Swallow your 'good kid' medicine,
drink up the black sludge oozing off of a rusted spoon,
stride in straight rows from beginning to end,
never let your feet stray from trodden asphalt.

Scoop your brains out of your head,
accept that your empty skull rattles in a heavy breeze,
waltz around burning coals on ash heels,
laugh while smoke and flame licks soft skin.

Ahahahaha
hahaha
haha
ha...

Ha?

I've been a fool and I've been blind
never able to leave our past behind,
The wound drips, stains the cotton red
but I remember its beauty once, thread
and needles dancing a cold waltz.

River rocks grind to a halt, petals
bend on one knee to accept the nettles
like a hapless king. I remember, I refuse
to forget the bubbling spring of gentle abuse
where my heart gasped for air.

Our season of contentment has turned fallow,
our wounds bleed through a shadow
of a life we could have loved. Bury your
hands in the dusty soil, trace the gore
trembling down your sleepy hands.

Let's lay our demons to rest.

I guess you could call me a
smooth criminal, if your definition
consists of a slipshod ball of nerves
who just so happens to find nirvana
sliding their fingertips into your pocket.

I've not managed to steal a thing, and
y'know exactly how hard it is to pull off
the greatest heist when my knuckles shake
hard enough to throw California straight
into the ocean.

Shut up.

So what if your hand happens to be right
next to mine?! Don't mean a thing, of course not,
and stop makin' so many assumptions,
you're always puttin' words in my mouth,
'specially when I'm next to ya.

S'fine, I've already finished anyway! Objective
accomplished, reward obtained. Hope ya don't
mind that my hands are little sweaty...

Just you and me, babydoll
in the back of the death trap
in front of the passenger train
in-between your rock and my hard place.

Ribcage like the basement heater,
you're really just the worst side
of paradise, pressing your
unreliable heat on my chest.

Whiskey and wine, baby mine,
don't taste nearly so good as when
I can lick the drops off your chin,
fearing I've ruined your chances.

'Cause you touched me, y'know,
me, the heaviest hand to hold, the
most hopeless burden to carry, and
I've never made it any easier for you.

I ain't a poet, really, just a man who
forgets what he's gotta say. Maybe one
day, when we're old and bitter and eating
our dust, you'll read between the lines.

Dull metal, no, dull senses
Feels like I'm dying, like I'm living
Blood, frothy,
Viscous, wanton, throbbing
Swells pale skin.

Closet, cramped, bare back
against a scratched wall
handle trembling,
teeth chatter like bird beaks
a mouth oozing with spit.

It won't come, I won't
let this foreplay cease
in a ******. Teasing, wandering
criss-crosses of wounds
legs spread in want of the blade.

Diediediediediediediediediedie-
I won't.
I can't.

The scars remain on me
and they rub against the scratch
of my shirt. Tomorrow, darling
they say to me, Always later,
*Always tomorrow

The sunburnt skin aches the most in that first new night,
*so, fear not, my love, the cleansing fire of the sun.

Lunar lovers, under covers,
dream of mice and men.

Solar brothers, burning others,
have yet to ever sin.

If I could manage to swallow
that growing sense of dread between my
shivering, pale lips, then it would
be much easier to take the lead.

Would I be free of emotional instabilities
the moment my boxers slipped to the floor?
Is that how this works? Where do my hands
even go in the first place?

If I could make my eyes flicker closed
as you lean in to steal my breaths by
means of unwelcome inquiry, perhaps
my heart would cease lamenting.

I could probably say all I wanted in the matter
and plead my case, but when society's the prosecutor,
chances are my legs would be required to stay
open 24/7, like a convenience store.

I'm sorry. I can't fix this, it's not something to be
fixed. I've failed as a basic human and cannot function
without regrets and anger. Besides, there are nicer
sorts around. Find them instead.

Remove your hands from my chest, your mouth from
my mottled shoulder. This is a convenience store that
never opens.

The morning skips over the night's heavy back
with a golden spring in its pattering steps.
Moon kisses Sun goodbye as he leaves for work.
The two celestial boys in the sky whisper in early dawn.

It's a bright day today, cloudless and buoyant like
honeydew blossoms in the scented wind. Today is
the Sun's domain, smiling down to press gentle hands
against warm skin.

