sometimes
the moon stays full for days
like just maybe
it's been burning daylight feasting on the waves
filling it's belly with fuel for our fires

it's the hardest then to sleep
i lay awake counting the ways to wish for you

in my nightmares
you're always just a crest too far to reach
i wake in fear that you might never find me
but you know how
i promise

i shout through the fog to your shadow
as it dances across the moon
"third star from the right, and straight on 'til morning."
you howl back
sometimes

the piano keys weep
as i stir their fondest memories

sometimes all it takes is a touch to send anyone spiraling back
through the years
and the fears of everything haunting that's built us

the dark sneaks its way in 
in our sleep
so i try my best to always stay awake
out of bed
and out of my head

the piano and the storms have become my greatest friends
more than happy to join the ride 
as we bide our time

i sing to the ashtray and cry in the sink
and the things i must ignore slide past my apartment door
stubbing their toes as they stumble down my stairs

maybe life still isn't fair
but it works
**** it

sometimes
i lie to myself
i trick myself into believing that it doesn't hurt
when it really ******* burns
sometimes you just can't give pain a chance to set in

i'm always warming my hands way too close to the flames
now
i'm covered in scars
it's our roadmap back to the stars
to a space where time slows down enough for me to love myself
or at least to remind myself that moving clocks
in fact, run slow
i've been on the fly since the day i came to life
i just gotta remember that physics have always given me the choice to stop time

at the drop of a dime
i can keep life from restraining me
so i don wings
borrowing flight from the things i dream

i am built of what i hate
but it makes me
it makes me strong
and courageous
and once again beautiful

sometimes
everything around you changes enough
that you're forced to muster up the courage 
to bend yourself back into the shape 
of what you have always wanted to be

sometimes
you've had everything that you've been searching for
all along

in her dreams
she sprouts like fresh seeds pressed into fertile dirt
she's constantly stretching farther and farther
in a futile attempt to finally reach the sun

she closes her eyes
and sees rows and rows of lemon trees and strawberries
mango groves and avocados

she loves to feed the earth
to give birth to something living that's incapable of denying
or betraying
her love
she wants to feed almost everyone she meets
set them down and wash their feet
fill their cups and watch them leave

she hopes that one day
someone will ask to stay
a boy whose heart is in need of mending
or a man with hands that could move mountains
maybe
one day

she wants a farm
a limitless garden to stretch as far as her eyes will let her see
maybe just a bohdi tree to sit beneath
a place to stay and wait to be buried by the leaves
just for now
anyway

she needs a home where she can be by herself without feeling alone
she needs somewhere that she's meant to be

supposedly
dreams are things we chase down dark alley ways
only to watch them escape us

she damns every man who says so

she's determined to catch up with every one of her dreams
yeah
a dream catcher of sorts
she puts on her gloves and steps out in the mud
ready to catch whatever the universe tosses her way
or even just the ripe fruit falling from the trees in her dreams

a devilishly good looking man once told her
that her hair was like a waterfall of the colors of all the best beers

if she'd had another shot of whiskey in her
and there wasn't a hardwood bar crowded with regulars between them
she'd have grabbed him by the face and kissed his shoes off

it's funny
the things she considers sweetness
she's the bar keep who slips anyone nice free pints
just because it's almost friday night
all she wants is to see everybody happy at once

the last time that she went to the bar
the boy that she smiled at all night
slipped her a cocktail napkin that read,
"just because you're breathing,
doesn't mean that you're alive."

she still isn't sure how to take it
but she still knows that he's right

the waves break like the days that chase them
and our hardened layers fall down around our ankles
and sacrafice themselves to the edges of the shorline

it's the sunshine season

we don our freckled, olive, summer skin
as we slip into our cut-off shorts and boat shoes

the winter blues melt into their tributaries and take off for the sea
leaving us to blush and bloom like budding tulips

work stained hands toss the rule books aside
making room for a cheap can of beer and an ancient dog earred map

let the dusty two-tracks point you back
to your abandoned spirit of adventure
and your neglected hiking boots

let's go

let's run off towards the sunset
and the lake bed
and get to the heart of what matters in the middle of nowhere
let's get lost sunburned
drunk
and young
it's time to be better again
to be happy as children again

i'll meet you out there
somewhere along the edges of where the water fades to mountains
and the mountains pierce the skies
i hope to see you there...
with a smile on your face and your heart on your sleeve
i promise to bookmark a place for you

let's go find what they are all missing
nurse our hearts
and our spirits
and that primitive instinct burried somewhere deep inside us
that begs us to chase the sweetness
to play
climb
dance
and grow
let's go

but first
a toast

here's to you
and to me
and to every skinned knee that eventually led us to learn the ropes
here's to the countless hopes and dreams that we've had to reconstruct
in order to shape our own realities
here's to sunburns
moonshine
and all that we can be
beneath these summer skies.

i miss your lips
the way they'd smoothly dance
like a genie in a lamp
as you'd sing
and speak

how sweet your memory tastes
though the reality has long since faded

i cling to my effervescent exaggerations of our tangled past
replaying time to time
on the dream-screen of my mind
as i snack lightly on the salty remarks of my youth
and i laugh

it hurts
but it feels so healthy

you fade through the moon-mist
and dismiss your own existence
once again proclaiming that you are nothing
but an extension of it all
a fingerprint of the wilky-way
just a strand of DNA
swimming through the wake of infinite expansion

i miss it

the beer-breath incantions you'd softly slur after dark
the kisses you'd plant along my edges
like the vines that trace the hedges
in the front lawn of that dusty place we'd fake our love

nostalgia always begins so inviting
untill you're finally feeling sea-sick
from the over-ingestion of false sweets
and pure imagination

now we're so far gone
living in a different reality entirely
i don't think i'd even know your face if i saw it
i know you only by the way your shape fits in the frame
another handsome man
trapped forever in the reels of film of my mind

but i'll remember you
you're woven into the wood works
    
     drunkenly dancing through a serendipitous sea of names
     stands the lamen's term for your current shape
your birth-given name
credited with a handfull of scars
left behind by a man who forced me to grow

the earth spins sweetly
like a turntable in a sun-lit living room
or the hem of a long skirt in july

the best things in life are free

the sing-song laugher of the birds as i sip my morning coffee
the smell of fresh rain and wet concrete
the curve of the sky late at night
as i stare emphatically into the stars
hanging low to the wyoming plains and sage

how fantastic it is to simply **be

i share my name with a hurricane
how fitting

a set of bruised shins in running tights
who can't get much of anything right
and still hasn't remembered where she set her drink

that's me

i sometimes think they should've named me tiffany
or brittany
or stephany
something pretty and normal

maybe then i would have been a ballerina
instead of just a mess
in a second-hand dress

sometimes i swear
the wind calms when i laugh
and the thunder cracks
when i finally let go
and let myself fade
back into the sky that shaped me

