Like a child,
you're silly and soft,
giddy and gladsome.
Like a child -
ever-inquisitive -
you love to learn.
You find those you admire
and question, not docile,
yet sure of more.

No hesitation in your advances,
like those who have yet to learn
to be unsure of themselves.
Age so often removes from us
the ability to love without hesitation,
or even to love at all,

but not from you.

Don't let it define you.
Wield it as a weapon -
as both sword and shield.
Be happy for no reason,
so that there will always
be cause for joy.

Don't let the noise of others
drown out the music that is you.

Watch the lonely people
as they shuffle about
these solitary, rain-coated streets.

Watch them as they go,
as though you are not one of them.

Where do I start?
Where do I end?
I keep thinking
my life will never begin.
I need to stop blinking
because it all hurts like hell.
I'll never see you again.
I'll never see
you
again.
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry

Can I say it again?
I'm sorry.

Write of lost people,
Of times gone by,
So that you might know,
So that you may remember
The hellos in my goodbyes.
And the goodbyes
In every hello.
Fleetingly and forever,
We stand apart together.

Like I loved coffee,
that's how I loved you.
Like the first cigarette of the day.
Or like a Beatles song
blasted on the radio
during a road trip
to nowhere in particular.
Like each slice of coffee cake,
cinnamon and pecans
delicately, deliciously curled
into every little streusel.
Like spring,
when the snow melts into water
and runs, rushes
past yellow-colored, polka-dotted rain boots
on a sun-soaked afternoon.
I loved you like I love you;
simply, completely,
without frills and without doubt.

I fell in love
down by the shore,
where the water was sweet,
and the air even more.

A field of sunflowers
stretched out before us.
You plucked one
and placed it in my hair.
You said I was beautiful,
and I believed you.

Lazy days of chain-smoking
and drinking too much
made me melt like butter.
I was lost and now I'm found.
I was alone and now I'm not.

I found myself at the end of myself
and forever continue to do so.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
Maybe you should leave me alone.
Maybe you should shut the hell up.
Maybe you should stop reminding me of all my missed opportunities,
Missed friendships,
Missed loves,
Missed lives.
Maybe you should stop the judgement,
And just let the smoke float up through the air.
It’ll evaporate there.
I promise. The only one I’m hurting is myself.

We will ask the world,
Am I good?
Am I a good person?

And the world will shrug its shoulders
and shake its head.
Who's to say what good is?
Is not the pursuit enough? it will reply.

We will ask the universe,
Am I loved?
Do the ones I love, love me, too?

And the universe will shrug its shoulders
and shake its head.
Why does it matter?
Is not the act of giving love enough? it will sigh.

We will ask the infinite,
Why am I here?
What is the point of it all?

And the infinite shall remain quiet,
waiting for us to find our own
lackluster answer to a half-hearted question.

What a laugh!
I looked in her eyes
and saw that she was broken.
No one in this world
ever gets enough love.
We bleed our feelings
and silently beg others for help,
but no one ever comes.
Or if they do,
we smile and nod
and bandage our wounds ourselves,
afraid to be vulnerable,
afraid to be human,
afraid to give others the love we so crave.

You are more than your love.
You are more than him.
You can love him and not have him
and still be at peace.
Let your love flow
and unfold before you,
and let it go where it will.
But you are more than that love.

The universe longs to see
your myriad of gifts and talents.
Your voice like silk,
your mind like thunder,
and your body like the ocean,
strong yet flexible,
beautiful and evasive -
no one can possess you,
but they can delight in you.

Delight in yourself first.

Goethe, he was an artist.
Schiller, Mozart, Beethoven.
Writers, musicians, painters all.
Even now I hear Chopin's call.
The tunes make my heart sing,
my soul dance.
I'm in a trance
when I hear those sweet melodies.
Like the sound of your voice,
it all makes joy
come rushing back to me.

Won't you stay,
play a little longer?
I may not be as gifted as you,
but I could be your muse,
if you were to choose
me to.

As a I girl, I had
a small music box,
which I played over and over.
I wound it up,
and the ballerina inside
would spin and spin,
her dance and the song
a simple embrace of youth.

There are versions of myself
that I have long since forgotten,
long since forsaken.
The rhythm will find you,
make you into someone new.
But this tune brings me back,
always,
to the little girl
who spent hours watching ballerinas dance.

My type is tall
with dark hair
and dark eyes.

The whisper of ****** hair
on a jaw so square.
Leave the clean-shaven men
for other girls.

Smart and witty,
with music so gritty.
And a smile so sweet and wide.
Not sure what I implied,
but I suppose I'll now confide
that I'd be the Bonnie to your Clyde.

If you must sing me a song,
make it soft and gentle enough
for a baby's skin.
If you must shut the lights off,
give me a colorful nightlight
to reflect bouncing shades
about the perimeters of my walls.
If I must sleep,
allow me a sweet, sinking feeling
in the center of my everything
as I drop from reality into dreams.

My favorite people
were met on a whim.
My favorite memories
were made on a whim.

The most splendid castles,
the most magnificent sunsets,
the sweetest kisses;
all were had and done and seen
on whims.

