed a mountain together
Sunday
You were leaving soon
And we listened to soft old jazz in my bed
As we slept
Memory of a morning
Now gets bluer as the years go by
The room darker as if it were dawn
Neon
And I held you and kissed your little red tattoo behind your ear while you slept
Because I knew you’d be gone soon
Hours
And I’d keep your side of the bed clear
And hold your pillow for days until your scent left
Missing you like I miss you now
Memory of a morning
Was going to take them all and walk them into the sea someday
Never thought I’d ever sing in your ear again…

She got herself a cat
And moved on with her life…

You showed up on a hot day in June
Said you were in town
Looked into your eyes for the first time
The toothpaste had already been out for awhile
Couldn’t put it back in
Put up or shut up time
And it just clicked. There it was in some 7-11 parking lot off Havana St
I could tell how much you loved me
And how much I ruined it for us
I wrote a book and released it on June 21st
Sending pings out into the galaxy
Well dressed words that I’d hoped would act as a comet
Hoping you’d come back with them…

One day it’ll have been years

And I hope I am forgiven then…

The world is so sad without you in it…
I say to nothing
And receive nothing back

Easy to say
Harder to comprehend
Nothing can be worse than rejection

This is all your fault
Anyway

Thinking you can have it all
Only to throw it away
Not measuring the pain of a future staring into an empty wall and saying

‘The world is so sad without you in it…’

The fact that I still dream of you nightly
See you in crowds
Wake with the scent of your skin
For 2-3 seconds
In my nose
I still have your voicemails I listen to from time to time
I don’t know why I don’t just move on

Tells me I messed up something that had so much
Beauty
Potential
Forever
I don’t love anymore
I can’t.
All of it left with you

She was the only one…
.
The only one…
.
Who let me eat her fruit right off the tree.

You told me to forget all the ghosts
In your closet
And you’d forget about all the ghosts
In mine

The phantoms along your corridor
Faces in your window at midnight
Spirits that forever ride shotgun in your backseat
Those that are just in your peripheral vision
The scary ones over time

The nightmares where you can’t get up
Pitch black
Evil just on the other side of the door

But you said mine were just too much for you…

Everyone wants a poet…
Just not the madness that goes with it.
.
Everyone wants a wilderness…
Just not the animals that exist inside of it.
.
Everyone wants peace and solitude…
Yet yearn for attention and acceptance.
.
Everyone wants the headdress of a warrior…
Yet will not go into battle to earn it.
.
Everyone wants to reach out…
Just not the silence that will be in return.
.
Everyone wants justice…
Yet turn their backs and says ‘that’s someone else’s problem’
.
Everyone wants to receive and take care of a simple love…
Yet they can’t even love themselves.
.
Everyone wants to yearn towards a future…
But can’t even look at themselves in the mirror.
.
Everyone
Wants
A
Poet
Just
Not
The
Madness
That
Goes
With
It…

It never rains here
Just snow and cold
It’s been 2 years since i was in a
Thunderstorm
No lightning off in the distance
No thunderheads billowing
No thunder for that matter
Rising up
In the southwest
Humidity you can feel on your skin
And in your soul
No fireflies
Turning their lights on and off in the bushes
No backyard barbecues
Family laughter
Miss you all
Red dirt backroads
Good ol Boys and 20 minute commutes

It never rains here
Just snow and cold
Hour commutes
Coffins on wheels
And no time for anything
The sun sets behind mountains
People get into road rage here
They die on bicycles
70 percent of take home goes to rent
Just so I can say I live in Colorado…
I never want to understand this cursed place

If I don’t move a muscle and stare
I can see all of my dreams
Nightmares
Smell of your skin
Leaving me
Eyes can move
Legs get up and it’s gone
Joy
War
Famine
Upheaval
The dark filled sky
Starless
All of it
Walking towards it
Dreams
Forgetfulness
Lost
All of it
Forever…