i make it rain


some things never change
not names
or headstones
or birthdays

and some things always do


the sky shifts slightly
setting a yellow kite to sail
and a pair of hawks to soar

maybe they named the storm after me
so that i could see
how beautiful turbulence can be

maybe i just wasn't looking right

besides
a rose by any other name
wouldn't seem as special

i found the secret to life
scrawled upon a crumbling brick wall
all those years ago
in a down-town pub house bathroom stall
and i wish i'd never read it

some things just can't be erased
not with paint thinner
and not with the sands of time

no
some things stain
some wounds scar forever
leaving cursive reminders of fights we've survived
and nights that parts of us died
to make room for something bigger

sometimes you have to paint the walls
in an attempt to silence the stories they whisper
recalling all they've seen

all that we've witnessed
and wished to forget

all the one-liners
and fist fights
and nights that should have never happened
those foggy moonlight memories
of evenings soaked in adrenaline highs
and cigarette smoke

sometimes you have to demolish the walls entirely
burn the structures of your nightmares and your fairy tales both
and spend more of your nights
with nothing
in between you
and the stars

the way that your hands fit into your pockets
makes it seem like you've got secrets
hiding in the creases of your palms
i wanna unravel your white-knuckled fists
and read the braille of your fingertps aloud
to a crowd of strangers

let me type my philosophies out
along the margin of your spine
in morse code

i'm the best story i've ever told

i can hear the strength in your voice flex when you laugh
something about that giggle of yours
could iron the wrinkled mountains down
and lie them flat on their backs
along the hem of the sea

i'm uncertain if your eyes are blue
or if they're grey
either way
i have to try my damndest not to climb inside
and hide
tuck myself behind your irises
and watch the gulls go by
from that distant shore

the thought brings me terror

i've had so many nightmares of being
crushed by the ocean's mighty limbs
lost forever
broken
at the bottom of a beautiful abyss

i wake unsure that i was even sleeping

       ...i found you on the dock
whistling sailor tunes

i'm doomed

oh, sweet mistakes
how dear you are to me
i'd never know success without you

every skinned knee brought the eventual feeling of restoration
every heart ache whispers of future empowerment
and with every black eye - the promise of beauty returned
one must feel their weakest at some point
in order to ever fathom true strength

i've found myself in the heaps of rubble
left behind by what i'd never wanted to become

in ruin we are reborn

so let the levy break
let the water wash away what we've made
let the words evade me
let the type-writer's keys stick
let the ribbon jam
let all of my thought-out conceptions of what will happen
         never be
let it all go to ****
and get lost
and crumpled and bruised
let it all snowball out of my control
so that i can let go
and let it be how it's meant to be

let me rise from the ashes
dust off my wings
and cling to the hem line of the ever-twirling skirt of the sky

let me fly

it's been so long since i've tasted the freedom accompanied with the abandonment of the flight-plan
how i've missed the adventure of being lost
and the undeniable sense of self-worth acquired by finding yourself

i am new

the morning after always hurts the worst
hazy brain
summersault stomach
and where in the hell is my car

i want a pizza
or two

it was nice to see you
i've missed your smile
and condensed stare
and the shape that your lips make while you confess your love to the beer bottle's neck

that explains the jameson
and all the beers at the bar
the beer bongs at the after party
and why i could stomach the strippers

it was all you
so nice to see you

why do i always feel guilty when the sun comes up

no one got a black eye
i didn't grab the mic
and my clothes stayed on until i was safely home
although
the cab driver may have caught a glance

to think
i'm "all grown up"

i'm not at all sorry
not for the whiskey gut
or the fire i'll throw up
or the kisses that i didn't plant along your collar
i'm still the same floral-print ship-wreck at the bottom of the bottle

my mother once said that the only people worth clinging to
are those who see all of your greatness outweighing your flaws

you still see the holes in my tights
and my falling hem line
not the honey sweet legs they shape
or the hips and thighs that the denim hides
i'll be just fine as the german genie in the bottle of irish whiskey

witty
and slack-jawed
and ready to kiss the lips off the face of the clock
and two shots away from dancing with the cops
i look great in hand-cuffs
i'll whistle the whole way to jail

small victories weigh the most
and right now
i feel like muhammed ali

thanks, babe

here's two asprin that glow better than your eyes
and they're mine
waiting to chase away the pain that came up with the sun
here's to endings that aren't a safe bet
here's to sleeping alone
here's to new mistakes
just waiting to happen

*water never tasted so good to me

i've spent my entire lifetime running
running away
running in circles
running myself into the ground

it isn't fun, anymore
my feet have gotten heavy

i remember that night you drove **** near 100 miles
so we could go to the park and play lava-monster
i didn't know the rules
you were patient

there
in the decaying fall air
with your news-boy cap pulled down over my eyes and my arms stretched out into the darkness
searching for you
i felt right
for the first time in my life i felt fine

i haven't feld good, since

i wish i knew then what i know now

that i may likely never see you again
that you were leaving
that you're a runner too

i guess it is true
you get what you give

my feet have become granite
stones not meant to be resurrected from the earth
my globe's nothing but a paper-weight, now
the atlas is never cracked
because i can't find you on a map
and your arms are the one place that i long to be

silly, really
the way the head and the heart are incapable of speaking to each other honestly

now and then
the wind rests
for just a moment
and through the dry wyoming air
i catch your scent trail
like a glimpse of heat-lightning in the far horizon
but just like you
it's gone in an off-set heartbeat

the tumble weeds sing your name as they slink across the plains
stirring my insomnia into a craze
that can only be calmed by night-sky air
i search for your face in the shadows of the moon
as my calls to you rise with my steam-heated breath
and disappear into the stars

i wonder if you lay awake all night
swearing that the constellations are all begining to align
with the sole purpose of pointing you towards me

a candy apple red heritage soft-tail classic
on a rusted dirt road
i am built of where i've been

the mango groves
the east and west coast
and every camp-ground in canada
this map is my home
let me tuck you into the folds
and sing you to sleep
some place sweet
where the air smells of earth and rain

don't let the concrete tame you

the road under foot is not measured by the steps necessary to travel it
but the way one migrates over the breaking soil
resting between where we are and where we'll be
when our dreams run free
and the tent's set in the pines

barefoot
running shoes
doc martens
thumb to the sky
pack on my back
black top under bridgestones

let us fly

let us soar

s'go

i'll take you with me
like my sleeping bag
and skinning knife
and canteen

be the water that i drink

fuel the fires that propel this engine
drive me to the end of the road
where one can only go by foot
and feather
and foolishness

let's disappear in the fog of the north
the mud of the east
the heat of the south
the haze of the west

let's find ourselves in the topography of folded bodies
tangled up in a flesh scented tent

we broke the wishbone
you got the wish
i got a splinter

that's how it goes

fare faced grinning fool
     oh, how easy it'd be
for me to be jealous of you, brother
the boy who couldn't be stopped
the man that the wind whispers to

you are magic
you are busy lights on an empty stretch of I80
the swell of drum beats over silence
the giggle-fit tear stains on the universe's cheek

baby boy
wide eyed man-cub

the world tried to steal you
once
all those years ago
and you
you defiant son-of-a-gun
refused to bow to even death
     the laugh lines at the end of a blank heart rate

thanks for never leaving me behind

you take nothing seriously
except dreams and funerals
and the call of the moon

"no matter where you are in life
no matter how noisy it gets
or how badly it hurts
you have to throw on the brakes now and then
just slow down
and turn your eyes to the sky
and howl
like a ravid coyote
howl at the moon"

