you've got the same gleam in your eyes as god did
     the night before she gave birth to the stars

you got this rattle in your chest
like the timing belt in your heart's been limping towards death since birth

it always hurt to listen to

so here
     here's the message at the bottom of the bottle
     you spend so many nights studying
as if perhaps
          you might actually remember what it read when the sun assaults your head come morning

here's what you been begging every fair-haired eve to whimper
as you slip her a dose of your hand-crafted love-sludge on her boyfriend's couch

this is the truth i learned about you seven years ago
while you spilled your guts on my favorite boots
     you really were cute
all campfire-light and anguish as you visably contemplated introducing your hand to my chest

you're different
not just from me
     but from everyone you meet in every pub on any street
and for some reason
     you seem to think that means that they don't see you

          they see you

you're scared
     not of dissappointing onlookers
but of disappointing yourself in some manner you can't help
so you help yourself to whatever opportunity you can find
     to exhibit boisterously the ******* you think they see you as

          you're too smart to be so stupid

and you're hurt
i get it
     i've heard your monsters howling through your head
     everytime you ever used my bed to rest it
but that's not an excuse to pull the dumb **** that you do
that's not a reason to abandon whatever sense of self-worth you once grasped

oh
     handsome boy
          the wounds of your past are not handicaps
     no
pain catalysts enlightenment

and i meant to tell you that night
     'long the river in the fire light
that you're going to be alright
          that you'll survive
so long as you give up the act that you're the only one who's ever felt like that

hurt just proves you've still got feeling

i'll leave behind a legacy of lengthy love poems
so that no reader could ever tell
     that i've never loved a heart who loved me back

i'll ensure that my body leave behind no bone unbroken
so no anthropologist would ever guess
     that i spent my entire life scared to death

and i'll fill each dusty corner of my tiny little house
with plants and books and trinkets of memories forgotten
so that the coroner could never publish
     how empty i really felt

oh-
          of all words i've ever spoken
    i pray that these will never read broken:

*i will sow this great earth with ideas for blooming
each incapable of death so that no child ever guess
    that i didn't live forever

i spent twenty years day-dreaming of a love
that i finally found
     when i found you
and it's true
          love hurts

but what's worse
is holding on to a kite's string
     long after the kite broke free

you're not coming back to me


     so this is what letting go tastes like
               whiskey and salt water

today
     my father
beneath all his grey hair and wisdom

asked what it says about our world
that we tell our children tales
of masked heroes
     brave enough to face monsters
          of cloaked men who stand up against oppression
          against carelessness
          against greed

why do we teach the youth
that the brave should hide their true identity
     that they should act ashamed of their valor

              
               i hid my face in fear of recognition
                    and wiped a renegade tear

these solar flares and northern lights
have been reminding me of the way we used to fight
     wild and alive
     beneath the absence of light
          cascading from a new moon

your lips unleash melodies while you're asleep
and it sounds to me like a lullaby
i've spent a lifetime trying to teach myself to sing