The best part about falling in love
Is just when it begins,
And the best part about making love
Is just before it ends:
The ecstasy surrounds us, then
We sail away on tide and wind
To do the best parts
Over again

To my friends
who can write
fresh-smelling
bouquets of words
with splendid color,
I offer my envy.
Mine are the blunt, stunted words,
rooted in the cracks
in pavement,
or forcing their way
to light around
overbearing rocks.
Some useful
in their own way,
edible or flavorful,
some with a
pedestrian beauty,
but few that one
would bring home in a bunch
with a box of candy.
More appropriate
in a grimy, young fist
crumpled in love,
destined to be vased
in a water glass
by a doting mother,
or shredded petal by petal
for the sake of soothsaying...
he loves me, he loves me not.

Outward beauty:
A passing breeze--
Stirs the drapes
And its gone.

Inner beauty:
That shines through
Whatever you have on.

I see their tanned and weathered skin
And wonder where your hands have been.

I see the gray streak in your hair
And know it wasn't always there.

My heart before I met you
Was desolate and cold,
With gusts of howling wind
And shifting drifts of snow.

Now, the wind lives in your hair,
And your eyes my shelter are.

I stood in the February snow
the freezing sleet
no boots
no coat
Steam wafting off my fury

My father read the lie
two hundred yards away
and walking toward me

So I owned it
told it
With a snarl
Without a flinch
Both knowing

I held my ground before him
and wore the red of his hand
on my face for a week

She couldn't decide who she wanted to be,
so she was everyone.

She couldn't decide what she wanted to do,
so she did everything.

This
was better than being no one;

This
was better than doing nothing,

as many are, and many do...

She
was not them.

She
was different.