"remind existence that you won't go quietly"

when i was six
dad told me that he and mom
had made us out of stardust
and magic
and beer caps
and fossils
     that they made us out of treasure

you're my treasure
and the temple of my dreams
you're my map
my back pack
my adventure hat
and the voice in my head that laughs
and calls me a *******

we are not human beings on a spiritual endeavor
but spiritual beings
bound to a human medium

how very thankful i am to be tethered to you

it was a dry winter
he sang "*** and candy" as i braided my hair
we'd never dwelt so far apart
oceans between us while sharing a bed

he bought me rain-boots for christmas
desert dwellers have little use for rain-boots at the end of december
but i smiled because it didn't matter

he could never see me
only aknowledged the static space i inhabit
his empty eyes sang symphonies in the silence

we were young
and the world refused to cease it's spinning
despite our sea-sick cries while faking love

even the rustiest carousels chase their tails long after the waiting line is rendered empty after dusk

the secret to life inside our discarded cigarette cartons
the history at the bottom of the beer pitcher

it was our hell
our own private galaxy doing pirouettes on the sidelines of time
we aged like newspapers hidden in the hedges

but we meant it
or at least we thought we did
whatever it was
we meant it

the way that one means it when they say they wished they'd died the morning after dollar beer night

it felt right
no matter how bad it always hurt

the clouds are breaking
slowly
and sweetly
and just enough to let ribbons of sunlight splash down on our faces

let's play today
let's fill the car with gas
and beer
and horseshoes
and disappear for a few hours on end
further south
on the lake shore
let's run rampant today
kick off our shoes and paddle over the cracking pavement barefoot
at full speed
and full of laughter
let's jump in the puddles
and build in the mud
and dance in the wild flowers like we used to
before we learned that others may be watching

let's fly a kite
unfathomably high
upwards enough to tap-dance through the rings of saturn
and scoop us up some treasures-
astrological costume jewelry just waiting to be adorned
let's sing like we aren't afraid
snap our way to center stage
and bathe in sweltering limelight for the world to hear
we'll sing away all our blues
and the rest of the world's blues too
let's jump off the high cliffs
in our steam pressed sunday best
to show at least ourselves
we're all we've got to impress
and as we're weightless and pressurized
beneath the surface of a glossy green lake
let the buttons
and cufflinks
and pearl earrings fall away
so we can see ourselves some clean way
again

let's forget
let us never remember being scared
and lonely
and lost
at cumbersome crossroads of the past
let's rebuild ourselves from scratch
press stardust and dirt
from the ground up
to make us new
and real
and something we can finally feel proud of
let's be magic
light in the dark
and love to the lost
we can heal hearts
we can hold hands
we can be friends
and be happy

let's play today

i fell in love with you
once
long ago
with my eyes closed
and the dream-screen drawn

we danced
like music notes across their barred landscape
we danced
the loveliest late-night lullaby

you became my hiding place
lilac and lace linens
stretched over a lumpy matress

my indiana jones
waiting patently and poetically
in a long-lost temple of slumber

you come back to me in waves
softly and subtly
while i'm half awake
you're kissing the broken down shorelines of an insomniacs holiday

i wish i could keep you
like an empty bottle in the window-sill
or a heart arrhythmia
this lonely romantics cardiovascular waltz

let me snag you up from my dream-dust
and stitch you to my sole like a lost boys shadow

let me find you in my reality
tip-toeing over an underlined paragraph
of a beer stained paper-back

i'll find you
someday
after a long-over-due nights sleep

perhaps in the guitar strings
or type-writer keys
or at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey in the ever-humming freezer

be mine
evasive valentine
i'll even let you hide in the curls of my hair
or under my fingernails
i'll keep you
if you'll let me

just don't forget me
come sun-up
when you gallup away
from my sub-conscious escape

take my heart-rate with you
tucked into your breast-pocket
like a floral handkercheif
or a photogaraph taped to the dash

come back
to the grey matter kingdom
tucked behind my eyelashes
i'll meet you in the idiosyncrasies of my synapses
writing love stories that never once happened

for the past few weeks,
my daily caloric in-take has consisted of nothing but caffine,
nicotine,
and a good bit of ****-
if that counts.
i've been bogged down by a few pounds of literary build-up,
clinging to my cell walls.
characters and commas,
just pleading to be plucked from their scatter-brained current state of nothingness,
and be re-arragned-
brought to life by a breath of structure
and fore-head kiss of charm.
writer's block.
an itchy wool blanket of complacent composition blues
draped over my freckled shoulders,
in hopes of sheilding me from a down-pour of inspiration.
i never asked to be pretected from my own thoughts,
so stop,
fickle whispers of failure.
i'm on the rise.
i close my eyes and plunder my brain for the misplaced directions
to the exit of the ball-point duldrum,
i know they're around here somewhere.
i've got thirty three trash bags of pointless memories,
and not one of them can help me.
so i hoist the sails
and viciously exhale,
sending myself out to sea
where i'll be free to raise the nets dragging on the floor,
and sort through the mooshed-up words
to turn them into something more.

"i just wish you didn't hate me." he said,
exhaling the first drag of his fourth cigarette
since we began our verbal wrestling match
two shots earlier.
his eyes always seem to look the most sincere
when i know that he isn't.
as green as the river that delivered me,
perfect.
i make fun of that **** leather jacket that he looks so handsome in
and ask to borrow his handkercheif
so that i can fill it with snot
and spite.
i hate this "talking" buisness.
it's more like a contest to see who can make the other hate themselves first.
he always wins.
and even when i want to drink his existance into submission,
i still just want to grab him by the face and kiss him...
right on his filthy mouth.
"obviously, i don't hate you," i finally reply.
"i just hate that i give a **** about you."
his silence speaks volumes.
unfortunately,
they're penned in a vernacular that i've never understood.
the air gets busy and heavy,
alive with the charge of confusion between insanity and ****** frustration.
the steps to our ****-show waltz are well rehearsed...
we slide over each others jugulars gracefully -
nimble -
on both the tips of our toes
and the tips of our tongues,
crossing lines in the sand with tact.
hit for hit.
shot for shot.
we dance,
in the angred space we share
on the front porch
in the light of the moon,
leaving even the moths afraid to cross us.
some people love without looking back,
and some people look back without loving the crack in the wall in which they hid the sour facts.
i guess that's you and me-
filling the cupboards with what's already rotten,
in hopes that what we don't acknowledge won't be a problem.

