Dripping off petals
Of silky soft red
Standing tall and strong
In an earthen bed

Running down the stem
Covered in knives
Off of one bush
Comes many more lives

Each small red gem
Silently sleeping
The dew running down
As if silently weeping

Mist hangs in the air
The white breath of the earth
While calm and peaceful
Also seems to drain the mirth

The tight weeping bud
Awakens to dawn
Stretching its petals
At the birds morning song

Sunlight rains down
On the silky red flower
The energy to live
That it does devour

The spring in your steps
And the spring in nature
Playing a match
That let me have a catch
Of a bit of happiness
In all my loneliness

In all my loneliness
This weather makes me
Light as a feather
Dreaming of us together*

Dreaming of us together
In a fairyland
We claim as ours
Where a vast meadow
Filled with flowers
Dancing as the wind blows

Dancing as the wind blows
Taking away my woes
Sun rays kissing our skin
Let the light shine upon us

You are quiet night with a dim white light
Bring the warmth of the darkness into the blue
When droplets of rain fall slowly
Dancing gently in the breeze
It is like an art that springs from the dawn
You are mystery of beauty
When sapphire moonbeam is more impressive than the cold sea

and i am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware
'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away
& he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, i touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
i never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering
& my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference

have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

First, you dig your self a hole
Deep enough to lose control
Then, you push yourself inside
At the bottom, where there's no place to hide
Next, you try to claw your way through
Until there's nothing left to do
Tired, helpless, body worn
Wrists among everything else is torn
Drowning in your own salty tears
Condemned by the most realistic fears
Gasping for air, destined for execution
Feeling like death is the only solution.

We lied there on the grass
Thinking about life
How it went so well
With or without strife

We shared the same thoughts
We were inseparable
All of our years
Our fun, always on a double

Then you sat up
Looked me in the eyes
Smiling so sweetly
I can't break the ice

I smiled back and hoped
That this wouldn't end
But then you spoke up
"I'm glad that you're my best friend"