When I was 10, I had a hamster.
Its whole world was in my room,
It's life in the hands of a child.

My whole world was on 10 acres of land,
In the hands of two grown children.
Their hands as reckless as mine.

How does something grow within a cage.
Does freedom have a place in it's mind.
How to acquire the thoughts of freedom,
Of peace.
Will the captured know when the cage door is gone, with nothing holding it in.
How will it even recognize grass underfoot,
A world beyond 10 acres,
and the hamster wheel gone.

"A slave to your waters,
how I beg to kneel
and drink from you.

I feel so in control and powerful,
when under your influence.

Little do I realize,
how truly powerless I am,
when you're in me.

Under your grip,
with even one sip,
held so tight,
I have no life in sight."

You flood the corridors of my mind
With teachings of empty promises
Intended for the blind

Holy lies, forced on my eyes
A poison now swells in my veins

In self-fulfilling prophecy
You create a hell on earth
Burned, I rise from the ashes of my childhood

Well intentions, wound just as deep
These burns my only keepsake

From my innocence
I craft my disguise
to blend with those who believe your lies

As an imposter among my peers
None of which, can ever see my tears

Hidden now I lay,
No amount of your fear
Will bring me back near

Your cross,
The prison which you will hang

I wield an aura I didn't feel,
I must have unknowingly
repressed it,
Until you felt it and
addressed it,
I yield it to you,
So the world can feel how you'll
express it.

Three red lights against the pale night sky,
Slowly fade,
On,
Off,
On,
Off,
A endless show of it's significance,
It's own parade of humility,
Towering over the now darkened land,
Some may not see the danger,
it protects us from,
it shows any unfortunate soul,
coming out of this miraculous night sky,
Into,
The city lights on this nights horizon.

Mary mother of God,
Watches as we make fun,
It's sacrilege,
I am not of the few,
As I mock them in their pews.
I can never fit into their mold,
It's okay,
Your smile is better than any of their riches or gold.
I come off the crucifix,
As my love is born again

A cold night with the wind cutting right through it.
My anguish being swept up in all the rising thoughts.
The sound of rustling leaves running through the streets.
Startle me as they pass my feet.

Funny how the moon can bathe away the pain,
Other times just illuminate it brighter.
Hard to blame the moon for keeping the darkness lit.

"The Sun still brightens dead flower, a reminder that things can have beauty in death.
Dead or alive, both cast a shadow equally as dark.
Forgotten or not, a flower can have new life in the mind."

A confluence of those
who followed the river's flow,
This power of growth,
One that could build a city,
That frigid feeling,
Pulsing deep in your being,
Causing the desire to burn,
To stay with escaping breath.

A misstep, cool golden bubbles,
now flowing over the concrete,
An awkward laugh and glance,
Your tousled hair, streaming over your eyes,
This moment searing so deeply,
Will quickly be a drop of time,
Lost in the ocean of your mind.

Walking in the pale evening dusk,
as the world slowy turns to it's darkened self.

The last Sun rays seeping from the sky.

The world should naturally fade to black.

But our artificial glow comes to light,
To keep us up all night.

Your plow,
Lost deep,
In the warmth of my soil,
My bellows exhuasted now,
This day the final hope,
When,
Autumn leaves....

to search for a lost relic,
one known as a dream feeling,
wandering in a sea of races,
no place of peace found in these lands.

Grey, how to describe it,
All of its hazy ways to amaze,
It's a smoke that rises from a blaze,
It'll greet you at the dawn of a dreary day,
A streak of it will scurry across your kitchen floor,
It'll tower over you and spit on you all day,
wishing for the end of May.
It's the matter that makes us think and write a poem about it.
It's what allows us to not have to be so black and white.

one who wanders in thought, that's me
took what wasn't received, that's me
a man alone pulled to the side of the road,
eating lunch from styrofoam, that's me
a woman overcome with sudden painful sorrow,
where the warm streams open, that's me
a broken heart for childhood summers gone, that's me
a duck buoyantly adrift on the choppy river, that's me
where the light blue touches the horizon, that's me
the last lines on a page, that's me
lost in the hearts of strangers, that's me

Perfection is beauty left in sight,
the rest lays in darkness,
for knowledge to be it's uncovering light.

Hands running over my
cool sheets,
Alone in my deafening bedroom,
I call out your name,
Which comes out in a silent moan,
Yr Love is a stain that pierces my heart with every beat,
With U I could never learn to
Touch the abyss I'd left inside.
I'll never
Know Where these echoes in my hollow home lead.
Maybe I'll
Feel Something for once in this desolate plight.

"I walk these cold empty streets at
night,
Without knowing how to make it 
right,

As you sleep in your warm
bed,
I can't fathom how to make it
ahead.

Will you know I wandered
past,
Ponder it as you break your
fast?"

How do you miss someone you've never seen or touched?
If your eyes haven't held them in your gaze, can they not then be missed.
If you've never held this person in your hands or let your skin calmly rest against them,
Can you not miss the feel of their touch?
If you've never heard their laugh and sighs,
can you not miss the sound of their voice?
If I do fully experience all of these wonders,
How much harder will it be for me to experience it's true absence.
How much can a heartbreak over something it never had.
Do I get mad,
Investing all of myself in something,
I've never had?
Having my heartbroken by a Phantom,
An ideal,
A dream I'll always wake from,
A vision that is merely a mirage,
Maybe it's okay to hang my head in the clouds for the high,
Before the inevitable fall,
But I believe it's worth it all,
If I don't put myself in a position to be hurt, I'll never know how much I can love.
Or how much I am capable of loving, Being open to love in all it's forms,
Is a blessing and burden.

