I used to play the cloud game in the stucco of my bedroom walls. 

My eyes confined to the few feet surrounding my pillow,

finding hippos and continents before I drifted off to sleep,

always comforted they would be there when I woke.

I’d start the next day carried away
by the dreams I failed to recall.
Chasing thoughts like kites on a string,
blown through the sky by the sharp spring breeze,
tails spinning in the wind.

I don’t have those same walls to look at now,
so I settle for the sky. the clean and clouded sky.
looking for familiar shapes in the silhouettes and shadows
of the crisp, clear clouds
as I watch the sun fall down.


I can no longer see those cartoon shapes,
the way they would stay in just one place.

If you ask me to find them now, 
all I see are nail holes.
this way, I don’t feel like I’ve pinned through the sky.

diamond eyes above the prize
dancing below the darkening skies

give me the nectar from your lips
whispered words separate the innocence between our hips

I can feel you in my palm
holding on to your hand
connecting lines, drawing dots
seeing more than I'd like to say we are

I can feel you in my chest
my arms laid to rest
across my eyes, above my heart
lying further away than I'd like to say we are

I can feel you in my mind
writing stories left untold
pens flowing, lead scratching
asking for more than I'd like to say we are

I can feel you in my world
together intertwined
steps and leaps, floating faith  
building more than I'd like to say we are

Through all this wonder I can feel you finally
we're falling as one
you and me, blindly free
and I'd like to say we are

pull me in and rinse me off
wring the sand off my shoulders
sanding corners thru covers
coveting light like lovers
'til we depart from one another

soak with me the summer heat
dripping from branches
dangling over the street
tell me all your secrets
every one you keep
you'll remain a mystery,
even to me.

sing me a song,
said the songbirds loved one
we'll float up in the drafts
of the seasons as they pass
the leaves will fall down like crumpled papers
across the ground

sing me a song,
before you leave for too long
they'll be left to study the sharpness of his scratch
all the while knowing it will last,
compared to the curves of her pen
looking through a memory filled lens

sing me a song,
and nothing will go wrong

I want for you to freely come to me with flowers in your hand and your heart wrapped around your wrists. These things come swiftly but can’t be forced. It’ll be like a bolt to your chest that you’re not ready to feel. I want you to look into my eyes like you’re seeing magic fluttering around my pupils. Stardust that we both came from is floating in between our lips, careful not to crush it though - it might only appear this once. I can’t tell you how to feel these things, only that they should come with ease.

when it slips down the stairwell
only then will you revel
in the light of the moon
passing strangers at noon
lit by the spring sunlight
imagining futures too soon.

when it all goes to hell
ignoring the noontime bell
ringing with presence
breathing remembrance
always there to remind
of your first winters hesitance.

these hills bring up a lot in you
wind blown waves flowing through and through
seasons in our lives, eager to find the prize
of companionship and comfort falling from the skies.

go without me, please
you bring me to my knees
the feeling of floating through the breeze
dragged down near the trees
roots grasping up toward a feeling always fleeting like the bees
finding summer somewhere else
bearing down without myself
knowing there's no time to make a move without something left to prove
are we at the end of the line?
the end of the rope and the rhyme?
rhythm is gone like the sweet winter song
left to blossom all along as the warming spring will thaw

They feel more than my heart. The cracks in the creases catch all the broken pieces. Too thick for rings and all the fallen feelings. They catch me when I fall and forbid me from the crawl. Dry when neglected, useful when attended. A lesson to all those needing to be mended.