He loves those days, just as he loves the delicate boy
lingering behind the wispy clouds of night. In passing,
he wishes for another chance to bump shoulders on
morning's scarlet horizons, two hands clasped in rosy-fingered dawn.

He wishes to keep it forever, to swallow the moonlight between
parted lips. Ah, that lunar boy.

Beautiful lunar boy.

**** the sinners, love the saints.
Love the children, they'll be great
one day, until they're sinners too.
Then you'll slaughter 'em, right?

Love the sinner, hate the sin?
Ridiculous, right? You'll ******
them one day, in the name of faith.
******* and your righteousness.

Let me cry in peace, rather than pieces.

Baby Mine,
         The voices lie.
                      Be yourself.
                                  You're my beautiful son.

Little bird, little bird, fly away home.
Your mommy is waiting, your daddy's returned.
Singing for their baby, singing for the world,
little bird, little bird, fly away home.

My heart keeps trembling, my eyes keep closed
The earth smells like sunsets, your skin like a rose.
Kisses under pine trees, knees deep in mud,
My heart keeps trembling, my eyes keep closed.

Take that chance, love, take that chance
with fairies spinning round, dance your dance
Make your magic, make your love
Take that chance, love, take that chance.

*Don't let me go.

Submissive, permissive
The son and the father.
Furtive, pensive
The mother and her daughter.

A family of sides,
a relationship of colors.
Blue, grey, black, white,
of the bruises on each other.

Daddy Dearest takes a sip
of his favorite poison chosen.
Mommy Darling breaks a hip
upon the floor she lays frozen.

Girl and boy, husband and wife
Innocence, poor girl, is dead.
When she leapt off the ledge of life
a smile glued on an empty head.

Dead girls make pretty pictures
against the son's sweat-stained wall
it's so hard to follow ardent strictures
when all he wants is love from them all.

Husband drunkard, daughter gone.
This poor family's gone awry.
Son of obsessions, mother harmed,
why can't this family all just die?

The man creates with his singular hands
the grandeur of his heart crashing upon the Earth.
That lonely structure will eventually rot away to the
center of it all if no one takes its meaning.

Bridges will collapse into the sea, pretty little
castles corrode one by one. Their kings never came to
inhabit them, their princes never ruled accepting towers.
No one came to know them, no one respected craftsmanship.

What's the point of having a beautiful set more glorious
than the acting, if no one bothers to speak of that paint? The
crowd gathers for the show, the actors consume easily-distracted
minds. Foolish personas trample the work of one.

Move on, creator of souls. Relinquish your command of the pieces of
art that makes the show. Find that place where, if not appreciated,
that wayward audience finds painted scenes and plastered dreams
of lovely quality.

You're worth the hype, you know. Don't be an idiot and continue
to place the burdens on yourself because you don't think you're worth
more than pieces of wood and layers of paint. If that craftsman doesn't
find his home soon enough, the only thing I'll remember...

Is your absence.

Create what you love. Build what your heart tells you to build.
Become what you love.

I believe in you.

I used to hate men, I used to want them dead
for all the crimes they imposed upon women
for all the hurting, all the shame
that they created.

I used to hate love, I used to want it destroyed
because it never amounted to anything but
painful lies, missed phone calls, and a sorrow
deeper than the heart.

Back then, under the dull glow of a monitor
an ache hit my chest. I need something, someone
to blame for all the pain I felt. I needed anything
to keep me from falling into disarray.

The burden of growing up never gave my shoulders
any time to relax from the weight of the world
resting atop them. Instead I collapsed into
the earth, unaware of it all.

Like a phoenix, I've revived from the ashes of
old, dead hatred, alive and fully aware of past
mistakes. The old me did not die, but was
transformed anew.

I used to hate men, but now I've become one.
I used to hate love, but now my love's outnumber the stars.
I used to hate, but now... I hate no more.

The sun will one day engulf the entirety of humankind.
Its ever-present flames will gulp down history in greedy swallows,
tearing away soils and sea and sky without preference or thought.
Nothing will be spared then, nothing will be 'special'.