wearing your brand-loyalty like a politcal campaign t-shirt
cute
you almost seem proud to be so very confused
walking to the beat of the same **** pop-song that every ******* radio station's been blaring for months
designer cup of sludge in hand

and the billboards tell you that you might be pretty
maybe
some day
if you drop thirty-five pounds and buy an over priced bottle of this seasons heavily-scented false sense of "belonging"

that outghtta do it

tuck
lift
plump

fake it

cash in your mail-in rebates for another hunk of junk with a heavy price tag
determined solely by how badly sad saps like you
will want what the magazines say that others have

how sad

you lost sight of yourself years ago
somewhere in the housewares section of the Elmhurst Target

you drifted off near the alarm clocks
whilst day-dreaming about wall-paper schemes
and zebra wood cupboards
and an apron that would match your sunday dress

you got it mixed up

worth isn't measured by cost
beauty isn't measured in inches
and wealth most certainly isn't measurd by a bank statement

but scoff
and laugh me off
like i'm some kind of eccentric fool
rendered maladjusted after years
of steady
concious
thought

leave me to squelch in the riches
of my own cosmic existence
penniless
and proud as a king

leave me to find the mountain's top
and ocean's floor
and black-top's end

leave it me
to be me

i'll go ahead and leave it to you
to be them

a light breeze stirs the tops of the trees into a tantric dance
in a section of the sky i've only ever dreamt of thriving in.
magic stirs the dust...
and it coats my eyelashes and the undersides of my finger-nails,
and falls from my skin softly-
the way stars descend through atmospheres.
there is sweetness in the air.
moon-beams basket-weave through night-sky hair
and tap-dance their way around my neck,
adorning me in their celestial secrets.
i create and name my own constellations
from the vantage point of a little girl beneath a big sky,
connecting distant points of light with nebulous-lassos flying from my fingertips.
i am golden.
in this moment,
i am beautiful...
if only i could remember.
preserve this feeling right now-
scoop it from the encroaching dusk,
and trap it in a glass bell jar like a firefly,
and feed on its light forever.
if i could remember that i do love myself-
maybe i'll survive...
perhaps even flourish.

rebellious song birds whisper through the night-
accompanying the melody of breaking waves-
a lullaby from the universe that only i will ever know.
i hum along in thoughtful bliss.
this ends the separation-
from myself,
from loving,
from FEELING;
right now i feel everything.
love,
light,
warmth,
beauty,
and the courage necessary to finally acquire a sense of freedom that can never die.
i am living,
to the very best of the definition...
that's got to be enough for you-
for ALL of you-
because i finally see that it's enough for me...

and for the stars.

i get lost,
now and then.
i confuse my here with then.
trade my "how i feel"'s for "how i am"'s.
yeah,
i get lost,
now and then.

until i'm found.
then,
my pen becomes my vessel,
and my tongue becomes the sea.
i tread it softly,
from you to me,
until your thoughts become my words,
and my pulse becomes your "me".

you found me,
once.

pressed between the yellowing pages of where i've been,
and where i'll be.

you found me.

untucked me from my paper sheets,
and set me out to let me be
m e .

free,
and untethered.
just lost
forever.

you found me.

and let me be
the cursive poet-tree i'll always be.

i knew you meant it
when you wrote me free.

i remember you
you wore your smile the way a traveler wears a pack
it was everything

your eyes were bright with adventure
glaciers tucked into the folds of the rockies
blue
i'm blue too

i thought i lost you
four years ago today
the phone rang like funeral bells
i answered like a murderer expecting to find a detective at the door

the hospital still makes me sick
i can't forget it
all of your friends who always seemed as strong as sequoias
strewn across the floor
faces painted with snot smears and tear stains

i thought i lost you
under sagging soil and a painted headstone
there in the pines above the river valley
laughter traded for the footsteps of the saddest parade
i tried to say goodbye

but i found you
there in your sisters smile
and in the movie theater aisle
and parked in a little rusty black truck in front of my parents house

i find you everywhere
while i giggle
and sing
and tell the people i love how much i do love them
you're there

doing the chicken dance behind the arresting officer

thanks for reminding me to smile

in her dreams,
she sprouts like fresh seeds pressed into fertile dirt.
she's constantly stretching farther and farther
in a futile attempt to finally reach the sun.
she closes her eyes
and sees rows and rows of lemon trees and strawberries,
mango groves and avocados.
she loves to feed the earth,
to give birth to something living that's incapable of denying,
or betraying,
her love.
she wants to feed almost everyone she meets.
set them down and wash their feet,
fill their cups and watch them leave.
she hopes that one day,
someone will ask to stay.
a boy whose heart is in need of mending,
or a man with hands that could move mountains.
maybe, one day.
she wants a farm-
a limitless garden to stretch as far as her eyes will let her see.
maybe just a bohdi tree to sit beneath,
a place to stay and wait to be buried by the leaves.
just for now, anyway.
she needs a home where she can be by herself without feeling alone.
she needs somewhere that she's meant to be.
supposedly,
dreams are things we chase down dark alley ways,
only to watch them escape us.
she damns every man who says so.
she's determined to catch up with every one of her dreams-
yeah,
a dream catcher of sorts.
she puts on her gloves and steps out in the mud,
ready to catch whatever the universe tosses her way...
or even just the ripe fruit falling from the trees in her dreams.

i want to tell you all of my secrets.
i'll write them down on the back of a torn up map,
and cram them into a jar for you to set atop your desk and ponder.
something about the way that you speak
sounds an awful lot like all of my walls tumbling down to the ground.
i'd even let you pass the guards,
if you'd just ask,
but you won't.
maybe we could make a trade;
you could carry around my burdens for a bit,
and forget all about yours.
and in return,
i'll hold you the way that your rib cage cradles your heart-
intently,
and with the sole purpose of protecting something important.
at least,
i think you're important.
if only i knew what you think.
but you keep those prized gems to yourself,
thrown about your head in a "shouda-coulda-woulda" past tense.
i just hope you think of me.
as a face with an identity,
and not just as a place to fall asleep.
i'm only boring when they expect it of  me.
so how about we try something new?
let's cut the shakespearean bull-**** and jedi mind-tricks
and just tell each other the truth.
**** poetic justice,
let's cut to the chase:
i'm done chasing cars whose traffic boots have begun to rust.
so dust off your unravelling heart-strings and strike a chord within me,
and maybe then you'll be convinced to sing along.
see,
love songs are for the birds,
love poems are for the lost,
and love itself will always evade me.
prove me wrong.
lace up your boots and run for once.
prove to me that YOU like the hunt,
and that i'm worthy of your crooked arrow's fire.
take my breath away,
with the intentions of leaving it that way,
instead of in hopes of a few hours of restless companionship.
despite popular belief,
worth isn't proven between the sheets,
that's where it's meant to be honored,
addressed,
nourished.
a woman of intelligence is far more exciting
than a dolled-up piece of meat,
and all it takes to catch a good one,
is to try.
i know **** well that i'm worth every single one of saturn's rings,
but i guess i'll wait
and see what you think.

