You say I'm no man
because I cry and have doubts.
I really don't know.

The tears come easy.
I wish they weren't for you, but
everything is.

I feel like I am
tumbling down a mountainside
I should be climbing.

I'll look out for you
no matter where I will go.
You taught me to love.

"America I've given you all and now I'm nothing."

Nothing.
An empty chair in town hall.
A piano with no white keys.
An asterisk in the legislation, if I'm lucky.
I ate your bread,
attended your circuses,
burned my bridges for promises you made.
I remember I saved four-thousand dollars
after college and believed I had foresight.
You burned it all before me
and then pierced my eye with your sword of justice,
placed me on the scales and found that
all your wealth weighs more than I do.
The American Dream!
Yet, how am I to dream if I cannot see?
And do you feel heavy?
No, I don't believe you do.
You have your patriots to prop you up when you begin to slouch.
And good on them for being more blind than I am,
or good on them for otherwise.
But that is not the American dream, is it?
I think not, but then again, who am I?

I wake before dawn
to the soft sound of breathing
and am thankful
for another moment like this.

Subtlety is poetry in practice.
Too bad the world is made up of bad journalists.