I don't see the sense in worrying about the day that it comes down to,
in the end of things around us. No mystical words of hope or whispered phrases can prolong the chemical bonds of a supernova releasing in an outward blast of heat and fire and, eventually, death.

The fields of the Earth glitter in the early morning, oceans swell in contentment of the new morning's bright gaze, layers upon layers of creatures chitter in the dawn of a lavender sky. It's alive down here, alive and well. We won't know what hit us until we're all cinders.

It's comforting, actually. There's no anticipation. You won't know until you do, and then there's no more pain for anyone. Why should we fear it? Why not celebrate all before it and all after? Despite our disappearance, the universe goes on and on, infinite loops of infinity sprawling infinitely.

Kiss the wind, kiss your sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, parents, partners. Or don't. Fill the earth with laughter, tears, screams, whines, moans, and, in the end, rattles of breath. Or don't. The future cares not about your achievements, the sun does not choose the 'nice' people to burn last.

Worry about your present. The future is full of hypotheticals that are impossible to determine. Let not the fear of burning determine you, let you determine you.

After all, in the end, we're all humans. What makes you special is your own decision.

When you cup petals between your fingers and hold them to the wind,
why is it that they always seem to disappear before you can reach them?
Why does the Earth make catching little bits of beauty so difficult?
Why couldn't I catch you?

At those certain times when gravity lets one float in the air, above humanity for a scant few moments, what are your thought up there? Do you dream of a weightless place? Do the birds tug you upward just before you tumble?

Where the sky and curving plains and fields meet, can you bridge that gap and meet the sky with open arms again? Do you look up in the sky and wonder what's up there? Do you smile at the little things at your feet?

I'm a troublesome thinker, you know, always wondering where you are, what you're doing, what makes you smile and what makes you frown. Each step pounds against unwilling pavement reverberates with endless listlessness. Will I see you again today?

Answers never do return unless I reach to you, though, so I sit here, eyes unable to truly observe what is in front of me thanks to the blurring amount of thoughts clouding my vision. Soon, the gap between my time and yours will vanish.

Won't you... at least stay a little while longer?

The heart trembles for things it cannot reach.
The bird leaves its nest open for attacks from above.
His chest hurts so bad.
Why did he have them?

Looking in the mirror, he notices it, the curse.
Curses made heavy weights on his chest, weighing him down.
His hair no longer drew his hair down to earth.
Thin hair, sharp eyes, curved shapes.

Oceans span between head and heart, aching.
Aching, it ached mom stop please no more don't look.
His remolded edges have scratches, the ceramic chipped.
Boy meets hopelessness, boy meets veracity.

The feet of a dancer mingle
with the glitterings of a tenor
in the depths of eternal eternity
He can't help but laugh.

Knowledge knows true
the natural pretentious views of a world
made of wires and shadows and whispers unheard
this isn't made of sugar, but of firing electrons.

The amalgam of truth comes not from imagery
a painting of butterfly breaths timed to milliseconds
but of the young boy sitting in the laps of his seniors
chortling in the shadows of the darkness at the audience.

He knows truth. He knows honest in the arms of the best play
and jokes at the sugary saturation of image
in the depths of comrades' comforting arms
He laughs at folly and wires of creation.

For he created it out of nothing, came together
in darkest hours of burning need to bring forth depiction
and, though it may be unreal, the humanity lies beneath polished
cracks, in the love of boys, girls, men, women, ideas.

A cue for silence croons. All calculated. All ephemeral.
The deception lies on his wan face.
God arrives in the splendor of muscle memory.

And I would walk a thousands miles,
   o
       n
            e
At a time, until my feet bleed out memories,
                  y
                       e
                            s
If that meant that a light up, a bright smile,
                                 y
                                    o
                                       u
And I, you and I, nose to nose, blood and sweat and
                                          e
                                              y
                                                  e
                                                      s
On the dying moon, oozing crimson memories from the
                                                           s
                                                               u
                                                                    n
's bright after glow. That's my journey I live by.

In the chilling miasma of the night,
when all fears come out to play under the stars
the hot throbbing in my chest
comes from a reflection.

Eyes avert my own gaze,
the mirror on the bathroom sink.