there's such a strange feeling brought in by sunday mornings.
it's as if you can feel the calender resetting,
a groggy haze of transition between one row of boxes and numbers
and the next.
the dates themselves adding line-breaks on type-writers,
molding the ever-changing scripts of our lives.
the day gets claimed for resting and resetting -
we recharge with early beers and late lunches
followed by a hefty dose of sweat-pants.
at least 'round here,
"sunday's best" has never been anything classy.
it's paint-stained denim, muddy boots, and over sized thrift store sweaters.
we don't own church shoes or pressed slacks,
because we've never needed ornate buildings to silently give thanks in.
we need the wind,
and the wild,
and the dirt.
we set out with the intention of getting lost,
for the simple joy of the instant that we find ourselves resurfacing on the face of the map.
we give thanks any time that there's nothing between us and the sky
and our wind-chapped faces are covered in smiles and sun.
desert dwellers need the sun.
we greet her daily,
wildly and emphatically as the frozen layers of earth.
sundays are for defrosting.
we bake beneath grandma's home-made quilts,
and in the arms of good love;
thawing enough to ensure growth without cracking our foundations.
"sunday's best" is just a good place to be.
it's a refreshing state of mind in an augmented pace of time,
where we slow down,
and step back just enough to see what really matters
and what never has.
and when the alarm clock howls like a rabid beast come monday morning,
we'll rise reflective and refreshed;
strengthened up to continue driving forth towards the lives we're living for.

it's all faded two-lanes;
cracking blacktop winding from high hopes to low lives,
the question is: what we're seeking in between.
it's strange to me,
how many days are wasted by the thoughtfully confused
waiting around all day to see what it means...
it doesn't mean anything.
unless you make it.
so climb back into the saddle with your heart set ablaze,
and tear it all down.
shred the scenery to scrapbook confetti
and sculpt the life you've always wanted from the raw earth yourself.
make yourself proud.
and gracious
and elloquent
and kind.
decide for yourself.
rediscover the truths you held dear when you were young,
before they taught you what to think and how to feel.
revert to your innocence and follow your heart,
and the feeling you've had in your gut all along.
paint your own sunset
and moon rise
and everything in between.
make yourself a masterpiece.
be who you've always wanted to be-
**** the social blue-print.
the only expectations you should ever feel obligated to meet
are your own.
make yourself proud for once,
who gives a **** about the crowd.
plow through the rust coated foundations
and bathe them in gold spray paint.
turn your life into the taj majol.
make your heart into the lourve.
and let your soul defy all definitions-
be as free as you've always wanted to be.
you are the gorgeous by-product of thousands of millions of years of evolution;
start acting like it.
ignore those sharp spoken whispers of doubt that flood your mind
at any given time-
you are priceless and magical,
mystical and strange by definition.
welcome to the human race,
but first,
stop running.
park your *** in the fresh cut grass and just breathe.
deep.
smile hard,
blissful and honest,
until your face gets sick of it.
just smile;
it feels so wonderful to be happy.
say thank you,
for EVERYTHING,
and mean it.
who you were yesterday is gone forever,
but who you were today decides what shoes you'll be walking in tomorrow.
be good,
and happy,
and honest.
life itself will return the favor.

an eastern mystic
peddling medicine in the west
pouring holistic healing over sun-soaked lips with every word
magic

fare-faced grinning boy with the same broken heart...
i wanna fix it
with little calloused hands
and miles of fading blacktop dressed in laughter

deliberate steps
forging a trail straight to the stars
built of mead compositional notebooks 
and sentences tied together by hand
a literary fingerprint on a freshly cleaned pane of glass

stardust prophet
moon-beam traveler...
translate the fault lines into tangible fact
fill my flask with daylight dreams 
let's split a glass of imagery and toast to roads yet to be traveled

you are lightning
ripping through the sky at the speed of light
as you tap-dance your way through tall tales
of cowboys
and of hit men
and of strangers faces painted familiar by the dark


they say that time repeats itself
like an unintelligent little girl babbling in the mirror
only so many moments pass
until you're destined to hear the same futile points
for the forth or fifth 
or sixth time

...i've never been like "them"
i say time removes itself from the equation completely
when hearts skip beats to the same rhythmic pattern
of line breaks and voices rising behind a stale microphone
on a dimly lit stage


never fool yourself into believing 
that you were getting what you deserved
when forced to taste the dirt
you are meant to feast on sky
and sky alone will grow you wings

never settle on a good thing when the stars themselves wish you the best

the wind stirs her from her sleep as it tap dances through the leaves,
and once again she finds herself with a hastily rolled joint on the front patio at two a.m.
maybe tonight she'll finally make sense of something.
cursed to the perpetual contemplation of theories she can't even pronounce,
her gaze is fixed to the lights of the night sky.
she want's so badly to join them.
a child sculpted of raw stardust can't rest due to obsessions involving her ancestry.
so the match is struck 
and the dark loosens up 
just long enough for her to remember she's still stuck to the ground;
it's enough to make any celestial being feel worthless.
but she's priceless...
she just doesn't know it yet.
sometimes she swears she can feel the force of the entire universe's sway
tugging on her heart strings,
pulling her in synch with the pulse of all of existence.
she often just dismisses it as vertigo and takes another hit.
she doesn't get it.
the stars burn in the static hum of limitless outreach and await the painstaking instant that they'll finally collide,
maybe even just scrape against one another...
it's lonely up there in outer space.
the planets space themselves strategically to avoid the tug of one another's gravity,
aiming to dodge the speeding bullet of affection and the promise of separation it inevitably brings.
but she's out there in saturn's rings adorning herself in comet's tails and waiting for a show...
stubbornly certain that she couldn't possibly be alone.
not forever, anyway.
she hopes.
telescopes lenses eventually shift,
distorting our self-made image of reality...
we can't place bets on much of anything, anymore.
there's so much to be left invisible,
and mystical,
and made up as we go.
we may be going nowhere,
but we hitch our ride in style.
pretty painted marbles spinning circles on rutted sidewalks dance in tune...
side stepping around a bright star at center stage.
she thinks of herself as just a flea in the wardrobe,
maybe things will stay simple that way.
the roach scorches fingertips,
and she hurls it toward the earth...
drawing her attention back to the ***** parking lot beneath her feet,
and the promise that sleep will bring something new to dream.