Why does every name rhyme with
I Love You.
No matter what comes before
or after it.
Whenever those words
fall off your lips
They have a lyricism that can't be equaled.
It always sounds harmonious.
Every name fits so well after those three words.
Like a warm embrace.
Your name gets to shine bright,
In poetic brilliance.
Every person will experience,
Being a part
of a beautiful
poem.

my heart breaks in two
like the way it separated when I came from you

you endured the pain and gave me life
my own light
there is no way to repay that

other than "I love you"

I can still see those dark moments in my mind,
if I close my eyes and choose it so,
I see nothing but darkness,
except the light that comes from outside the house,
a light seeping in through my windows,
letting in the ambient darkness of the world,
that is lit by the waning moon,
everything a silhouette of its old form,
a darkened self,
I see this all so clearly,
like I still live in these dark moments now,
like I've never left the shadows cast on me,
always in this perpetual night,
that never leaves me.

In those moments of my past,
I was in the true reality of my being.

A city of millions
          of lost dreams        
        and       hopes held onto
       by the threads of previous generations

People have been showing up to this city
  for hundreds of years
         with the intent of a new life and love

At its current state of flowing people
     on its sidewalks
so breaming
                they spill into the traffic of the streets.
                      This fullness, this ecstatic energy
      edging everyone onto their next feverish step in life.

So many storylines intersecting at random.
                     A shared bench in central park,
             the line of a coffee cart.
All their own collective catalog of stories untold in this
        giant library city.

Each person a potential chapter of love
   in my unfinished book.

  with all the bobbing faces
    in the sidewalk currents
    
there is only one I am looking for

it's the only one I know

in this whole city.

The distant wind is a shadow sound, I've been a castaway before, praying for its signs.
Wanting its freshness on my cheeks,

I'm a vessel out at sea now, you an island patiently waiting for shipwrecks.

The purity of the ocean shows a clean reflection,
but a glance of an old lover,
is like expanding air,
that will deafen the heart.

Content in Solitary,
Loftily in the night sky,
Passing over tranquil hollows,
With peering eyes of deep perception,
Wisely then perched in tall trees of safety,
The owl awaits the nights unfolding,
Inside it knows all of the worlds holdings,
For the owl has learned from this place,
Hearing nature speak it's truths,
It has listened to the brooks babbling,
The soils endless turning turmoil,
All the trees as they speak in their creaks,
Even hear the softly breathing deer,
And the bats as they flutter near,
Hear the field mice speak in squeaks,
The moans in the night wind,
Of the coming of new season,
The splatter of the late night rains,
The rustles of falling leaves,
as life escapes these trees,
The howl of the hungry lone wolf,
All this knowledge being spoken for those who listen,
The owl in it's perch does not let their teachings fall on deaf ears.

Why can't every moment be our best moment?
A culmination tumbling down of events and actions.
That makes it something so unique,
It'll never be again replicated.
No matter how much you try,
The pieces can never be put back again,
In the puzzle that time had crafted.

Two souls crashing together.
With a hope to be filled, with nothing to give in return.
    A routine with no results.
Two empty souls reaching in union.

My feet sinking into an avalanche of sand.
   My only wish, to go back
    And to have your hand.

Faded in the face of time's demise.
In the shadow of something once beautiful.
Of color,
So vibrant it stained me with love
in a blinding bliss.
Now the color has gone amiss. 
A black has drained out the red.
A dark new hue, 
I won't bare to witness. 
I only see the deadness now left,
With our void,
Neither of us with the might,
To reach inside,
And redirect love's light,
To keep a life going,
And reverse this Rose's plight.

How to dream in this world,
when the light shines so dim,
through this heavy haze of perception.

Where to cast my light,
who is to be trusted to see a darkness lifted?

With eye's clenched shut,
A whole filled with my space.

"The time it took a leaf to form,
and fall away from a tree,

Took you half as long to form love,
and fall away from me."

Shadows shake and cause waves across the grass,
We lay in the safety of the willow's shade,
Spring's early appearance showing in the buds,
So vibrant against the blue skies.
Love's blossom is in us,
In our early season of love.
The Sun giving us the warmth for our growth.
as we laugh and learn what makes the other grow.

The End..

Fin...

Where to now begin?

Then?

After an End?

Thoughts of you are like

Sunshine in my mind

A warm capsule of our time

We can not force other's interests,
or
lead one's hand to journey across a book,
The galaxy of written accounts that go from heartbreak to triumphs,
that can line the walls of a simple room.
Leading us down the path of our own interest,
Something that we should hold sacred.
A thirst for knowledge,
Though not just to be lead,
But of our own understanding.
One could get lost and never be found and still, they could not read every ink-stained page.
Every individual writes a story, some choose blood over ink,
To let the world know of their passage through time.

With the world as your
muse
Your thirst grows for beautiful
views
That will take you to faraway
places
Into rare alpine air
Which will entail a climbing
thrill
But that caused your unfortunate
spill
Now in this incapacitated
state
You have your toil with a painful heal
And you have to beg the world to
wait
But the world will watch with endless eyes
As we have to laugh at our eventual demise

Your love poured over me, I was idle while soaking in your every ounce, that seeped into my every pore, 
I became so accustomed to your gift of Life,
  I lost my ability to tread water,
    now helpless as

       I  
          gasp
    
             and
  
               drown.