Too many flaws are there,
it disgusts me so.

I know not when it struck me thus,
one day spent avoiding my own vision
that I finally managed, with a bold courage
to give my mirror self a smile.

The mirror did not break,
and I sighed.

Strangeness reflected and doubled back, over and over
yet it did not hurt.

And oh, how this dark fear that burdened me so
dissipated in the depths of me.
Heart beats echo in the silence,
my grin in the bathroom mirror.

She faces me,
and I face her,
Dissonance misting the small space between our eyes.
Our understanding,
Our sense.
Peaceful,
but beneath the skin,
The black fangs of rotten desire clench around...

To force back the darkness would be wise,
the odd, clenching pang of want,
just under my tongue.
To not ruin,
to preserve this as it were.

I would **** for such luxury.

Yet still, eyes wander,
shifting to span her up and down,
Eyes map, spanning heartbeats, seconds, millenia,
until that peaces aches within me.

We are balmy happiness no longer.

For happiness is as bitter as the stinging ocean saltwater.
A moment passes.

The air maintains the consistency of clay,
Binding the two.
Yet the hands of anxiety keep a perfect blend from being kneaded.
A moment passes.

A reach, a grasp at any part of one another. To feel, to caress, to intertwine hands as if
python and prey;
All, I find, more adequate alternatives to a denial of the wiles of want.
A moment passes.

I took a walk around my neighborhood
             wondering if I might see something worthwhile.

All was silent, all was cold. I was alone
             with the wind blowing, noises echoing for the street.

I cried, feeling sorry for all of those lonely things
               but never for me, never for my own heart in isolation.

Because I deserved it here, in the chilly gray sky
               and not an angel in the heavens would vouch otherwise.

It's a bit too cold
in this ugly Christmas sweater
made badly, quickly by my grandmother
when she did such things for me.

I'm sitting in my room, legs pulled to my chest
shivering through my long pants and wool
finger shaking, palms clammy and cold
but somehow managing to type out these letters to you.

You tell me you're so oh so warm
where you are right now, in your little house
just on the very edge of the forest
cheeks rosy and sweet, just like the rest of you.

Brr, it's too cold outside
to be this giddy
but I am regardless of the weather
you kiss my head in the dark.

And I wake up, then, all alone
teardrops dripping from my eyes, nose running and frozen
in this horrible Christmas sweater
and I don't think I will be warm ever again.

Are you aware of how much you interest me?
Probably not, that would be stupid.
What would a teacher have to do with his student?
Nothing.

But, regardless of that, you manage to catch
my wandering eyes anyway
because, after all of my watching, I've noticed
you seem different from my other teachers.

There is no attempt to provide perfection
or even the sham of one
when you talk, or write, or walk
unlike those I've met before.

You are awkward, anxious occasionally, funny often
like a human, not like a teacher
it's comforting, and yet not
because I fear failing in front of you.

For you who is so different, the pressure
to do better, to make you see me and praise me at all
smothers me with gaining frequency
so much so, in fact, that I have become a bit pretentious.

I interrupt others, and when you reprimand me,
I feel like the world is sinking around me.
My reactions are harsh and awkward at the same time,
and I cannot help if I lose it.

So, I am sorry for failing to be the best like I promised myself
or be the kindest, or the student you like the most.
All of these promises I made selfishly
without a thought to what any of it may entail.

I know you don't pick favorites, I know this now,
and I mean next to nothing to you because I am just a child you teach
and that I will never be your friend or someone important
all of these things I know far too well.

But... you are the most interesting teacher, person, human
that I have seen in a long while
I just... wanted to let you know that you have made a difference for me
and that it would make my day if maybe one day you could... notice me.

That is what I want more than almost anything. It's selfish and stupid and unreasonable.

I'm sorry.

I fell asleep as the sun came up
        waiting for you to doze off
                 A little tipsy off of your shape
                           curled up so peacefully in the dawn.

                                   My face is always flushed and bright red
                                         when your smile, the smile, lights up the night
                                                 And I wonder, Good God, when did I ever
                                                        *get so intoxicated with you, anyway, dear?

Three souls moving to your left,
each of them a little different, but still beautiful
all distinguishable by words and phrases and soft laughter
as they converse amongst themselves.