her hair is multi-faceted -
it wasn't until recently that she noticed.
one day,
she climbed out of the shower
and looked in the mirror
to see a cascade of the colors of her three favorite beers,
wrapping around her like a robe.
it was the first time in her life that she realized she was beautiful.
ever since,
she's been unstoppable.
now every day is a good day,
even the ones that hurt.
she finally understands that you can't have shadows without the sun,
you can't fear if you've never had fun,
and that it is utterly impossible to love -or be loved- if you don't love yourself.
life is good, again.
she's her own friend, again.
suddenly, she sees everything the way she did as a child.
everything is crystalline and inviting-
the world itself is her own magical kingdom.
with a smile on her face,
she's capable of anything.
she's a true find;
the bar keep who'll keep feeding you drinks long after your cash is all spent,
she somehow manages to see anyone with kind eyes as an old friend...
she feels like she's known everyone for lifetimes.
the only challenge she gives herself anymore,
is to make a smile of every frown.
she just wants someone to laugh with.
to dance with,
to turn everyday into a holiday for.
let her celebrate YOUR life.
and yours, and yours, and yours.
let her make you proud...
to be human,
if nothing else.
let her adorn you in the fractured bones of her oldest stories.
let her weave her favorite songs into your hair.
just stay and play,
at least for the day,
and when she's done with you,
carry yourself a completely different way than you ever have before.
be something new.
try to love yourself even a fraction of how much she loved you before she even knew your name,
and remember to smile.

once upon a time,
a doctor told her that her heart was broken.
a war drum with a worn-out head,
just waiting to bust.
now her nightmares of heart-attacks haunt her at all hours;
she hates knowing that she's destined to beat herself to death.
she's never felt this worthless.
lately,
she's been wondering what drownding feels like,
she never thought it a topic to ponder,
but the water makes her feel so free.
she'd so much rather rest beneath the waves
than sit and wait for her engine to fail.
maybe she should fly more often,
tossing back tiny bottle after tiny bottle
of six dollar whiskey,
fingers crossed that they'll all fall down into the sea.
she'll sink if she tries hard enough.
a heart condition translates directly into
"incapable of loving, or ever being loved"
in her eyes,
so why ******* try.
now she burns bridges like roman candles
and shells out all her cash on any day that rent isn't due;
no point in holding on to what you can't take with you.
she stains her flesh instead.
words she only wishes you'd have whispered in her ears instead of stuffing them into envelopes,
her favorite flower,
and a hawk feather,
for whatever luck she can get.
sometimes,
during her morning cigarette,
she laces up her sneakers and bolts,
as fast as she can in any direction,
just to see if her heart can take the heat of her heavy feet skimming over the street.
the engine in her chest revs loudly,
like the car of a teenage boy.
they're all little boys-
she's a woman.
she's pretty positive that everyone cries at night-
even the dogs and the crickets and the birds.
we've all got nightmares,
hers just happen to seep out and taint the daylight.
what she needs,
is to befriend the monster under her bed.
he can feed on her inner demons and stitch up her heart with his glaring smile,
and hazle eyes.
in turn,
she'll share her bed
and now and then,
he can rest his head on her chest and translate the siren songs of her unsteady pulse.
she needs a ******* friend.
one who always cares instead of a good few who only ocasionally pretend to.
someone who's more than willing to walk a few blocks to dollar beer night,
and braid her hair for her while she yaks in the trash out back.
yeah, something like that.
it's her heart,
not yours.
or yours or yours or yours.
but her's,
and it hurts.
it races all night like nascar rednecks who pointlessly drive in circles for hours.
don't tell her how to fix it,
or not to worry,
or that everything is going to be fine.
it's not.
it's her heart,
and it hurts.

at birth, they tried to swap the stars in my eyes for dollar signs-
but the operation didn't take.
so for years, i felt oddly compelled to fake it
until i finally couldn't take it any longer.
keep all your shiny, broken things...
i just want the trees.
and a breeze,
and the pebbles,
and the rain.
i'll stick around to love all of the beauty you've forsaken.
i just want the things that no one can keep.
an intellectual alien,
trapped in a generation bringing nothing
but plastic beads and decoder rings to the table.
faint, fickle beings,
painting their faces
so that they can all look just the same.
sometimes it's a blessing to feel out of place.
so, i'll wisely spend my time stuck under a bad sign,
and continue building things that can't be touched,
and treasuring things that can't be held-
just felt.
i wanna feel it all.
i want to fall madly in love,
make masterpieces of my memories,
and hopefully,
turn other peoples memories of me
into one of the most beautiful things they've ever seen.
i'm going to be good,
and kind,
and light,
and keep my fingers crossed that others i encounter
will finally decide to let go,
and enjoy the ride.
to surf the tide
rather than struggle and squirm in the waves.
what gorgeous creatures we would be
if we could finally see
just how hideously we treat other beings.
stop thinking about "ME",
and start worrying about "WE".
because we,
as a whole,
are in some serious ******* trouble.
so please, stop.
stop running, start dancing.
stop screaming, start laughing.
and please,
for the sake of all existence,
stop buying in to all of this *******.
life is not an endless quest to acquire the most over-priced garbage,
it's a journey through time and space to make yourself,
to love all that surrounds you,
and to learn to value yourself more than you value your brand new pair of perky ****.
we weren't sculpted of plastic and silicone,
we were forged of raw stardust.
it's time that we rise to the occasion of being bodies of light,
and make the darkness of night seem at least a little less lonely.
"the things you own end up owning you",
and i refuse to be enslaved.
i long for the days when free-thinkers were the cream of the crop,
now, they're lining up the firing squad
to mock and gawk at those too brave to "baa" with the rest of the flock.

diamonds and navy strung together by a row of brass buttons trailing up your chest;
your flesh is the night sky,
and i...
have always been a clumsy astronomer.
tumbling through the footnotes of books i pretend to have read-
searching for applicable knowledge and definitions that at least begin to pay you homage.
blissful in the sun beams and sullen in sudden rain-storms...
though,
you glow,
regardless of the natural disaster trailing in the wake of jet-streams out your window.
you translate the smoke signals trailing from the tails of our cigarettes,
and the morse-code transcriptions of my off-beat heart.
such a beautiful transistor of the divine gift of speech.
such a handsome mystic.
make me magic-
paint me natural...
leave me stranded in your starlight.
a tidal metronome to my unsteady pulse,
composing arrhythmia's barefoot in the night.
tap-dance with me in the graves we're digging deeper with every passing instant.
in comparison,
this could be penned a bad decision,
but those seem to be the only kind that the creatively maladjusted are ever capable of making.
perhaps we're cliche...
but the only person i care to find in a crowd is you,
and you stick out like the sore arm of a spiraling universe.
pearls and coal grey strung together by a row of silver buttons trailing up your chest;
your flesh is the night sky,
and i...
have always been a clumsy astronomer.
let me study your pulse through a fogging telescopes lens.

a heavily decorated door creaks open to disturb the silence-
"why don't you turn on the light?" he asks her,
but she likes the shape of the night;
the way the sky hugs close to the earth and resembles the bell of a glass cover over a cake on a bakery counter.
"life is sweet like that..." she sings,
"like a pastry on display,
something sweet that we can taste."
there's a certain way of looking at it.
your eyes half closed,
one hand high on a hip and the other clasping a cigarette.
"yeah,
i mean,
i guess that makes sense..."

