i suppose in one way, i desire to have your heart.
but it is and will always remain true that i am not the one who should hold it,
that as much as id like to be entrusted that much,
i shouldn't be, because at least in some small way, i would break it.?"

maybe he should never give it away..perhaps only allow it to be borrowed by careful hands...

it is that utmost obsession of his  -
that which he desires to show off to any who would avidly appreciate it -
as long as they did so whilst respecting it -
he doesn't want his prized heart to be chipped or broken -
and it - like all hearts - is porcelain brittle

not strange...
that...
that may just be the way in which a man can most beautifully experience the heart of another

i...wonder if i ever could be that selfless...
when i have wanted a heart for my own for so long...

I really don't believe I am..
and even if I am, the question then is can i consistently remain such?


i know God holds hearts...
and so can men..
.i do not know whether there is some counter intuitive phenomenon
in which a heart can be fully and equally held by more than one...
and as such im just rolling over how hearts work..
.or should work...
in the context of marriage and avoiding the tendency to
"seek to please ones spouse before god"
as will undoubtedly be the case for any man who marries any woman -
if not the enacting of
then the leaning towards



so-
the wrong question for the situation -
not -
who holds the hearts -
but who holds the HEART -
not the trading or the giving, but the merging and the making into a single entity
wholly dedicated to the pursuit of the higher and more beautiful realities of God

it is a nigh impossible feat and one that only God can perpetuate in any human being

one flesh indeed-
one body needs only have one heart

from what i have tasted of desire
twas a divine insanity

the sky is torn across
thy voice is on the rolling air
tis moonlight, summer moonlight
who feels compassion for our inner fires.’
sung asleep with lullabies
groping, guessing, yet progressing
all the sweet pulsing aches

i remember the history well:  and enjoy fully the delights of love –
become so still you hear the blood flowing through your veins -
my wildest force, will you return?

you flicker, i cannot touch you
dont feel sorry for me
i will take the sun in my mouth

I feel sideways
Like I’m melting on the page in
Horizontal lines
That fluctuate to match the edges of my mind
As it attacks itself in subtle ways
That are easily mistakable and even harder to trace
I feel sideways
Like the smile on my face
With it’s crooked teeth and smirked edges
All fakes
Are falling right here on the page
I feel  sideways

she likes my black box brain
i chalk me up to chalk lines, it's proof i'm just, insane
i keep her head spinning
in the way she likes
edges toe-tested
like cold waters on summer nights
she loves my scoundrel heart
i love not having to hide
we have to work to love
but then our hearts collide
we feel some tensions now and then
unexplained rhythms when we remember where we've been
continuing adventures, and visiting old places that have become new again
the only days wasted are the ones we are apart
because even boring ones shared between best friends
are worth getting up, and not giving up
and now is where it starts.
Begin. . .

My heart broke for you but you wouln't believe it
I heard he hurt you and I'd already preconceived it
and told you so, but i won't say i told you so
I've never been that guy. you know.

I entreat you, muse
remind me now of the segment of my soul
that has oft'n been responsible for the creation of terrible beauty.
Yes, i do understand that some terror must prevail- that my page alone may be my peace - when i find it nowhere else -
If this is what i must accept-
then i do willfully receive your woe -
if this is where i go, then through the valley
of the shadow of death,
i shall come to know,
that beauty may be from dear tragedy removed
and art is ne'er far behind a broken heart
a soul that drowns apart form
painting words onto some blank canvas
and even and empty mind has merit
for all things empty may be filled at the will of some divine entity-
i entreat thee-
bring to my hands this dear artistry
though inevitably it shall hedge a broken heart in me

forgiveness is saving
after days turned years turned months
turn into time thats turned to dust
cleave we shall, and cleave  we didst
and in a kiss, we both find rest

if i could live inside this kiss
i wouldnt mind being a tangled mess
like tracing hands tangle in tresses
tingles  tickle through my lips
edges trailed  with tastes i cant forget

it wouldnt matter if i were more or less
because  kisses of both leave traces tasted
smiles and souls are doubly  mated
truest hunger with truest touch is sated
mind encircles mind in bliss
and hands  seek  places they fit best
finding curves and cravings,
slipping between fingers,
and lingering tender. . .