You see all of this, close enough to breathe their air, taste their presence
but the foot between your thighs and theirs is an impenetrable bubble
keeping you floating in your own empty space
trapped, alone, and longing.

It has always been this way, ever since you were small enough to see it
withdrawn, resolved to exist alone, content to let the world pass you by...

Their laughter startles you, yelping giggles so profound
you can't help but turn and stare at them, goggled-eyes
a dark boy, strange blackness for curls and pale-cheeked
notices, prodding you with the edge of your foot.

The bubble pops. *And you are set free.

The stars in my eyes are reduced to cinders
                                                for you burn brighter than their glowing sparkles
I'd rather have you in my vision
                                                 than those little, distant pinpricks in the night.

You're drowning here, in your own mind,
in which the world is falling atop your skull.
The panic is setting in, the tears come, and
you are preparing to die.

Shh.

But, how can I be quiet?
If everything is dying around me, and I'll be
all alone in this treacherous darkness
watching it all end.

I'm here, and you are safe. Shh...

Are you really there...?
With me right now, and you
won't ever go...?

Yes, now shh...

... Okay. Okay...

I'll be quiet for a little while.

Although I have been lied to and deceived,
I feel not like the victim
only a barrier, a wall,
between the most beautiful things I could know.

I took things from you that you never had,
love, affection, passion that you did not feel
and stored up these lies inside of me
believing 'till the end that they were true.

But they weren't.

I was never close to you at all
we were distant
and you were not mine
your heart never once belonged to me.

So, how can I be the victim here, when I was greedy
and cruel, the terrible monster under the bed
gobbling up your heart so readily
never knowing that none of it was real?

How could I be?

Instead, let me be the monster I am
and punish my heart, destroy my body, cut out my soul
for I would rather have all the pain in the world
than know that my love was never enough, so I took yours instead.

I was never a victim, so you can't call me one. Name me what I truly am: **evil.

To amend all of my previous statements I have made
about love, a topic that I really have no knowledge of
I will attempt to be as frank and honest as possible.
Well, as honest as poetry can be.

I cannot promise you an eternity.

Not only would that be drastic, but also inconsiderate
as the days to come may be darker than the night sky
and who will know when our feelings may drift apart
Like little leaves in the wind.

Nor can I truly love you the same forever.

Because people change, our hearts grow and shrink
with new experiences, failures, and successes too.
I know this, for my heart swells at the passing air
Whenever I think of you.

So, instead of those meaningless cliches, I would rather ask for a pact.

For us to grasp hands lying under the sunshine
knowing that the storm is brewing on the horizon
and to brave it as best we can together, and only
When we cannot take it, we will let go.

There is a significant chance we won't make it to the end
and I know this, it haunts me every second I consider it
but now, and only now, I can safely tell you my love
To my heart's content.

I love you, without negative connotation,
and I fear, I worry, I brood over everything
Fear is an old friend of mine, an acquaintance
so I cannot forget, or atone, only amend my faults.

I have no eternities to promise, no delusions of grandeur
just the throbbing of my heart, the babbling of my mouth
and a love that grows with the passing of seconds
all laid bare on the tops of the hill, overlooking the storm.

I ask no romanticism, just one action: *Take my hand, take my heart, and take my soul, and together will we walk.

... Nothing happens.
I'm still sitting here on this bench
watching the clouds outside the window.

They aren't pretty ones either,
they're dark and hanging
like some empty sheets wrinkled with water.

Everyone moves so slowly here
in my mind's rapid perception
the seconds crawl across my skin like tremors.

The only thing that is moving too fast
is your words, they fly
one after the other into those soaking clouds.

And suddenly, you disappear
from my lines of vision
now the clouds pour and spit their weight upon me.

My mind is eroding
my feelings are melting like sugar cubes
in the torrent of this depression on my being.

But you are gone, and I will suffer alone.

There is no perfect someone waiting at the top
of the steepest peak, waiting for you
like some comic superhero in a cape
here to save you from your faults and failures.

No.

Love is looking at someone and going, "Wow, you're pretty ****** up,
but I love you regardless."
"And baby, even if you make a tremendous mistake,
I will always love you."