One day I’ll walk right out of this place…
Been saying it for years now
This thing killing me daily
14 hour days
Come in when it’s dark
Leave as the sun goes down
Business
Industry
Sales growth
Horseshit
Replaceable by the end of the day
All of it

One day I’ll walk right out of this place…
Not say anything to anyone
Will it matter 50 years from now?
It would in 50 minutes
That which is my responsibility
Alimony
Support
Medical Insurance
Food on the table
Fear
Guess that’s why I clock in for death
Daily
And in 100 years I’ll have been a poet for just 30 seconds…

Only in the darkness
Does one truly feel alive
Eyes open wide
The light burning
for it to please please
Go away
.
Some live the day in the fake
clawing in all intensified
Back to take me cavernous
Darkness
Staring at walls
All hours of the night
waiting for something
anything
To come through
.
'Take me with you...'
'I'm going on ahead,' they say
in all the cold, watching them
get smaller and smaller
Until finally out of view
Leaving you in the dark
where you wanted to be in the first place...

Forever is the loneliest
Train Station

Waiting for someone
Who said they’d be there too…

We suffer alone in silence
Because we think that’s how
We’re supposed to heal…

Then destroy the first person
Who comes along
That wants to love us
In all our brokenness

We come into this world
Alone
We go out of it
Alone
.
Everything else in between
You go through
Alone.
.
Love
Death
Loss
Beauty
.
Always ends
Alone

I’m tired
My body is tired
All I want to do is sleep
My soul has been dragged through
The streets
Being stomped on, spit on, set ablaze
By everyone I’ve wronged
They put me in vines
Over time
Over growth
I just become another
Piece of the forest…

There’ll be that moment
When you’re 98 years old
Or 47
And you’ll realize what was good for you
Has gone out the door
Over a wall
Moved away
Forever
And you have nothing
Not a box of pictures
Or a saved voicemail
Just a long cold winter
Ahead of you…

Catch yourself looking back
It’s okay
There’s good memories there too
You have to sift
Rearrange
Move about
This and that
Resisting the urge
To reach out to say
You’re sorry
For how it ended
For…
How you moved on
Resisting the urge
To reach out and say
There really was love
‘Between you and me…’
.
Then you put all the stuff back
In its place
Rearrange
Move this and that
Where you found it
Memories
The years
Piled up
Pull down the door
Lock it
And come back to it when you want to
Because you don’t live there
Anymore…
And yet you place your hand
Once more upon the door
And hope nobody saw you…

You can never pick back up
Where you left off
Even if you both believe it
Even if you both want it
More than anything
.
Too many days and nights
Have passed
Too much hurt that cannot be
Bandaged
Those open wounds
Become but a bookmark
In your soul
.
Just watch that ship
Go by you in the night
There’s no one at the helm
Anyway…

I’ve broken 4 shoelaces in my life
I’m getting on closer to 50 now
Than I’m closer to say 23…
.
I probably have 2 broken shoelaces left
In me…

I’m most likely going to hell
For all the wrong I’ve done
If such a place exists
I know I’m sorry
Forgive me All
.
But I’ll go quietly
Knowing
I loved a beautiful woman
And I know she loved me back
Soft and sweet
I know these things
Because of All the Beautiful Things
We’ve said to each other since
We parted…
Years before

How disconcerting is it
To go to a therapist
Knowing something is wrong
Spilling it all out
Confession after confession
Guilt, agony, sadness

Only to hear him say
‘You’re the sanest person I know…’

Terrible business to be
In a doomed relationship
Especially when you’re
The only one who knows
It’s doomed…

I love when you write
That perfect sensibility
That comes about
Every nuance covered
Your changing of season
Your moon rising so bright
So full, so womanly
For everyone you want to see it
Lucky me, I say, for it makes me
Journey back to beautiful
Downward
Past time
Past demons still chained where I left them
Cobwebs
Rusty steps
To where your fire still burns
7 floors down
Everlasting flames
That never needs tending to
Where you
Are you
And you never need explaining
Why you have the need to be who you are

I love when you write

I warm myself by your love filled fire
From time to time
Never having to ask permission
Watching and hearing your embers crackle and then go dancing high up and into the night…how beautiful a sight

How beautiful a sight

New love isn't true love...
Remember that...
Give it some time...
To ******* all up...