I have a fullness within. Today it is dark, though not all the time. Blood flows through my veins, carving lines deep inside. Still opening to light, my eyes lost their shine. Dim not for long, they will see their siren song - calling to the mystery, the unknown history that will illuminate the wrong. Wonder will cover the doubts of the darkness, breathe into me the light of my presence.

rough waters
harsh winters
frozen on the sides
icicles like splinters
hold me warmer like the gloves
lingering around your fingers
lovers in this mess
of snowflakes turned disasters
grasping through the dust
of what we're going after

I will let you go
because I have no right to hold tight
grasping through the crisp clear night,
holding on so you'll stay

but as long as I'm here
in your arms I'll remain
don't hold me too tight,
I can still run away

he will come

he’ll wrap his arms around your body
peeling the weight from your shoulders
raising your chin to the sky
while the tears roll out your eyes

spinning you round in circles
above the flowers
that will soon grace your ears

fear not my dear
he will come

for many times before have thought there was the one
but it has not been so
soon you will know
he will come

synchronicity ****** me
or maybe it was the lack of it
the timing so stretched
strewn across the states with nothing left
but things to waste
someday I'll have faith
but tonight I lie awake
with thoughts of you and I
wondering who will be the first to bend
hoping neither of us will break
under the weight of the deepening sand
that's only there to separate.

none of my words seem to rhyme anymore
I'm grasping at thoughts strewn across the floor
throw them in to the fan spinning out of my hands
hitting the walls, scratching the stucco, flailing and falling
yet to discover my calling

tonight I'm writing the shortest goodbye
I'll guess three minutes tops
til I'm out like the light

I'll cover you up and slip out the back door
the one that creaks when it opens
and rubs across the floor

I can't explain my haste in this dimly lit room
but I'll scribble some love
I can't seem to erase

I'll leave it under your pillow
the one that you'll grasp
until you realize I'm gone just a second too late

we could drink mulberry wine
just above the treeline
bringing you closer to me
complaining I'd freeze

we could have cider at noon
in my living room
the two of us lying
in the sunlight too soon

we can drink poorly spiced beer
lighting a fire right here
the stove searing hot
warming through the knots

soon we'll need nothing
just the other right there
held together with hope
never too far or too near

inspired by the thought of leaving so soon,
embracing empty rooms and fleeting full moons

I want to go where you roam and dance in the woods
pull my spine from the ground like you knew that you would
arching toward light in the beginnings of night
open your soul to where you think we could go

are kind eyes enough to light up this love
the feeling of you pressed down from above
hip bones connecting, impressions so new
brushed by the nights so far and so few

will this be worth all the strain and the mess
the effort so thin, drawn together by pen
watching the stars in the deep backyard sky
unsure if this is already awry

fill me from the top
the head, the knot
lead me to the line
of the pristine and the prime
introduce me so free
under the spineless pine tree
expecting me to find my home once again

poignant and pointing
this is what you will be
second inward from the left
free, you will see

well rounded and fresh
garnished with a ring
growing openly
soon, you will be

deer eyed doe eyed
tell me what you mean
eyes wide summer side
tell me all you need
finding the signs
in the strum of the night
bend my body in the line of the light
take me away from the lanterns so bright
keep me warm in the comfort of the night
skin so close we're the first to fly
alone and high in the midnight sky

september is over
as flowing with water
ebbing tides, endless rides
lightening skies with the darkening tribes

october draws near
feeling far from the clear
the fall of love, the call above
not knowing if home is here or there

when you look at the ocean,
what do you see?
are you overwhelmed by the strength
of the saltwater tides?

I'm diving inside your ocean alive

weave me into the sky
signal through smoke
winding from the sea to the trees
raining ashes over me

the sand is the sign
warming beneath the treeline
waiting out the current
to carry me away

I want my heart broken open, apart on the floor
valves spilling out sunlight pouring out from my core

my warmth comes from you, your limbs and your spine
you pull me in closer to find what we hide

I've put too many eggs in this basket
The rattan is wearing thin
Maybe we can build another
Out of fresh reeds and some skin
Wind it together like our souls intertwined
Glue it so strongly with our deepening insight
It'll hold once it dries in the crisp autumn light

bright like the scent of citrus
the smell of your hair as
i lie on your chest
telling you tales of winter unrest
scraping away the layers of leaves
waiting to fall upon your knees
speak to my soul, my eyes seem to know
how far we can go if we both well please

sing to me the song of the season
changing and growing and shaving off secrets
pierce through the skin
fall out through the center
i've been left unopened, but this is much better

we sat on the earth
the air in our lungs
a picture so clear
you were my dear, calling me darling.

my mind is turned
with the thoughts of you
so far from me
thinking of sinking, into the deep dark sea.

