when i think of you
i feel life trapped.
when i think of you
i feel one hundred years of melancholy
lusting after the sun,
but being unable to look upwards
at it
because of how easily and effortlessly
it can burn a hole through the dark
that has become home.

when i think of you
the single time we met
i feel forgotten fields
the color of mint,
a body of love idling
left to rot,
lilies thrown in the dirt
because your hands have forgotten how to hold them,
the first page of a novel scanned
and then discarded,
like the obituary of an old friend
you could have called back
(but didn't).

but see, that's all just silly
because, truthfully, i know nothing (about you)
aside from your name;
aside from the ocean being too deep and wide and blue
to find comfort
or peace from the earth,
though the earth will not move
because she herself holds many fearless, crazed oceans
within her
that have yet to be named.

what have i to do with these grips,
these squared, white knuckles
holding tight to handle bars?
what have i to do with these empty stares,
eyes void of truth?

these "fill-in-the-bubble, A B or C, music only reaches the ears" types of humans
attempting to tell me how to carry out my existence,
attempting to tell me the most efficient
practical
mindless ways to die?
attempting
to tell me
to show me
the most rewarding ways
to die.

what have i to do with these sculptors
who try and quantify the rain,
who try and evaporate
the sun?
what have i to do with these ideas of perfection, of what is best?
these assumptions of false fulfillment,
these preludes to orderly, institutionalized chaos
and contempt?
what have i to do with all of these cardboard boxes
which cannot differentiate between being filled
empty
open
closed
soft
rough
dry
loved?
what have i to do with those who cannot detect their own storms,
their own energy waiting to explode?
what have i to do with one shade of blue?
what have i to do with feet that cannot move,
knees that cannot bend?
what have i to do with white houses
black cars
trimmed bushes
a front porch?
what have i to do with stationary?
what have i to do with these wings
unless they are free to flutter?
what have i to do with structure
with corners
with average
with plain?
what have i to do with boredom
with settling
with insignificant breath?

what have i to do with waste?
what
have i
to do
with waste.

there is a blackened land mass
lying between
the Atlantic
and Pacific
and it is not America.

you are a cathedral
I am woods.

the kind that are peaceful and inviting,
tall and knowing
from the outside
in the light.
once you step inside
and journey deeper,
it gets darker,
more consuming,
and you can feel
their isolation,
their severity,
their boundless
emptiness
that both fills itself
and eats itself.
only they are able to know their own expanse
and those that make it to the center
cannot be released.

your sanctuary,
it holds stained-glass windows
that let in tainted light,
turning everything
a shade
of rose.
pristine architecture
that stands against the sky,
challenging it--
all that is visible
when looking up at you
from the bottom of the hill.
inside,
there is a tenderness
that can be felt at certain angles,
a coldness
a sigh
that cannot be released.

creative destruction
too beautiful to fault until ashes
(and even then all I want is a different ending or none at all).
silent sunrise that you can’t hear but you can feeeEEEEL
elsewhere.
the hum of existence and how you always danced around it
and coincidently it never lined up for me.
self is such a strange concept that sometimes I forget
and other times it consumes and I am    sorry  so    sorry.
what are you if you aren’t always discovering?
what is she when there is a cost?
what would she have been if rewind and stand outside to see truth
it’s like looking through a kaleidoscope
what is the magnitude?
axiom
this is called spring
and I’m through wasting it.

Learning from inside-out, crouched, how do I tie this double-knot?
Acoustic ambience bouncing around in the space between my ears
Creating songs the shape of you,
sea of sadness.
Melancholic temple,
where you have gone to worship all your life,
is burning to the ground in great, blundering flames.
Was it you
who nearly drowned
last June?
Was it you
who never
ever
let them
forget?

Did you look her in the eye?
Was your face inviting?
Did you play music,
Did it make everything seem bigger?
More important, substantial?
Or smaller, replaceable, humorous?
Did it make you forget who you were trying to be?
Did it make you forget what the shape of her lips looked like at dusk?
Did it make you forget that you never got to see what they looked like
At dawn
Or daybreak?

How much of yourself was missing?
How much of yourself is missing now?
Have you forgotten it all
Already?

Ice cubes in my pocket on the warmest afternoons
(No matter how many times they melt into my thigh)
2. Roses on your doorstep each evening,
Piling up until they completely obstruct the entrance to your apartment (kind-of-almost-maybe-love)
The kind that goes and goes
Growing out of your mouth.
The kind that is unsure what to name itself
Or in which land, on which surface, on which continent
It was born,
And why it is still living.
The kind that may not have ever existed in the daylight.

The one thing I have never been able to comprehend
Are endings.
How they have the most extraordinary timing
And are void of any and all emotion.
How their potential is drained,
How they could not possibly be believed in any less.
How they are the stage following internal damage,
Preceding external
And missing socks, I must have left my keys on the counter
(Kind-of-almost-maybe-lost)
is lying on the the side of the freeway.
How an ending's only intention is death
Or disappearance.

Somehow they manage to chase us down
In all-black
And abduct us.

The eulogy was short.
Some say they don't remember hearing it at all.