No dramatics, no perfection.

Just seven-hundred shades of awkward blushes
staying up 'till 4 o'clock talking about kittens
tripping over your pants to answer their calls
and spending hours in angst over what sweater to wear on your dates.

There is no shortcuts, no steep passes, and most importantly, no heroes
only little mistakes, slips of the tongue, and sweetness
but, if you go in expecting mountains
the disappointment will be your downfall.

So, just live with it
go to sleep, embrace your lovers, laugh at yourself
and don't dread the mountain pass
for, in the end, there is no true mountain at all.

Only kisses and the simple taste of what is to come.

To be honest,
I am terrified of this feeling
so when I look at you, your eyes bright
no words come out.

You are able to create things from it
the little songs written on the tip of your tongue
and though guilt burdens me so
my voice is like a ghost, evading and chasing in the dark.

How on Earth did you fall for me, anyway,
if I could never say how I truly feel?
I may as well be a mute
for all that I say.

Maybe my words will come one day
in the darkness of some cold night
and I will sing my odes to you
in complete and utter honesty.

But, for now, I will use what I can
my eyes wide and heart full
so, that, when they do come one day
my heart will be ready.

I could say that word as many times as I wanted
but it won't make you see me.
I would whisper it in your ear, like a treasured secret
and yet you would still never see the truth.

Because love is such a boring word, really.
People can love their pets and children can love their toys
Love is something that everyone seems to throw around
but it is not love.

Love is wanting someone to be happy with all of your being
to feel such empathy that, when you feel sad, I'm the one who starts crying.
And it ****** me off that you can play that off as anything else
like a little meaningless shrug.

Do you know how much I've hurt to make you happy?
How dare you say I never tried?!
You're a fool if you think that I did not care, because I told you I did
when we first met one another.

So, just shrug me off as you go
please, you're just making it that much sooner
to watch me stride farther and farther ahead into the distance
leaving you in the dust.

Just watch me go, as I'm taking my boring words with me.

I love you.

Like a puppy would,
dependent on the words you say
hanging on every syllable, heart thumping like mad
waiting for that smile to take me away.

I need you.

Like a baby bird,
emotions too frail and helpless
calling out for someone in my loneliness
alone in my nest, waiting for your return.

I want you.

Like a child's wants,
idolizing some spectacular object
enclosed by glass, but close enough to tempt
waiting for the chance to reach out and grab it.

I adore you.

Like a lovestruck buck,
chasing the elusive doe into the forest
pacing through the thicket like a madman
waiting for you to peek out from your den.

I love you, want you, need you, adore you, and you are mine.

A woman receives a blossom
of the one meant for her but once.
But I, like heroine of ages past
have not one love but two.

Just as a mother loves both her children
but in differences and personality
so do my loves vary so
like the flower and the ****.

The ****, feisty and strong in nature
blooms from the cracks in broken roads
unwilling to die or burn from the Sun's heat
beautiful to no other eyes but mine.

It grows in the roughest of spots
and yet your appeal blinds me
the hardy soul who touches mine own
yet a flower be you still.

Daffodils, daisies, beautiful and stout

The other a flower of delicateness
thin little petals unfurling in a ***
nature at its most gentle
to be easily torn and ripped to shreds.

Beauty is obvious in truest form
much love is needed to keep you well
the water of the heart dribbling from the brook
to make you flourish.

Can I not keep you both to me
to keep your loves in my vase on the window
to display all those perfections to the earth
and to keep you both in my arms?

No, it will never be so simple, will it?
So I must choose to survive
I know not to choose rashly
but, conflicted of mind, I stare deeply into the garden...

Can we just sit alone in the dark
and talk about the world?
The dreams you had, bright as the sun
shimmering in your eyes.

You had a dream, you say,
where you and I were snuggled in bed
city lights flickering outside the window
but inside, all was safe and sound.

This could never be so
as we are separated by miles and miles
but we entertained the fantasy anyway
with your warmth next to mine.

You imagine me kissing you on the mouth
I imagine you nuzzling my throat
we can talk all we please
but it may not ever be so.

Yet, we made a promise still
to sleep in that dark room together
with the city glowing in the night
for us to be sleeping soundly.