This love. . . I remember


If we could live inside a kiss,
well love we'd know and live in trust
for much of both are inside this
and moments lost are gained with haste
come rushing back to brains unleashed
from hidden places in the flesh
this beauty rises quick and feasts
let us not in weakness birth a beast
rather shake our fists at foolish lusts
and love, and live, within this kiss

in old love burst anew and threshed

a seed sprouts sudden in my chest
what in a year became a ghost
in a moment crashed
from corners to crest
i remember this thirst

in passion pulled from autumns past
we spring alive in fall at last

i miss talking to you like i miss writing
their absence is frightening
like something inside is only just alive
like over time it 's fading...
like my reflection in your eyes as i'm forced to walk away
i say
we have our lives ahead of us
but that don't dictate what the distance does to us
I'm afraid of this

When Amber just as gold is measured worth
And gold’s no longer shiny through the dirt
When beauty isn’t seen within the earth
And not being gold then doesn’t bring hurt
Then beauty is found flowing from tree’s girth
And words from lesser stone are always blurt
“Beauty in the simple is always found
Yet out of simple beauty comes no sound”

Dear death,
you are a fickle old man with a sickle shaped grin.
A cadaver cassanova with a scythe shaped smile
please come in and sit a while, let's have a little talk
why are you grinning? ... the clock stopped
wait! what are you doing?! oh it's me? im dying?
where are you going? Don't walk away from me!
you have a schedule to keep? oh, how naive of me to think
that i actually meant something to you
oh, i do? then why are you leaving so fast?
you have to go and me a gift? what is it?
He was going to get all id loved and left.

Glade
Evergreens
laden
thick and heavy with water
drops falling to earth intermittently
like a child's hands slapping at dirt
ruffling forest floor
uninterrupted
quiet
amidst chaos
of torrential rain
and torrential river
KISS ME
LIKE A TORRENT
RAIN ON YOUR LIPS

Im not scared to drown,
I'll let you pull me in

I am contradiction, confliction,
I am human.
Misconception
I had me but i lost me
stared at my reflection
inflection
in my voice
misguides your misdirection
mistakes
made by choice
a past without correction
this is my self infliction,
I am contradiction, confliction
i never learn my lesson.

My wound has not yet begun to heal
the blood it weeps has only just now congealed
the sinews have not yet begun to knit
together to bind;the bones have not begun to fit
back into the places they cracked from -my spine
you buried it deep so it's difficult to find - the knife
the bones and muscles are in my face
laying in shards and tatters
torn and shattered
by the lies and words you waste
spitting into empty space
because I've walked away
you think you can  replace me but you can't replace
Count your self lucky to still be my inspiration
But remember i have my limits too for being disgraced

I love to be able to take your words away and make your thoughts my own
I love knowing that somehow i manage to awe you with nearly everything i say
That you hold on to my every word so hard that your own slip from your mind
That i am what is on your mind. I love it. But do you ever think more?
I know you really well, yes, but in many ways your thoughts are a mystery to me.

Is this our only season? Have we by jaded hearts and mediocre reason
Undone ourselves at the seams from each other, unraveled all that we used to be
I knew things were changing but I didn’t know that they were disintegrating
Is this our only season? Is this how it all ends?  
Will you be another person I never forget, but who I never get to love the same again?
Have those hardass roses in the garden that spent forever too scared to bloom but doing a hell of a job surviving - have they just died?
Have the colors gone from my heart like they did when I lost the color in my eyes?
Is this our only season? Will we turn out to be perennial lovers?
Or maybe even lovers that bloom in rarity once in so many years – twice in a lifetime if lucky?

There is always a likelihood of calamity in relationships.
The candle is coming to the middle.