"one ******* roll!"
of the drum,
of a car,
of our calendar.
things have changed.
the universe is stretching,
the earth has grown;
and so has she,
into a species of flower that can't be grown indoors no matter how many lamps you point at her face-
she needs the sun...
and the wild.
let her grow free in the sun of foreign hillsides,
by a creek in the meadow she's dreamt of for years...
with the fruit farms.
"yeah...the fruit farms." she smiles.
she's always wanted to sell fruit on the highway a few miles from the farm she'll own,
on land she bought,
in a house she built,
feasting daily upon earthly treasures she grew
in the dirt
with her hands.
let her feed you a story for breakfast;
a picture she'll paint with scenes of her dreams that she only occasionally shares...
when the mood is hopeful and kind and she's not worried about anyone laughing.
listen to her heart;
type-writer keys over the hum of radio space.
rest your head-
ear pressed to her chest;
listen.
like curious neighbors in the backyard in the sleepy hours of the weekend between breakfast and lunch,
coffee and cartoons.
let her show you one of her dreams.
a prized,
***** pebble she keeps cradled in a pocket full of lint.
she's an old soul...
peering through dirt colored eyes just as wide as a child's.

"it's been a long time since i've seen the ocean..."
she whispers to herself under the last drag of her third cigarette.

but she hates the beach,
and the crowds of the vain who gather there to worship starving,
sacred bodies;
she just likes the sound.
the throaty yell of prehistoric waves breaking over zagging shorelines.
she says the sound "helps her dream."
it doesn't "help" her dream,
nothing helps her sleep...
it just makes her think;
of unimaginable beasts that have swam in our seas,
and the shape she's been told that the continents once made.
she thinks of mer-maids and voyagers and the rustic ship that brought her great-grandmother over at age thirteen...
this time she's not dreaming,
just remembering things that she's never seen.
her ***** feet need a stroll through the sands of a pristine scene-
she's heard such thing used to exist.

she mumbles, "it hurts to know that nothing is sacred..."

but she is.
a mess of tangled heart-strings and sentences,
she's sacred.
and so are the four tiny walls that hide her from the world.

i found a weathered love note pressed into the breast pocket of a second hand wool coat...
the year pre-dates my existence,
but it's addressed to me and signed with a moon beam.
it reads like a perfectly orchestrated symphony of strings of small silver bells swinging from the trees in a breeze,
and a melancholy hum of distant thunder as her luminous soul mate tap-dances his way through humid states in flashes of raw,
and sacred light.
it reads like an epitaph-
a stumbled upon testimony to the life of a stranger that makes you fall to your knees
that simply begs you to weep...
and to wonder;
if you should have said goodbye...
or if you could have locked the open door long before the sweetness of life you so surely insist that you've found fled through it.
it reads like a note taped to the bathroom mirror in the handwriting of a concerned friend...
reminding you of your likely survival,
of the possibilities of each and every sunrise,
and of dollar beer night down town.
it reads like the author had meant it.

"my dearest stardust," it begins,
"how forcefully bright you are destined to shine...
you are built of light,
of ancient celestial wisdom.
you're a beacon
a light house on a foggy shore guiding lonely sailors back to where their hearts belong.
your heart-songs are the articulacy of a thousand life-times forgotten.
each note flies from your lips as you forge them with force...
like speeding bullets sent out into the universe destined to slay the way we fear ourselves.
don't let the darkness find you;
never let anything thin out your glow or drown out your melody.
you are magic;
the type of thing we cling to-
as children and as dreamers.
you are a mother to every orphaned flight plan and exit strategy...
an escape artist painting door frames on surfaces not meant to be defaced.
you end up everywhere,
and you have everywhere to run.
you overflow from poorly stretched canvasses,
to broken spines of dusty books,
and back into the heart of a lonely traveler's compass rose.
let your self be magic
be aqueous
be fluid and refreshing like the rain-storm that you are.
you're the desert
the sands of time
you're quickly fleeting and quick to run.
you're a dying breed.
and we,
the lights of the sky,
treasure you.
we remind you of this in every comet's tail and every clear wyoming night sky.
all of our love."

and i can feel it
flashing before me in every stranger's eyes
it is real...
we are magic.

mooshed up stubs of cigarettes swell in flooded ashtrays,
like fishies who gave up swimming to skim the surface,
belly first.
everything looks ancient when the sunlight is a muted grey.
this is not my home.
clouds part momentarily,
and a slice of off-white jet stream gets enveloped by a crying sky;
someone said, "you won't grow if you don't weep."
well, don't weep for me.
the smell of wet dirt,
wet leaves,
and wet concrete
waltz in through the drafty windows,
leading the parade of nostalgia breaking me down.
why in the **** did i ever grow up.
now it's rent checks,
passed-due notices,
and borrowing money so that the dogs can finally eat.
this isn't the 'me' i once loved.
i was a fearless leader of the rain-coat regime,
leading a fleet of one-thousand wax-paper sail boats to victory
over the tyranny of the rain gutter.
i was brave then.
a renegade cowgirl of the final frontier,
adorned in costume jewelry and mud stained over-alls.
i built ships to shred the sky,
and bring home my mother all of saturn's hula-hoop rings,
and every bouncy-ball on mars.
she always said my treasures were worth millions;
but i didn't want the money, then.
i wanted adventures.
with dirt roads and ***** toads and sandwiches smashed to ****
by rouge apples set in the cooler.
i wanted to hold the map,
and the compass,
and feel like the captain of our red-desert sea.
i wanted to see for myself everything that the horizon had to give me.
see,
at that age,
i knew i'd live forever.
but at this age,
i know i'm bound to slowly die.
i'd give every penny to my name
to get back to the days
where even the rain didn't stop me from playing.
to when "dressing like a princess" entailed mom's red apron,
dad's harley davidson cap,
and little brother's rain boots.
i haven't felt like a princess since.
i just feel like a failure,
and it hurts.
i don't even know where i learned the word,
but i promise,
i regret it.
so i'll wish on this cheap bottle of whiskey,
and the glass that i'll drink from,
to go back.
to be five again.
to be set next to my mother's type writer,
whispering the words to the newest tall-tale i'd woven,
and watching her type out my dreams for me with her perfectly slender fingers,
one sticky key at a time.
it always sounded just like rain drops.

run into the crested shorelines where the greatest empires have fallen,
and kiss the tides of the salty sea in hopes of calming your clumsy pulse and flippant thoughts.

stretch your legs.
limber up like a prideful little boy before a rigged game of lava-monster...
and run!

