this one to the Boy
who became Out of Breath when the world took its First.
I know how hard Oxygen is to swallow.

Don't tie the laces of your shoes, Boy,
because Don't you Want to be
Tripped?

I'm sorry she'll never Climb the wind like you Hoped she would.

this one to the Boy
who didn't really believe in Names
because all the Words will Die with the World anyway.

to the Boy
because I wanted to Write Words
that maybe he would Stop
and Read.

I've just run out
of "Benefits of the Doubt"s.

I think you know what it's like to taste love
on the end of your tongue
like the lingering bitter-sweetness of soft metal.

I think you're older than the number given to you by your age
and heaven's angels have not spared you,
like they sometimes do,
from the acid tears of sorrow the world cries down at night.

I think you love the sun like it will never die
and that you trust that beauty comes in sleepless nights.
You run from friends in life,
yet you trust that that's what it's all about.

I know you're a mess,
and charcoal eyeliner traces the tracks of tears better than lying about
          fake incidents.
Please let someone hold you this time around.
It's only ever lonely if you find your feet on solid ground,
and the sins of the wind are the only ones to share the stability with.

Oh, I just don't know where to go.
When your oceans are full of salt water
and salt water reigns in my tear-ducts,
I'm stuck:
I'm sorry I've stopped coming over.
But the swings on the swing set in your backyard don't carry me away to the wind
     like they used to.
And I know you drive in the shadows
so the Police can't ever see you,
But I'm tired of that too.
I want them to find me,
so that I can lick the columns of prison bars,
and see what being stuck really feels like.

He climbed up
and over
the Berlin Wall.
The Gods
cried rain
all over him
and it made his hair wet.
The drips traced down
into his eyes
and then he was crying,
too.

I think this is my goodbye letter to you,
but, please, don't be mistaken,
for I don't intend on forever.
I count the waves one at a time
and wait to see
if the blood of cardinals is as red
as the color of their feathers.

I never wish of parting
but ends are ever inevitable.
The moon drinks all the water
and spits it all back out again.
Flowers eat the sunlight
and the sun will eat them back
when it gets hungry.

I say goodbye to you
in the way that fireflies die.
They burn with light in life
and the end is never seen
for the daylight takes over,
and we see the more colorful things
instead.

I whisper that I will see you again
to myself at night
when I'm alone.
And stack rocks in chains
just because I want to knock them down.

Goodbye.
Because puzzle pieces only
unravel us in the heart.
And writing good words only
gets you a fancy car
with no one to spill things in.
Goodbye because flowers cry dew
Goodbye because carbon dioxide is eating the green
Goodbye because I'm only 5'8" and
will never be as tall as I want to be
Goodbye.

I can't promise you I'll wait.
I can't promise God will not laugh at me.
But I tell you goodbye because
I'm stuck here.

Maybe I'm looking for a miracle
between cracks in sidewalks,
something informal
to let me know
that angels don't cry for no reason.

And right now
I've stopped believing
that miracles
can be birthed in ditches filled of sewage trash.

Miracles are for the born luckies
and not those who are born rich.
Miracles lie with closed eyes --
but they've stopped dreaming.
Miracles drown
in the waters
of the tears
of those crying angels.

They fool you,
deceive you,
and make you believe the sunset will forever exist.

But one day,
the sun will not rise
and all the flowers
will wither and die.

Your head looks beautiful when encircled
in a wreath of ****
smoke billowing from your lips.

Do the stars shine brighter up there?
I wonder
sometimes
if they do.
Or if loneliness is
the only presence
you are greeted with
when lighting up.

Your eyes don't shine
like they usually do
when the flame of a lighter
is reflected within them.

Remember love flies,
like moths do, towards the light
and, in the end,
dies
just the same.

And I think that if you were anyone else I would ask you to come over tonight.
And if you were anyone else you would come over tonight.

Oh
don't let the wind
change the way
of your arteries and veins.

Oh
let the travels you made
have gone okay;
I hope you didn't sit quietly
on the train.

Oh
have people changed
you?
The things you used to say
made it worth the way
I came.

Oh
let showers under stars
lift up those prison bars.
Refuse to let life char
you.
Just drown down with me into the salt marsh.

He was a man with pools for eyes
the rage that darkly tinted them was the chlorine,
never distilled.
Convinced your heart was the same shape
as his,
that the sky is never black, but blue.
Blue like they all say.
Shooting stars looked like lit matches thrown into water
in those gelid eyes.
No wishes to be made here; keep on moving, folks.
The wash of the world in the wave of each fresh sunrise:
to him,
just another day to lose.
And the days did - they folded
and fell inside the others.
They held no divergence.
His acropolis never torn from the earth.
Not hurricanes or tsunamis, not earthquakes
could storm a plight larger than his anger.
Welcome the The Almighty Kingdom.
He the absolute fascist,
the dictatorial leader.
His word like handcuffs
shackling you to every. single. one.
A cape of misery that turns all wondering and curious eyes to grey.
Heart pressed within a room of shrinking walls.
Swallowing hurts, too, sometimes. Most times.
He reigns more stringently today than he did
the day before
and the day before
and the day before.
I’m afraid, scared, terrorized
by what the future here could hold.

Tears leave
burns
that strike
like lightning
in This Dark.

I ride in the car with you, alone
and wonder
if the clouds blocked those stars tonight
for a reason.

They escape like bandits
and run like fire was eating at the hems of their pants.
Eyes lit like dynamite light,
they race across the track the stars set out for them.

They escape like bandits
and leave me to taste the dust they leave in their wake.
It tastes like burnt toast and the tears you cry.

Power outlets exist on ceilings.
Why?
Because gravity will die
and we will walk on the lights.
The ground becomes the ceiling;
the stars become the dirt.

And so we walk, and drive
to stop the faulted nails from hammering into our heads
and hearts.
And we remember.

We remember that rainbows
don't need to be seen for their *** of gold
but for their colors.

We remember that life has holding chains
and we are all grounded.

We remember that arms can hold you
even when the stars rip the world apart.