Terrified already and i haven't even  began to be able to express
all that I've realized with this vulnerableness
I have begun to helplessly and at the hand of God invest
i don't understand at all and i find little rest
in the fact that I've said the same words to a lover but they didn't likewise
peel back the skin to reveal the heart, or sometimes, in some places
the lack of one in my chest

You're unsure if i am even worthy to know
and granted i understand that before you've
heard the antagonist of what you've been shown
but to hear that, be shut down, when so far, so hard i push,
to open places in you closed for ages past,

I am not struck with rage but with confusion
, and pain, and paint on faces,
that i can see through but do not know what lies behind
the transparencies, and their clarity,
do not ease my mind

God i am trying.

when your breath
was against my skin
on my neck
my train of thought
became a train-wreck
derailed
like a spell
was put on me
i think i forgot to breathe
and my heartbeat
had forgotten me
and didn't care if
for a moment
i didn't think
clearly
he,
my heart that is
felt only bliss
not ignorance, no
but your kiss

Sword fights are fun
and we were idiots
who had drank just a little too much whisky
i cut your knuckles, and you wanted to keep fighting,
and you wanted to keep fighting so much that you waited,
and you waited weeks,
and then you threatened my life, my dad's old rusty craftsmen wrench in hand,
and i left.

I have been at rock bottom
the beauty of it  is that it was there
that i found the rock
the one i can stand on
i can't fall any lower
i wiped the slate clean
i prioritized my lovers
he picked up the pieces
rebuilt my heart from the rubble
filled the cracks with cement
he said what he meant
and he meant what he said
my heart is alive
and not just my head,
he is everything to me,
that i couldn't feel when i was dead.
he is rock steady
and i want to rock steadily
heading where he sends me readily
i can't wait to live the things he's imagining
I mean, he had the audacity (thankfully)
to imagine me.
he loves me incredibly
this ground is so solid
there is nothing to discredit me
rock, steady. rock steadily.

the master's peace is an unknown masterpiece
a ****** scrap of paper
floating across plains-
they are not godforsaken
but the people who walk them have forsaken god
they are wanderers- like me
we all are
and i wondered
i wished that one of us chasing that torn scrap of script
would catch it in our fist
and so on this page i write the secret
forget, then crumple it


[the secret]

[Jesus is the way. he is the light of day. The only real reason to breathe. The hardest thing to hold onto. The only one who can always be trusted to hold you. The answer to all your questions- If only after you die. The scars in his side were for you. If you would stop wandering and look beside yourself you would see his face. If you only cried out, if your soul cried out to him, he would listen. he would hear. he would answer.The only peace you will ever have forever is his peace. The master's peace. It is a masterpiece. Let him paint it in you. Please God acid etch it into me.]

I wish that i could stop dreaming because in the end my friend i wake up screaming. Blind and unseeing i arise, wide eyed with my voice flying from my throat. you all know that i have nightmares, or if u dont you dont care. Scribbles from my pen reveal that to feel one must live and to live one must lie awake at night, free to think with insanity flowing through his veins. Attacking sanity because sanity is a cage that enrages me.  The thinker , the feeler, the hoper, the dreamer. In all sanity one is far from reality. A wise man once said to me "things are not what they seem". The silent are screaming the dreaming are waking, the  fallen are flying, the living are dying, and still we cant see that we are blind to the truth. I was blind to the truth but now death is dead to me.

"I want to but i can't"
the chanting becomes ranting
like autumn leaves that leave the trees
falling from my lips with ease
but never heard above the breeze
the only sound from my mouth is the air that i breathe

I saw morning glories in the morning
white and full of pride
purple crowns around their green stem necks
alone, but not lonely
in a cotton field where i ripped up roots
and uprooted rocks

I saw morning glories in the afternoon
tired and a little pale
purple crowns looking like they needed a bit of polish
solitary, not brooding, but thoughtful
in a cotton field where the sun beat down on me
and i refused to bow

i saw morning glories in the evening
withering and dying
almost dead, looking for heirs to their crowns, but finding none
melancholy, but somehow still solemn in the stark heat
in a cotton field  where beauty i did meet
and speak of here and now

