Fly ever closer
Until youth melts away and
The fall is what's left.

I still remember
The way your air became mine;
We breathed together

I tried on a smile
With edges drooping downward
It never quite fits.

The girl in the yellow overalls
Is wishing for sunlight
(somelight, sumlight)
To outshine her
(outline her, outlier)
And that sky blue blouse
(blows, blowsy)
Drowsy in the noon-day
(gloom-day, soon-day)
She'll grow up gleaming  
(beaming, screaming)
****** ****** of crows
(rows, rows)
Rouse the sleeping
(keeping, beeping)
Alarm clock sun.
(gun. run.)

please understand
that your smile is no promise,
your greeting is not a contract
and i know
there is nothing lasting in the way you look at me.

please understand
that silence is a treasure
i will spend
on these conversation minefields
we work and work only to find
small implosions,
and the bitter taste of the words we never said
slipping down our throats.

please understand
that i pray sometimes to your hands
that destiny lines palms and ***** fingernails
will raise me up
and grasp my own in
this holy handshake

please understand
that though these constellations
are just a child's whimsy,
stick figure madness in the sky
i see that starlight in your eyes,
in that temporary look you send me
that look that says-
for now and no longer-
you do.

The pathetic fallacy of my life is that the sun is too easily covered by cloud and the light just gets weaker; golden aura to lemon tea and I am all tinged with grey until

2. The winds of change are a hurricane to whisk me away and Golly, we ain't in Kansas anymore because

3. In case you hadn't noticed I've been transported a fugitive from my own land a desperate refugee and alien in this strange country and

4. Is this the land of the messy hair and tired eyes because a) I fit the bill and b) I've been searching my whole life for

5. The soft snows on the jagged mountains to cover and shelter and soften but

6. There's still rock underneath and an icy sheath so

7. Bring me storm and earthquake-earthshake until

8. Landslip-n-slide from peak to floor the adrenaline rush like never before like

8. Nevermore; but **** I've skipped

9. Just like my heart skips double dutch too much flutter pulses and so and such and then

10. Clouds.

I know a place where I belong,
Just down the road, by the bluebird's song.
Hang a left where your heart beats fast:
Here's the future of presents past.

When you find the spot where your lungs breathe quick
Climb up the scaffold, stick by stick.
When you reach the top, leap; Fall; FLY
(I always wake before I die)

When your feet are loose and your fancy's free
Find the nest of the chickadee-
Here you're brave and here you're bold,
And here the hearth is never cold.

A place where arms enfold your soul
And yearning never takes its toll-
I belong here. In this, the forest gold,
And here I'll stay 'til my mind grows old.

I'll wander 'til I rest my head-
And I will only sleep when I am dead.