When times are hard- as freezer doors or splintered dinosaur bones-
When times are hard and cold and sort of painful by their very touch
A short-term solution may be found
Unglamorous, unremarkable, but sound:

Submit to moderation.

Harder than heroic, searing want or hope
Undaunted or tragedy-
Submit to not-knowing-ness,
To water-filled gardens
Where you float among ferns, and small lights are arranged in your hair.
Submit to plodding, to avoiding the dark-lit streets,
To shedding dread desire for sparse morality
Submit to the temporary reprieve of going the known ways,
Of doing what's societally right, of fleeing the fire and the glory of the fight
Submit
To your better sense, hand your heart to your mind and
revel in the knowing that
You'll manage. It. Whatever it is that plagues you.
Submit to sensibility.

And you'll know in a while,
After the thorns and dust and glass is all gone that-
You can
Raise your head,
Straighten slumped shoulders,
Remove the knots from your ankles
And find

Gladness
The grass, the water, the sunlight.

I sit here
Trying to read meaning into every missing second
Every little blip that it took you to think about what you just said…
Doubt? Restraint? How best to lie?
What flies
Through your mind?
Does it have anything to do with the fact
That you told me that you loved me
And then apologized…
What of that?
I apologize for nothing
I regret not a single thing done
I take back not a smile, a laugh, a song sung
In joviality…
Somehow our love was just this odd joke
That we entertained off and on
We were thrown into chaos when it broke
Over reality…
Like an egg cracked on top of a globe
It encased our small, narrow-minded world
Made it slip out our fingers
Made it roll, made it whirl.
Now we sit here with this
Slimy, newborn thing
Not sure whether or not to laugh at such a preposterous idea
And fling
It from us…
Or to examine it, seriously and closely
Think about it for a while
Pick and choose what we want
Contemplate the weight of denial…
If you really just want someone to always be there
Someone to watch movies with
Someone to laugh with
Then I guess I don’t really care…
I just wish it hadn’t been said at all…
A ball
Will roll if you push it…
An object in motion will remain so
Until something stops it…
But really,
Your apology has gone and done what it ought…
It has successfully replaced and retracted
All that was thought…
I’m sure we’ll be great friends
Until you slip up…again.

I walk the world with thoughts of you
In every place I go
Your voice is on the winter wind
Your footprints in the snow
And every tool I try to use to scrape you from my mind
Cuts your name onto my tongue
And beats me till I'm blind
I layed my head upon your knees and breathed the air you breathed
I cut myself when you were cut to know just how you bleed
Now as I walk this empty earth with nothing but a face
To breathe me and to bleed me
Until I leave this place

Your name is the loveliest word
I've ever said. In my life
I've never known someone like you.
Your aura is a quilt
that I could spend all day in
if you'd let me.
I think the chances of me meeting
another you are absurd
and I find the whole idea
to be terrifying.
I could make so much room
for you in my heart.

Don't hold your breath for too long or you end up suffocating
And as you turn blue, your vision askew, your eyes might start dilating
And the air that everyone else chose to breathe you soon end up hating
As you sit there, dying, wanting more, drowning in open air

We walked that day down by the bay on water sand and stone.
The ocean grey without Sun's rays. We strolled along alone.
The thoughts expressed were ours to test, to like or simply hate.
The moon: our guest who, on wave crests, would brightly radiate.
We talked of nonsense, evanescence, and things that we'd never see.
We discussed reliance placed on an alliance to an unorthodox degree.
With ideas of this place that floats lonely in space and is sometimes referred to as Earth,
We allowed time to erase and love to encase the feelings we'd endured since birth.
We talked of prose, realistic goals, but dismissed that subject for sprites,
Which began talk of ghosts, we were spirit engrossed, for we heard them crying each night.
Life after death we debated in depth, The existence of Heaven and Hell.
Until all that was left was the time filled with breath; our lives were all we had to tell.
Secrets were revealed and our lips were sealed for there was no one who needed to hear
All of the things we feel or the things we'd concealed; our passions, our hopes, and our fears.
Now nothing was hiding inside or dividing us from each other; we were one.
And our hearts were inviting, this feeling enticing us to courageously face the Sun.
For the rest of our days I hope this feeling stays and never abandons me.
Even though our hair greys, our hearts have been at play since that walk years ago by the sea.

A small cut on my hand, wrapped in cloth and a rubber band
the smell of alcohol on my breath, only one bottle left.
My head swirls with strange things, I had enough of these mind games
my feet bare on the floor, I slowly make my way to the door.
She left without goodbye, I don't even think she cried
my heart shattered at the sight, now I'll have my lonely nights.
I slam the door shut, burning engulfed my cut
I pick up the bottle and break off the lid, if only I didn't do what I did.
I scream her name to the wind, why did this have to end
I should've acted like a gentleman, to hell I'll be ******.
I try to drink away the pain, find a way to become sane
I throw the bottle at the wall, watch as the glass falls.
Shattered now at my feet, I fall down in defeat
cup the glass in my palm, the searing pain seems calm.
I lay on the floor crying, i feel like I'm dying
she took my heart when she left, she took it without regret.
I can't undo the past, I can't fix shattered glass.

The trees are withered,
The ground now bare,
The world has lost it’s color;
It is what is not there,
It’s gone with all the others.

For it to be,
What it is not,
It mustn’t fade away;
It is what is besought,
It is not time nor day.

In endless time,
Without intent,
In search of this mysterious sight;
With or without consent,
It is written in black and white.

The rules are broken,
Words unheard,
Tears still flow in silence;
It is what is not absurd,
It is without defiance.

It is all that,
Determines all,
It cannot be controlled;
It is and will never fall,
It is what is resoled.

In the end,
It doesn’t rest,
It just begun it’s game;
In you’re life there is a test,
And that test is called, Fate.