My crossroads is a lonely place.

I know the question
but not the answer for the
brave heart.

Jack Kerouac claimed that he would always choose the mad ones, but
which is better: to flare bright and see the light die all the sooner,
or to bank the embers and welcome the long, slow burn?
Either flame could catch the house alight; more likely that
both will fade cold into the dark.

Am I the sun, or the hearth?

And what better test than this,
the heart’s old desire against a new
and potent love.
Which is the dream?
Which is the shadow?
Go forth and the road becomes stone;
but the soul cannot be torn forever between two paths, lest
it grow mad, or dull.
The future is hidden by thick fog
and the smoke from an old fire *******.
Alone, I move unto the precipice and fall...



(But later- much, much later-)
Heart’s path grows clear.
Soon, a step.

i am a creature of inconvenient lumps and angles trying to fit into the suit i thought i would wear when i was young enough to think thoughts like that.

but the suit doesn’t fit and if i try
if i try to force it on

if i pull it over my head squeeze it over the swelling of my thighs and sharp joints of elbows and the jutting points where the bones of my wrist perch like islands beneath my skin
if i let it smooth the bumps and soften the the angles into something more palatable to the eye
will i ever take it off again?

or will it be a permanent fixture impaled
on the spikes of my own personality

will they say on my tombstone
“she lived. she
was ugly grey but not so hideous
that you would notice her in a crowd,
or across a chasm.”

is it better to be naked in all my deformity
finding no comfort from the cold but a life more
spectacularly violently lived

i would be depraved they would scorn me ridicule me
pity me my foolishness

(but i would feel every glorious rash of the wind. the cold would snap against my skin and raise small bumps and when i breathed the air would seem sharp and clear and real).

the suit is waiting on the back of my closet door.
i turn over.
the mattress holds no comfort for a body
so marred with crooks and cusps and declines.

Heartache spiderwebs
across the landscape; the glass,
cracked, weakens.

Heat shakes the cup shakes the skin of my hand
along your neck between your thighs against
the small of your back;
lips never touch but burn when
my molecules shake up yours.
They say that atoms never truly meet
but if they could
mine would nestle inside your particles
break through negative fields and brush against
protons and neutrons to create something
entirely new.
Compound molecules.
One need not shake
to move the other.
Breast to breast.
Lip to lip.
Atom to atom
and below that, even:
we will touch where only strings
dare go.
We are fused as the universe before the first bang. Another, and
bits of You/Me go flying into the wind.
New galaxies spring forth.
You and I are the heart of them all.

Dreams: you are always
warm/soft in my hand. I gasp.
You pull me closer.

You are not rudderless
but your oars are too small.

(You will not make it across the lake.)


You trail gold stars like promise (potential)(unfilled)(they didn’t say it would be so hard)
a thin trail marks your passage
soon gone
floating (impotent) on the water.
It’s a bit like a funeral; those burning stars
were dead the moment you
stepped into the boat.

(You will not)
(I’m sorry)
(but you will not make it)

What Might Have Been is a salesman
that perches on your shoulders.
He is heavy; he weighs you down.
The boat sinks further into the surface.

You glance at him, he is only shadow;
but you are shadow too.

(No)
(The boat sinks deeper)
(You stopped rowing long ago)

Together you paddle across the lake.

I still remember
the wind through the fur across your back
like ripples in a field of grass.

You were soaked in the sun;
in perpetual summer.