You’ll see me up there
Again this summer
Just don’t expect me to be broken
I am healthier now
But I’m still fun

I won’t be your little ice cream cone
Dripping with sticky sweetness
You can’t hold me in your hand
Melting vanilla in the sun

We can be neighbors, we can be friends
Sip cheap Mexican beer from cans
I’ll even juice the lime

There will be giggling, and lively banter
You’ll probably try to look down my shirt and I will not mind

That is where we’ll draw the line,
Healthy boundaries
of summertime

This incessant thirst for torture
bubbling up Like puke in the throat

I want your feedback all over me
Drape my mutilated soul across your chest

Staring out with aching eyes at the vast nothingness before us

I scream at myself on the inside
The high is never worth the low

The thrill of trouble is electrifying

If my inner wisdom goes unheeded
The Situation will unfold
into a disgusting place of being
Like a gas station bathroom

Bleakness will creep in, Settling into my center

Followed by ugliness,
Addiction Ravaged pallor

Stealing the rightful place of beauty

You would be the first to help me change a tire if I were stranded.
Would do the same for my friends that don’t fit your narrow minded standards?
Would you drive past dangerously fast roaring like a beast of destruction
Tossing out a choking cloud of diesel smoke and spent beer cans
Hatred dripping from your lips like spittle
I don’t appreciate your mouth breathing on me in the grocery store
just because you like my boots.  
We walk separate paths in the same world.
I’m here for the solitude in nature.
You prefer a murderous assault on all things living
resisting the division this creates,
I remain your neighbor
But I hang windchimes in my trees and warn the fairies of your presence

I love you too,
I don’t say.
Stumbling barefoot in the dusty grass
I stare down at my toes.
Solely dependent
The current situation I cling to
Chopping off my hands and feet and hair
I contort myself in order to fit.
Flexibility has always served me well
Lopping off the branches, limbs, twigs
of the mother tree
I stuff it all down

We must travel in this direction in order to make our way home.
Through the cloud of putrid stench that hangs around the Water treatment plant.
Past the places we threw our love away
like floppy old winter hats on the interstate.
Repeatedly Submitting to truck tires.
Rising up for a moment in the rush of wind
Longing to be set free,
Only to succumb to the crushing weight and the grind of the pavement again.

I need not look down to know
I am in the same pattern again.
I know this path
This is the gulch that I clambered my way from last season  
When my chin was set strong, gaze fixed on the horizon
One slip and I have lost my footing again
The forest floor
cool, rich dampness
I intensely enjoy myself down here
You want to join in on my adventures
But I know where this path leads and the summit is pain

Only time passed
Spans the distance between us

Pull it in
and zip it up,
Balancing steadily

A practiced act