anthem

we pledge allegiance
to each other, our state
of-just-the-two-of-us,

hands on each other’s
heart, we cocoon, snuggle,
it’s always warm in our land

like Camelot, never rains,
always in agreement, every
votes never tied, for we are

a colorless world, only one,
the color of the day, is what
we feel, create, and believe

we sing only duets, our music,
only perfect pitch harmonies,
this our anthem, sung twice daily

when the sun should rise,
and when it should set, but,
since our sun never leaves

we do it for pure pleasure

the best thing you could teach two another

is how to love themselves,
so they can return the favor;
now that would be a refund!

This woman by my side
I see her sadness deep
Her eyes filled with longing
secrets she softly keep

Her torment well hidden
masked by a fleeting smile
Yet within, a fragile child
weeps all the while.

In her presence, I feel her pain, so achingly clear
Like raindrops on the soul, her fears draw near

Her sorrow touches me
a single tear is shed
And I open my heart
to the anguish in which she's tread

This woman, so near
yet somehow far away
A glimmer of hope
like a star in the night's array

Though a stranger to the person I used to be,
This reflection is a reminder that I am still she

One day, you will return

to the moment you left yourself behind.

To touch the outline of your absence

like a photograph you forgot to frame.

You’ll gather the scattered Saturdays,
the drawings no one kept,
the questions you were too afraid to ask,
the stories no one stayed long enough to hear.

And you’ll remember the slammed doors,

the silence between two people who once made you,

the friend who stopped texting back,

the laughter that vanished from the room.

You’ll walk through those rooms again,

dust in the corners,
and sit beside the stranger,
your hand on his own shoulder.

Only this time,
you won’t hush his laugh.

You won’t close the door.

It will be as natural as breath,

as quiet as light through the curtains

of a house no longer haunted.
This time, you’ll tell him you’re here now.

Every door will open.

And the only thing heard through the hallways

will be the laughter of a child

and the stars in the night sky,

laughing along.

This time, you’ll stay.

It's a beautiful confusion
From one simple conclusion
I made up on the spot
My life has changed equivocally
And here I find myself
...
     /:
           a little
                           Lost.

•It's a beautiful confusion•

It's a mess up in this noodle bowl
Of wet spaghetti, out here trying
To just
           Figure it out dude,
Jesus Christ!
                Just stabin' with a fork for thoughts,
Trying to get em to wind
But they just keep slipping off
And falling back in line

-But also-

Like Spaghetti Junction at I-20 and 35 (that might be just me
Who calls it that, but it fits the mind
That locked it in. A six year old old boy, visiting his dad in Dallas for the first time)

A mass of twisting
tangled lanes merging
in chaotic looping interchanges,
where ideas collide and collude and rearrange like ******-off commuters
late for their day
Through exits and on-ramps,
flowing freely at times,
and then stopping
dead still
for an hour or two,
every day,
twice a day
...
and when it rains

... Or when it's too full of vehicles
to fit in the lanes;
'cuz you can only fit so much
in a physical space.
And a brain is thing
That really needs a case.

It's bounded and confined
by the number of lines
it can build in any direction,
so it gets backed up
from too much thought traffic
trying to merge too fast,
causing collisions and slow-downs,
and hitting brakes,
and
  and
And the slow-down echos back
through the increasing stack
of moving parts in red-light cascades
and honking, squealing aggression
Like compression waves,


But like...
... At the same time!?!