And, for now, we will speak through screens
and texts, and written words and smiles
until that bed is ours, and we can doze off
into the milky orb of infatuation and oblivion.

I have spent a lot of time
gazing at you quietly
and enough time has passed
to where I have seen everything.

You sigh a little sometimes,
a little huff of soft air from the
corners of your mouth
when you think I'm not looking.

When you're nervous, you fidget
fingers curled up in blonde hair
canines nibbling on your cheek
when you think I won't notice.

You smile at the littlest things
you laugh enough to make me sigh
it's a little giggle of a laugh, and it's sweet
when you think I'm not paying attention.

But, I am, and have been since I saw you
my eyes have never since wandered
if it's those silences that make you doubt
leave them all behind.

For it is in those silences that I truly see
all of those tiny gestures and sounds
little sighs, giggles, widened eyes
that make me remember.

They make me remember that I,
the lonely soul, the aloof fool
fell in love with you easily
like those smiles, effortless and warm.

So, when you notice me watching
you needn't be shy anymore
because I have been watching you
since that day we met.

And my eyes will never stray. *I promise.

I don't have to see you
to know who you are
to know that you're beautiful in every way
words achingly sweet, like sugar and sorrow.

We met at the bottom of the sea
in a mirage of fleeting words
as we both left for our separate islands
thoughts dripping like water droplets on the sand.

I never saw the way you frown
the way your eyes lit up when you smile
or the scratches on your wrists
to know that I can't survive without you.

Though you are out of reach
alone with your own love on your island
I cannot forget who you are
and the dulcet tastes of your syllables.

So, if I could, I would slip into the deep
for I would not need air
I would only need you, and your sweetness
and, if it is for not, let me drown.

Please, just let me drown.

It's wet, and cold, and something new
With skies of ash and longing for blue
it circles and swims around your legs
into ponds and puddles you dare not tread.

Because your mama said it was dangerous
to slip and splash around
but when you gaze into its depths
there is no danger to be found.

Only little tiny creatures float
on the top and the bottom, you also note
hands like saucers, you grab and cup
the escaping drops and lift them up.

Lifted to the sky, the puddle's slapped away
"Puddles aren't for drinking!" you hear the others say
even smaller sobs escape your throat, as you ponder why
something that is so beautiful is not meant for you or I.

I am not my own
rather a piece of me.

I am not alone
for your voices beseech me.

Lead not to the past
for the present is now.

I would burn hot and fast
but I know not how.

This is my cowardice
to be hopeless and alone.

But you can take my wretchedness
and turn it into home.

Write me a love song
to sing me your praise
it may amount to nothing
but sentiments do no wrong.

My body be a flower
to wither in the wind
to grow and bloom and blossom
frailness in each hour.

Weakness is my sigil
yet you ply me with song
and to your words at night will keep
they echo in my vigil.

We're reaching the top of the hill, you and I
but on opposite sides, unable to see where
either of us are, and so I start to cry
unbeknowst of you standing there.

I am not the courageous child
only soft-spoken and contained
hoping, wishing to be wild
in truth, still soft and tame.

Being the stronger one of two
you clamber to the top
wide-eyed nature opens to you
for a moment, the world stops.

Gleaming down from atop your perch
a grin answers my calls
without bad feelings to besmirch
the words echo without pause.

"Come on, silly! You're falling far behind.
The night is surely near.
If you reach the top, and grab my hand in time
you'll forever have me hear."

"So, pull your way up and reach the peak
and our shaking hands entwined
so, come on, silly, climb to what you seek
and you will forever be mine."

A pair of little shoes tilt forward
careening on the tips of exposed, painted toes
over expanses of thick chains and fences.

A lip is bitten, eyes wide in amazement
the humongous animal is pacing behind its cage
tail swishing as paws trample the worn grass

The other children are long gone now,
passing ahead to bigger and newer pursuits
leaving one behind, in awe and complete rapture.

Amber eyes glow in the afternoon sun
velvet nose nuzzling the pudgy fingers
connecting child and beast so intimately.

Both breathing, both so very alive
And, with nothing to fear, she leaps
lovingly into the lion's den, leaving her human world far behind.