Guess I wasn’t supposed to have an outlet
To write…
No where to light a fire once the lust for words
Compelled..
Not even a walk into the prison courtyard
Without being asked
‘Who is this? Who is she?’
Caged butterfly of insecurities
Drunk tigers what we became
Now we’re just deleted pictures
With nothing to show
Like we never existed
And all of our memories are 4 layers down
At the landfill
Where they belong….

Sometimes I think we all need to wake up
Every once in a while
And smell what we shovelin…

Turn the key and the flood begins…
All were there to greet me
Happy to see me
Some would run
Wanting my embrace
Years pass
Different doors
Different keys
Different women
Things we owned
Things we shared
Some I loved
Some I used
Some would slap me if they had the chance
If I came walking through their door
And some…I hope
Would tell me they missed me so
Like the cold leftovers
In the fridge
Of this empty home…

I can shoot pool like I’m 19
Bowl a 159 if I hav e to
Pitcher after pitcher
One two many mixed drink
$78 bar tab
Just to go home alone
And tell my self
‘I could’ve just got drunk here for $12..’

I threw away all of your stuff...
Your good luck charms
The things you made for me
That souvenir that reminded you
Of me you told me to hold dear...
All of it..
Gone
.
And yet I still wake up
Smelling your smoky hair mixed with
That perfume you only
Wore for me
.
The feel of your touch
Close at hand
Like a ghost that only haunts
At 430am
When I’d knock on your door
.
You...I could never
Throw away...

I truly hope there’s something left of me
When you come back round my way again
I’m sure you’ll recognize me
In the sad little pieces that remain...

You. Always. Did.

And somewhere out there...
A dead man still gets 14 emails
A day
Because the world doesn’t stop
Spinning
Churning
Twisting
Breaking off
But never to come back
To life...

In the process of breaking
Someone’s heart
Leave them with a soul...

Know when to go
When to stay
When it’s over

When love has walked into the darkness

Alone...

The cold hard truth of it is
You’ll be too much for someone
Too little for someone else
And the in between
You said goodbye to
Decades before
Without even knowing
The perfect one...

Just like we’ve passed
One perfect flower once in our lives
One perfect sunset
One perfect spring storm
One perfect meal
One perfect day
Where she held your hand
And told you she wanted this forever...

Nowadays your clock in your car
Is 9 minutes fast
And it’s the only thing you care about
The only thing you want to fix
But don’t know how...

There’s only so much
Only so much
Before you suffer
The touch
Of so much
Of so beautiful
Then it becomes
A curse

I had it on random
Driving home
Thru the beginnings of
A new day
On the edge of a desert
Somewhere
Near the Joshua Tree
Eastern California
The morning sun hitting the
Cactus
And into my eyes
When one of your songs came on
And I cried the entire
Length of it because I
Loved you so much
And we hadn’t even met yet...

Vanity and innocence of heart
Says ‘Take a chance on me...’
Middle age says ‘Move along, save yourself’
For you already know
You’re not worth the pain you’ll
Inflict
The lives you’ll ruin
The love you cannot give back
For they’ve already come and gone
Years before...

At least you have the decency
For that...

For my remembrance
Insistence
All the paths I’ve gone down
Many paved
A few bamboo
Cuts here...there
Trampled downtrodden
To overwhelming guilt
Sadness
Painful as it is...
I can still turn it to something
Else
Much like when the earth needs
Sun...
It just rotates
To grow
Water
Sunlight
But when earth is tired
It gives moon
Sleep
Dreams
Love...
Forever
Indelible

Of course I remember
The Sunlight
Of our last day together
Much like the kisses between us
Our bodies touching
One last time
Sunlight
Is
All
I have now
Watching you
Watching me
Why I hate cloudy days