The sky is gray. Everything is gray really. The ground is grey brown. The the trees are gray green, and the sky is gray blue. A lonely man jogs beneath me in the cold. Most everything is still save for the gentle swaying of trees in the edge of my panoramic window view. There stand in the middle of the lot two trees that have traded their resemblance to stoic poets for the whims of the winds. They make me wonder about my brother. I remember how he used to mow the lawn on sunny days, rhythmically flexing his jaw as it rang with the vibrations from the machine at his fingertips. I remember the smell of fresh cut grass. I wonder if he was as trapped in his head as those other autistics who prove to be quite sentient. I imagine holding a conversation with a brother who is more intelligent than i ever imagined. I wonder how he's doing? I havent heard much about him since he tried to **** mom. Ticking time bomb. Set free to nurses in a hospice center. Released into the hands of a familial tyrant bent on pimping my brother for pills and potential children. Fake flower petals nestled in the window attempt quite faintly to soak up the silver sunlight. The sun is lazy today. It hasnt taken the time to run around the sky and warm itself up. It's laying asleep in a bed of clouds and contrary to what people say about them, i don't see a single silver lining. Just blurred edges. But somehow they manage to still be beautiful. They are a tired sort of beautiful. Cold stones lie in a shallow grave atop the rooftop awning extending from the outer edge of the building. They are splotched with tar and mold. Rainwater takes it's toll. The trees are tipping again. sideways and sideways back again. They seem to be fond of that tick tock triage. Much like mine. But i am less fond. Mind goes back to autistic rocking again. Sometimes i feel like my heart does what special needs people do on the outside. If my heart had a mind it would no it were in a cage consisting of cracked ribs and the dreams of a miser. If it had fists, depending on what day it is, let's say a dreary tuesday, like this, it would likely lay down on its wall hung mattress and resign to twiddling with it's thumbs. If my heart had a tin cup it would rattle it against my ribs. I would feel it in my spine and try to remember why i was built this way. But my heart doesnt have a cup, so it's thirsty, and restless. Without instrument. on days like this i would rather stare straight into the face of a room more brusque, floor covered in dust and hinges tinged with rust than to pretend that i am blemish free. on days like this i would prefer mongering war with my self and wallow in a pile of my own pelts, flayed from me by my own sharp words. The truth hurts. But tomorrow. . .tomorrow. . . who knows, i might hang some curtains.

Miasmic clouds strewn through the air
Inside our minds
A wishing well
Such things have known
Much hail and storm
Insanity thrown through the clouds
Could show us when and show us how

Could clouds answer me or will I
Live depravity
Out of water spring my feet
Under clouds
Dive my leaf; to the ground so
Soundlessly

I just, want you here, just like this.
Hell, what can i say,It's always been this way.
we connect randomly.(is this seat taken?)
break off.(stupid boy|girl segregation)
diverge. (across bus aisles)
recconnect. (hugs before you leave, subtle smiles)
risk.(hopped, hid, rode again in my seat those last few miles) .
create boundaries.(best friend, I'm with her, you're with him)
overstep(i daydream of you...)
overstep.(i dreamed of you last night...)
overstep (i dreamed of you last night again...)
recreate.(i ignore you when you speak, what was that last thing you said?)
walk on blind faith, a little too quickly.(we took two days to talk this over, two weeks to get into bed)
remember we are friends amidst all this ( i did)
and suddenly all the feelings, (or thoughts spinning in my head)
the ones that are thretening to surge freely through me, (undo me)
no restraint, (undid)
threating to take over my actions, my heart, my affections (am i mislead?)
(theyve already strangled my reason)(I'm brainless, because of you, undead)
experience a subtle but calming shift( smootheeee like thisssss)
when i remember(what we said)
I suddenly understand(this isn't wonderland)
why it is I don't want to leave(friends fight, we are friends)
you mean so much more to me(than i could even begin to express)
than emotions high arguing and a dozennn days ive cried( they are nothing compared to it)
you are my friend, (im beginning to think best)
and well, i just... i want you here, (just like this)

your picture was enough to make me pause
i picked you up and looked at you,
smiled, remembered, looked down, paused,
and set you back down on the table

You are my muse
and that, to me  is amusing
you think you're using me
but i'm using you
to produce a substance that is a part of me
It is a substance that many men have dubbed poetry

such a pity
shame really
you'll never believe the truth
and I'll never know it
because you'll never say it
and I'll never show it
at least not well enough to satisfy you
not perfectly
But perfection's what you ask of me
Perfection is only the man i wish i could be
perfect is the man you only wish you'd find
empty, hollow thoughts that are stuck
inside your mind

thrity minutes passed like a blind man's blinking
too solid a sleep to dream what i was thinking
when i lead down took ten aseconds to sink back into sleep
when i woke, new sleep had taken thrity minutes, in a blink