run like your shoes will never untie and your heavy feet will never misfire.

run to the reams of yellowing pages you cling to,
full of ball-point memoir metaphors and pithy,
expressive descriptions of the beautiful women you've trained yourself to hate along the way.
don't get friendly with your paintbrush when you reminisce this time.

run.
full-fledged, snot-nosed, scared-shitless-grinned
sprint.

run to itchy cotton bedding drenched in the stench of day-dreams and nightmares;
peppered with heaps of insight they've yet to diagnose,
and one cold pillow
that can never seem to lull your static head to sleep or fully support the weight of your heavily burdened shoulders.

run like it doesn't mean anything for once;
like a wide-eyed kid who's never seen a map or compass,
he just zigs and zags through the seemingly limitless emerald velvet at full speed as he navigates the backyard in pure and honest bliss.

run to sun-soaked golden fields where the night sky tints itself purple to reach the perfect shade of darkness,
and your breath hangs low on the tops of the tall grass like the fog hanging over a prehistoric low-land,
and the stars shine like slicked-up pebbles about to let you decode the mystical secrets they hold...
and everything comes clear
and clean
and calm.

run free
and wild
and nameless
like it's the only thing you've ever known,
until you're ready to run back into me.

i lick the rain from my lips
and kiss the moon goodnight in hopes of tasting the stars that you dream under
when you're lucky enough to sleep beneath a clear sky
and for your sake
i hope the clouds will always part for you come nightfall

and i wish the sun to dance across the apples of your cheeks as you smile
as sunbeams dot your face with pigmented music notes
and constellations waiting to be named

i hope you're smiling now
and day-dreaming
of rugged landscapes fading to rust as the thunder whispers the blues through the stillest night

i hope you smile when you think of me

seated around a cluttered table with extension cord lighting and a cheap beer
or rambling down a dirt road
or a metra track

don't forget that i'm magic
and that you are too

i hope that your favorite flowers bloom in fragrant plumes wafting high enough to cross the heavily guarded walls you've resurrected

i hope you won't spend a single second scared
or lonely
out there in the "great wide open"

but mostly i hope you'll never forget the road back west
to the desert dust i flourish in

it was warm and dry last summer
so i painted my face with mud and stain
and set out to find my own space of the earth with my name on it
somewhere i'd finally fit in
i never did find it
instead
i tattooed my skin with road maps to memories that i can't quite get back to
i still can't get back to you
so i picked up a lost boy on the side of the road
with a lying smile and deceptively blue rain puddle eyes
he dosed me and broke me
lifted me up with ***** hands
and set me atop a psychedelic pedestal that he could pull from beneath me
to watch me fall to the ground and writhe whenever he liked
he liked to do so often
he broke me
he did
like an empty bottle once containing bitter beer thrown at a door
so when the rain came to the plains
i dropped him off in the next state
and hurried home to gather up what pieces of myself still remained
i made me from scratch with my own hands
to suit only my own standards
but still
maybe now you'll like it
soon the leaves began to fall
and i got lost under their burial mounds
shroud in the season of decay
i saved a breath to weep for my own death
but it didn't last long
i got over it quick
crawled out of momentary depression just in time
to see the tulips die and the skies ignite
with winter sunsets and nightmares
i felt like things were changing and so should i
so i set aim for the skies
spread my arms and hoped for flight
even just a tussle of warm breeze to liven up my paper sails...
just something to pull me out to sea
to sky
space and waves
it's all the same
i just wanted to get away
all i gained was new callous and a few second-hand paper-backs
i didn't get much farther than a couple states away
but any sky tastes great when all you're craving is some change
the days got short quick
and the warmth ran away to play
while i stayed behind to hold down the fort
and hopefully to set forth to find whatever it is that i'm constantly searching for

an aerosol angel with college-ruled wings
and paint stained fingertips
stranded in a sea of pigmentation
lately, she's been feeling out of place
not all compasses point due north

a parrot in a sea of sharks
who's never learned to sail

they're selling tickets to the ****-show on the shore line
catch the half priced sunday matanee
save the date

a trapeze ******* with a choke hold on the universe's coat tails
tap dancing through star charts and love poems at the pace of lightning's strike
some failures just have to be public
if lessons are to be learned
the prettiest ballerinas aren't afraid to fall

she's learned the hard way to find beauty in skinned knees
strength in stubbed toes
and faith in a broken heart

no point in dressing up, honey
prince charming doesn't frequent freak shows

he's an arrogant flake, anyway
her best bet is a strong man
or a fire breather
when looking for a boy to bring home

one man to bare her burdens
and another to scortch the wreckage of what's left
careful what you wish for

butterflies the size of funnel cakes shake her rib cage to pieces
silver confetti on pitted pavement

he looked so handsome beneath the neon lights
horrified and ecstatic all at once
like a lost boy in neverland

scanning the crowd of strangers for any possible princess tiger lillie's

someone to ride alongside on the ferris wheel all night
untill the sheriff shines his flashlight down the path that points them home
alone

but handsome boys know little about matters other than themselves
so she's gotten good at feeling bad

it's time to find a man
someone who can build things instead of just break them

the snow falls sincerely sorry,
like a pale yellow skirt at the foot of your bed-
i always said, "i didn't mean it".
but i meant it.
it's that time of the year,
where you'll wrap yourself in wool and leathers,
in hopes no one will feel just how cold you truly are,
but i can feel it.
you drink your whiskey straight,
yet feel too inhumane to rest your lips on the same bottle
as the only people who've ever loved you drink from.
your glass gets frosty.
you blow hot, pungent air between your teeth like steam,
in hopes we'll see you as some frightening machine,
instead of how you really are when you forget
that you should be holding up your fashionably unfashionable walls.
you're just another washed up actor,
who somehow lost the ability to differentiate between being on-set,
and being alive.
so you lie.
frantically,
frivolously,
and frusterated,
that nobody you trust can trust you to be you.
the scenes that you build get muddled and confused,
rendered too busy by your lack of attention
and over-use of the exact same hues.
you used to seem so beautiful,
until i found your pallet
under your worn-down mattress...
you only paint with grey.
oh, how you tried
to hide the colors that i am under a tweed cloak of comfort ability,
but i don't fade,
and i most certainly do not run.
i change every day,
and when i begin to hate the direction that my masterpiece is heading in,
i change course entirely.
i abandon the compass,
and the guide books,
and stampede across the pages,
until i become the new and improved version of who i was yesterday.
stop pretending,
and just be.
you wear your "fight" face everyday,
as if you may have to chase a pride of giggling hyenas away
at any given moment.
put down your knife and act right,
no one here wants to hurt you.
you hurt me,
you tried to hide me,
and you lied to me.
still, 
all i want to do is teach you.
teach you to let go of your charade,
to embrace the life you've made,
and how to paint the sunset as a sunset-
not a eulogy.