Don't tell me that I'm silly
for following my heart
and permitting my life
to blow along with the wind.

My life was made on a whim,
and it'll likely end the same way.

And those arms,
they were big enough for us all,
though you wouldn't have thought it by looking at them.
One ****** Thanksgiving night,
when all the other children slept
turkey-filled dreams,
we wept in those arms.
She wrapped us tight,
so that the events of the night
wouldn't hurt us any longer.
One ******, Thanksgiving night,
she did her best to make everything all right.

A quiet field of snow
untouched,
unburdened -
I leap through it,
leaving large footprints
and nullifying the stillness
which had graced the field before me.
Luckily,
there is always more grace
to be found in nature;
and so I plod onwards,
my stride slow and heavy,
but joyful as it finds
and matches the tracks
of the moose and ptarmigan
who frolic through this valley.

There is, after all,
an answer to the meaning of life
and love and joy.
And it lies in the valley of snow before me
for all the world to bear witness to.

Poems are so fine.
I do them all the time,
sell 'em for a dime.
Such pretty, pretty rhymes.

A women boarded the same subway stop as me today.
She wore a white, flowing shawl with tiny purple flowers on it
that stretched down to her knees.
She reminded me of my childhood and of my mother in her thirties.
She held a grocery bag with daffodils in it,
and I felt she was something rather special.

Perhaps we had been joined in each other's lives
for these fifteen minutes,
for some strange reason,
much unbeknownst to the two of us.
I tried to figure it out,
but ran out of time,
and as we emerged from the station,
she walked north,
and I went east.
Maybe I'll never know.
Maybe she was just a woman
with a white shawl and purple flowers.

You're like a record.
Play one side,
and you think you know the whole tune,
but flip it once
and it's all brand new.

It's only fitting that people be music,
since life is a dance
we must all learn the moves to.

There are quiet moments
in the cracks of my life -
driving to work, waiting in line,
floating on skates around a frozen lake,
daydreaming about nothing in particular.

To live in these moments forever,
with my body and mind
so at ease that nothing
much bothers them.
So quiet I’d remain forever,
listlessly dawdling my time away.

I'm jittery as ****,
just plain out of luck.
Wishing I could duck
out and take just one drag.

Surely, that wouldn't be so bad.
I'm going a tad mad.
My will has never been ironclad.

The way the rain splatters
against the windows of the car
as it drifts through the city.
Each droplet looks like a tear
as it streaks its way across the pane.

How many hours
spent scribbling these poems?
How many days wasted
rereading them,
nudging and prodding
each word into its proper place
until it all flowed and sounded...

still not quite right.

I will miss the quiet, selfish nights,
spent among books and TV and music.
I will miss missing home
while feeling at home
in a foreign country.
I will miss my time being my own
to split between friendships, travel, or nothing.
I will miss the feeling of my own body,
free from the dirt of past indiscretions.
Free to be myself,
foreign though I may be.

I tried to be quiet,
but the less I spoke,
the less I heard,
the less I watched
in the external world,
the louder it all became.
My head pounding
with thoughts
I’d long ago forgotten.
They thudded and clunked
around my head
until I thought
I might go deaf.

Silence is the loudest
noise I’ve ever heard.

Beads of sweat
curve down the lines
of your neck.
I place my lips to you
and breathe in your scent.
You smelled sweet,
like summer strawberries.
I would've gone everywhere with you,
if you had only asked me to.
Sweet, silent nights
spent learning something
words could never teach.

We play among the vines
of overgrown, ripe wine.
The birds fly before us,
their songs a bittersweet chorus.
Lemony drops of dew
line each fence, window, and hall.
You drop your shawl
and walk towards me, your head held tall.
I will never forget the call
of these sweet, simple Saturdays
that go by in a haze.

Eyes open, awake in exhaustion.
Bones ache, can't catch a wink.
Pretty love songs
sing my worries away.
Still my teeth grind,
grind, grind.

It's late.
The cars have stopped honking,
but the wheels of my mind turn on and
on and on.

Our love was slow-roasting.
If we were chicken,
it would have fallen off the bone.

I can see now,
on this night
with it's moon as silky
as freshly laundered sheets,
that all I cared for was small.
And that my thinking them small
made them all the smaller.

There's no one to blame but me.
This, I now can see.

It's snowing in May.
What more is there really to say?
Droplets are drip-dropping on me
every which way.

I rush through the slippery streets,
and to my dismay,
I see a soaked-through toupee
on the head of a man having quite a bad day.

Oh, what a strange melee
is this snowy Tuesday.

I might be wasting my youth.
It didn't hit me until just now,
flipping through social media feeds.
I know it's false,
but it feels real.
The smiling faces,
the laughs, the loves.
They may not have it every second,
but they have it this second, right now.
And I don't.

When the sun rises, when the sun sets;
When the moon is full, when the sky is empty,
I think of you.
When I cross Eagle River or climb Mt. Baldy,
the sun splintering into pieces above the world,
I think of you.
I think of you in Germany or Alaska,
with friends or alone,
when happy or sad;
I miss you all the same.
One year, two years, three years...
Nothing and everything's changed.