I want to find you in the storm of the sea
the calm of the waves
crashing down onto me

the clasp of your hand
on the nape of my neck
as we lie in the sun with our backs bending back

the roots of our touch
planting into the ground
hoping that we will be lost and then found

like an x on the map that’s marking the spot
the dots that connect
the have and have nots

just look into my eyes
the soul and the prize
finding its way out of the darkened night skies.

my oh my,
      my faraway one
far from the land
      and the sea
           and the sun.

the breath that you breathe
      sinking into the seas
         gasping for me
           in the warm summer breeze.

my faraway one
     taller than trees
           deeper than roots
              growing down to the seas
the love for we is all you may need.

I slept through the summer sunset
the solstice sat upon my hips
shadows falling past us
quiet the words outside our lips

the blue of my absence
the black of this abscess
filled with the frightening sense of the light

press into me softly
follow me swiftly
until the center flows into the dark of the night

the mountains are dancing
their souls and their spines
bending the branches, twigs and their pines

finding their way to the starry dark sky
the sun lights the way
'til the day turns to night

fall on me slowly
coldly
and kind

you cover the surface
of my heart
and my mind

stay with me til morning,
the sun may not rise
to melt off the scars
you've left me to find

follow me darling,
comparing our scarring,
in the darkening folds of the light

my eyelids are falling,
filling and fusing,
beginning to embrace the night

my oh my,
     how that sun is tiring
how it cracks through the sky
   how the light is firing
bathe our bodies in the warmth
    the rays break upon our core
we always ask for more
    but the hills begin to warn
to shade our eyes
   to rest our minds
       and trust it will still rise.

I'm falling inside your body and mind
our eyes align
your soul into mine

I am expansive. Much like the oceans eating deserts, not the other way around. I am a stream of thought. I am incoherent yet understood. I am everything but lost. Find me in the sky. Find me in the ground. Wound around the roots anchored down, where the light fails to reach. I am in the sun you greet. I can be in everything you see, just as you are everything to me.

transmit me from here to there
let me see your hopes and fears
burning away in the coming years

I know you're around me
we've just got to see
how long I can wait beneath the trembling trees

when will I know you
I need to see how it ends
the vision's still blurry, a fog on the lens

there's always an 'or something.'
a way to avoid expressing what you want,
an escape at the end of your stagnating thoughts.
a break in the line, the passing of time
until you know what to say again.

find me where you've looked before,
curving round the corner for more.
look behind the hidden skies,
the clouds will hide what you have to shine.

look out below the snow and the show,
the curtain is blocking the wind

stay outside the ring as the marauder sings,
stay here to see who will win

my legs are like bricks
glued together sticks
with elephant ears to boot

I still forget
that my mind hasn't left
the zoo or inside of this room

swallow the sun
before you look at the one
who will take your words away

that way you'll still shine
line after line
through all the glances you'll stay

what have i done in my life yet today?
nothing worth remembering she thought,
as her thoughts went astray

reminisced of old friends,
of lost wishes and loves
the feeling she’d find running loose in her mind

she saw those surrounding
their pain and their hope
with the love that they had at the end of their rope

is it all over now?
she’d ask herself more
to find empty replies, still yearning for more

You came to me so quickly,
a quick reminder of myself
Your soul stole away my smile
after being near me just a while.

Time will pass and moons will rise,
you'll move closer toward your fire
I'll stay up high,
finding more time to fill with yearning and desire.

If we'll meet again and reconnect,
form together growing greater
I'll think of the time your eyes met mine,
and I remembered my true nature.