First kisses in the forest
torrent's rage calmed by evergreen noise reduction
a two minute climb from chaos to peace
from where I'm glad it didn't happen to where i'm glad it did
we held close in the forest
in freezing rain and river spray
saw an owl alight frightened
he watched i bet as we talked
made our way from river trail to overlook
overlooked lights that feel like a city
but really are only scattered campus buildings
and fall into each other
fold a few more times into this
dancing. . . hold me close
and a second and third kiss

you said your hands were cold
so i held them
you said my jacket was freezing
it had drank part of the river
and so you stuck your soaked hands
between my coat, shirt
above my skin
i was tickled by your fingertips
your head rested rested in the crest of my shoulder
we "danced" and danced in the rain
your lips tickled my
lips,
and then my neck,but not in kisses
but in sweet proximity
lacking anticipation
completely happy with sitting still
as you nuzzled deeper into me

writing on the backs of eagle feathers
nows and nevers play before my eyes
possibilities stomp and my cries
bleed from my lips as i
breathe in knives

i can see the  reflection of a tree
sparesely decorated with colored leaves
hidden under or over - im not quite sure
the backgroud of my computer screen
behind me is the window
and sky, and wind, and trees
are just a second in that direction
but here i sit
in lecture, reflecting on reflections

Feeling like severance may just be deliverance in disguise
running in my mind but turning and tripping because i'm looking behind
wandering and waiting and trying to figure out the why's
but tripping over each question every time
disgusted when i look into the mirror of my own eyes
so i close them and escape this moment of mine
the one where i'm surrounded by people attempting to get to me
and i just stand here in a coma on my feet, not saying anything , but smiling
a dead smile that most people think is alive
they act like my happiness is inscribed,
understood and read between the lines
That for me to lose it,
and fall apart and be lost and alone and depressed in the middle of all the amazing things i have
would be a crime
but they don't see the lies in my smiles
and the dying in my silent cries
they don't feel that in every touch
i am dissolving into dust
that in my heart i am doubting
every single person that i trust
that i know that i can trust
but
i am crippled and only doing what i must
to live a life worth anything
more than everything i can be
because i am nothing
and only the people that i love are anything of worth to me

I hate what you do to me, but do it again,

simple words but with a lot of weight
words I've said but words i hate
hate i love but wish to end
and end begun at least to  mend
the damage done by words unsaid and spoken
words that left hearts in which they hid,
and mouths from which they came
broken
simple words but with a lot of weight
words I've said but words i hate

I hate what you do to me, but do it again.

yeah, couldn't get better than this,
i've got a creak in my jaw and the sun in my fist
i woke up quickly  in the haze and the mist       (
it cleared up quicker  than the moments ive missed
it lasted no longer than a blink and gasp
woke up drenched in the morning light
woke up sweet so it wasn't  a fight
Got God on my side , and the day at my back
rest these young bones, and old soul, when they creak, and they crack
when they're weak and they lack
Yeah it couldn't get better than that

the sun's still barely shinin
but this evening i've got a feeling
God's changing futures I'm not seein

It's that red-gold glow that i'm hungry for
keep eatin and keep eatin more
you  keep on feeding
and ill keep on keeping
on,
I'll keep on counting
by ones, by ones
one, two, three, four.

(don't throw them pigs no pearls they'll crack their teeth)
(and mud is only deep enough for mudfights if you sink)
(and mud throwin and dirt rollin make everybody stink )

It couldnt get better than this,
it couldnt get better than that
Unless it lasted till after the fact
replay, take a free day
and for once give up the map
it couldnt get better than that

Let's be honest here
I hear voices.
It's hard not to listen to them.
They are convincing.
Even when what they say is complete *******.