Life is long.
Forgetting feels like a betrayal.

Hear the chimes ringing,
this sleepy Sunday singing.
Monday will bring persimmons,
and Tuesday a touch of snow.
Eyelids grow heavy,
the evening siestas are winning.
The trees shade are giving
and sweet scents are brimming
among these lovely Sunday trimmings.

Oh, what a fine Spring day.

Rain pours down on the windshield,
and leaves rustle in my wake.
It is still cold, the air clinging to the crispness of winter,
but I roll my window down
and feel the pitter-patter of droplets.
Breathe deep the clean essence of life.

Spring is here. And joy begun anew.
All is possible. All is simple once more.

I have as many flaws
as there are stars in the sky.
Mine are not nearly as beautiful,
yet I love them just the same.

Azure skies stretch above me,
the sun a fiery devil.
It warms my hands as I drive,
the steering wheel
a permit for freedom.

It's hard to feel sad
when the sun shines in rays,
persistent as a mother,
and just as sweet and caring.

Green, microscopic leaves
flutter like the wings of fairies.
If cleanliness is next to godliness,
I feel like I'm in the clouds.

Each morning begins
with the same sweet embrace,
your eyes distant but warm.
I peek my head
out the window
and breathe deeply
the succulent scents of spring.
The cold air fills my lungs
and I gasp, ****, swallow in more.

My consistent failure permits me no joy.
But failure does bring a certain freedom.
It frees you from expectations,
And I like that.
I liked how freeing failure felt.
In bits, it’s crushing,
But in totality, it is magic.
Entrancing,
As alluring as any man or woman.

I walk into the room,
my coat still fresh
with the scent of tobacco.
From the corner of one eye,
I glimpse you
and you glimpse me.
I nod. You nod.

I walk forward into the store.
I could've sworn you were leaving,
but you follow me in
with a friendly hello.
How did you know?
How did you know
that I wanted to see you, too?
Talk to you, too?
Palms sweat, I fix my hair
over and over again.
I like you,
but I can't say it.
I've watched this dance before.

Oh, the games we play.

Wind throws itself through my clothes,
tossing my hair and cooling the sweat of the climb
from my burning, beating body.
I am here. I am where I need to be -
high above the crowds and the clouds,
alone and utterly free.
There is much to see
but little to do,
and earthly troubles melt away
amidst these towering peaks.

It is mine, I declare.
But no, only in the mountains
do you finally realize
that nothing belongs to you.

I'll never be happier
than when I'm on the road.

A bit like Kerouac,
not trying to run away.
Just want to be free
like the river.
The mere thought makes me shiver.
Not knowing.
That's the rush.
Where will I sleep tonight?
Where will I go tomorrow?
It's anyone's guess,
and I like it that way.

I'm not running from you,
I'm running from me,
to a better version of myself.
You don't need to get it,
just accept it.

Wind in my hair,
smoke in my hand,
but no longer over my eyes.
These highs
don't go any higher.

Don't agonize over me,
just let me roam free.
It's where I'm meant to be,
can't you see?

I was in love with the stars
and sometimes the sea.
I was in love with the small
and the big people
who rode past me
on their dinky motorbikes
and roaring cars,
just as I also loved
the quiet nights in the mountains
where I slept alone beneath the stars.
I was in love with joy,
and I was in love with pain.

I was in love with every city,
especially those I didn't belong to
because they seemed to belong to me.

I was in love with the unknown,
but mostly,
I was in love with the great potential of it all.
Everything is sweeter from a distance.

If the work breaks your back,
then laying down shall be all the sweeter.
And if the noise deafens your ears,
then listen for what cannot be said.
If your skin grows raw from the sun,
make all your touches light and gentle.
If the food tastes of filth,
find joy instead in the fullness of your belly.
If the air is polluted with cigarettes and gas,
plant a flower to fill your nose with sweetness.

If you find yourself alone,
just focus on finding yourself first.
If you are unable to live for yourself,
live for others.

It would be nice, yes,
To not have to think about money.
Then again,
It would be nice to not have to think
About anything.
That’s what so much of life is nowadays - not thinking.
Avoiding, at all costs, the chance that you might be forced to think about your life.
What you’ve lost, what you’ve yet to lose, and why it even matters that
You’re losing anything at all.

It could be a bear, a hat, a plane -
the choice is yours to ascertain.

Kites zoom and roar
high above the crowds.
A sallow sun peeks through trees
and shines in hesitant rays
upon strollers and the mothers pushing them.

All the while,
the sky lays it's
flouncy, protective blues
across the world,
ensuring that no dream
is too much.

A shame, a pity -
that there shall be no sky
when we're buried six feet deep.

**** me if you must,
but don't take away my sky.

Sometimes the world is so loud,
all I can hear is screaming.
But other days,
life quiets
and the Earth spins more slowly.
It is on these occasions
when one can at last hear
the crickets in the grass
and the bees buzzing through the air.
Flowers swishing in the wind, here and there.
Among the few humans, there is hardly a care.

It is on these quiet evenings,
with the moon so bright,
every face devoid of fright,
that living life seems quite all right.

But not tonight.