I gave you a glance
said a shy hello
spontaneously erupted into smiles
walked away with a new friend
spent countless hours, days, months
together and on the phone, talking
building dreams

and now
I am unsure
If you're standing still
or walking away
and if it means
anything

Tantamount to thin traces, and graphite smudges,
hidden between pages,
messages in a million pinpoints, like a grand connect the dots,
secrets I'm smitten with in subtly hidden scatter plots.
Run round about my every thought,
and when i cannot sleep or dream
the dots turn tracers, light a stream,
like fireflies in summer heat,
forgotten by my fumbling feet,
and feathers fell on tufts of grass
through hell for you, your life my last hope
through the valley of the shadows twas your name i spoke
and shattered sky with good vibrations
I know why your name has shaken the nations.
Trees of electricity, split down through the sky this eve,
and I lay here remembering,
the way that apples split eve and adam
the way that snakes from first aeon spit venom
I remember because mirrors exist
A heart that traded true love for a tryst,
But you forgive me even this.

i pray,  meet me there tonight,
somewhere warm and out of sight
a cabin hidden, high in hills,
for many millenia of thrills

two lives there intertwine as they run
in mountains, valleys, hither and yon
imagine then, the heart's rejoice
if eryyman heard such a voice

ring out below, and well up deep
love unhidden, life to keep
the summer night, turn spring, turn fall
the skylark sing, the night gale's call,
the flowers rise, the leaves subside,
and every note, of song of bride

continue on, eer play what's wrote
from first second on,
i devoured what you spoke.

I've got poems tattooed on me but they go deeper than my skin, ink seeps deep into my soul, as quickly as the pentip needle dips in, dips out, like an illicit lover who has disappeared in the morning, she comes, and she goes.

broken rhythym
trying to explain my heart to her
splattered on the wall
shattered and splashed on all of my surroundings
shattered, splattered, all
but i am stuck resounding
the overcoming call
i wil love, i will love you,
for every day, for all,
i will not leave, i will not leave you,
not for a single
foot
fall
Let's walk

I won't say i told you so unless the words are I love you
and it's because you finally believe me.

Recently i have been remembering my father. It is hard, but he is a man worth remembering. I do not know how everyone else saw him, but, despite his flaws, he was a great father and a great man. He was a man i was sure of the love of.. He showed me what that meant. I could see it in him. He had some out there thoughts, some strange views - maybe because he went through the 70s , maybe because that was just his head. But no matter that, he loved. The Lord, his wife, my wonderful mother, I , my brothers. I still find strands of his silver hair, even here, in toccoa, among my things. On his jacket. I am reminded of him by the things he left behind. and i remember the space he filled in my life. I never got the chance to right some of the things i regret- shrugging him off - arguing - avoiding him. But i know he forgives me. He is my father - that doesn't and has not changed. Through his passing i have learned that he truly was a great one, and i was sometimes shortsighted when he was still here. I have learned that where he fails - My father God will not. I have seen how he reflected God, and i have seen where he fell short in his humanity. He remains - not perfect - and i will not glorify him past what i believe he was - but an amazing picture of change and redemption through his life. He survived a lot that most men would have crumbled under. He did not run from things that many men would have shrank and hidden from. He made bad choices. But he did what he could to make them right. he lived fast sometimes, but he never forgot that slowing down is important to truly living as well. He may have screamed, yelled, or lost his temper, but at heart, he was a gentle man. He had the strength and the knowledge and the wit to cut people down, but he build them up, bridled his strength, was not a prideful man. He lost much, but he held on to what he still had. He was what a father should be. He was not a god, nor did he always lead with his values in a perfectly straight line. But he taught me to love my brothers. He taught me that blood was thicker. He taught me that God is always the one to go to when everything is wrecked - and you can always go to him even if it was you who wrecked those things. I wish we had seen more eye to eye. But i think, perhaps for our disagreements i found more of me. I think for his weakness, i was given strength. And i imagine i, through my stubbornness and temper similar to his own, challenged him to love daily. And he still did. I miss him.

Thick ticked scratches crash across all silhouettes
Flickers of faces and vestiges of voices,
Who aren't quite people yet.
Rustle the pages, turn as I write
Blistering, shimmering, radiantly white.
Nothing to nothing,
It comes and it goes.
Traces,and ages,
And nodbody knows.