You tell me that love
Is for the hopeless,
That pounding hearts
Are for the loveless.
You tell me that pressing
Your cheek against mine
Would bring forth
A singularity
That would **** us both in,
Only to disassemble
With age what we felt
Lay under an everlasting day.
You say the moon
Is too frightening for your eyes
To see. But darling,
If only you would
Cherish night, you would
See that roses are just as beautiful
In darkness as in light.

Stepping through a green-lit desert,
A flowery meadow, that stretches beyond
My sight. I can no longer view the oasis
Behind me, which harbored clear water
And treats for life. The gleaming sunshine
Of this endless day is only lost by the green stalks
And vines that carry on, that fall slowly into the night
Beyond which there is something I know not of.

This meadow holds crimson rosebushes with prickly thorns
Whose roots creep along the soil like nascent trees
In bloom. The washed peonies sway like figures
Entranced by the sweet harmonies of distant sirens.
These songs lie beyond the horizon,  
Over the moon and stars where this meadow
Curls into darkness.

I’ve spent years wandering this moving wasteland,
Using the sparse rains as drink and plants as food.
I sometimes sat to smell the scent of the flowers
And grass, but the meadow’s call always beckoned me forth,
And I always had to listen, for I have known of little else
Than to walk.

I have sometimes cried, wondering why the meadow
Is so cruel, asking why it hasn’t revealed to me
Why I must traverse its soil to a dusk so far ahead.
I have often shouted, screamed when it remained silent
As I begged for an answer or sign which I hoped
Lay in the way the sun rose into the air
And cast its red glow upon the world, or in the way
The stars came out and twirled when the days burned
Out like matches. But the meadow has always
Been this way.

I’ve stepped through my thoughts for longer than memory
Can reel, before the meadow taught me how to crawl.
But sometimes the meadow has let me live in picturesque moments,
In ephemeral timeslots that can only be seen in dreams;
The sun and moon and stars fly high at once and shine
With an iridescent glow that draws out music from
The swaying roses. It’s in these moments that the journey
Has been lost to evanescence and has become married to hope,
To a love of visceral offerings that the meadow has afforded me.

The meadow has showed me in dreams where this journey ends,
Where the flowers and soil fall off and leave behind
Only their transient scents and silky touches, where everything
Becomes impossible to see. The meadow
Has not yet told me what lies beyond that point,
But it has promised me that nobody can know,
Because the dusk, the quiet that lies in front of it
Cannot be heard, and never will.

I’m somewhere stuck in a memory not yet made,
Tumbling along in old age. My skin has started to sag,
My hair has taken on a platinum hue, And my back
Hunches over in an arc, curved and bent like a flimsy twig.
The meadow has tried to comfort me by sprouting
Thicker grasses upon which I can close my eyes
And drift away, but sleep has become only a short respite
From a long life of trudging toward this promised finish.
I know not how many more steps I will take before
I arrive, but in the meantime, the flowers
Will keep me company while the march toward
The night that lies ahead continues on.

I want you
To see my heart
Sing for you
And watch it pound
Faster
When I ride
The green seas
Floating in your eyes.
Because every time
I go to sleep
I dream endlessly
Of you and I.

I love you,
My eyes scream,
But you only hear
When I am glaring
At the gashes and cracks
Deep in my chest.

Along the cracks lining
The spaces in between
The bark of this tree
Sits two carved halves
That break along their seams
And curl into the shape of a
Heart.

I wonder when
The knife was plunged
Into the tree-trunk’s chest,
When the blade carved
Out words unspoken but
Seen in an image from
God.
Has time aged it so
Quickly, or has death
Taken over the supple, clenched
Hands of the
Lovers
It stitched together?

Have these moments been
Forgotten
Along the years that
Wear into the gray bark
Like ebbing tides
Along sand-dotted shores?
Have these remembrances been
Lost
With the swaying serenades
Of the plump green leaves
That hang like a canopy over
The shadows cast across
The dust-kicked soil?

Where has the time gone?
I can almost hear
The black heart wail,
Where, oh where,
Has the time gone?
Has it been washed
Away
Like the rain glistening
In the the sky that
Has cradled the branches
As if they were sleeping
Children?
Has it wept like the
Glossy roots
That have upheld the trunk as
The days have worn away
The etched heart entrenched
Deep within its core?

Where, oh where,
I can hear the leaves whisper,
Where have the moments gone?

He sits at the end
Of this long hallway
Strumming the strings
On his sun-kissed guitar,
Gliding his fingertips over
The neck and humming
Tunes only heard in
Dreams dreamt by angels.

He sits at the end
Of this long hallway,
Absorbing the words
He wails, letting the pangs
Of his impossible love
Fade away with each
Stroke of the chords
That reverberate off
The walls and crash
Like waves onto a shore
Of crimson-red sand.

He sits at the end
Of this long hallway,
Eyes shut over his thoughts,
Waiting for her to sit
Across from him and sing
Along, show him how to soar
With the clouds that line
The night sky spilling
In from the transparent walls
That surround his heart.

He sits at the end
Of this long hallway,
Cheeks glistening with
Unholy water that
Burns the cuts above his lips
And rappels from his chin
Onto his sliding fingers.

He sits at the end
Of this long hallway,
Becoming the vibrations
That lie within the sound,
That sleep within the hymns
He cries so that she
May hear, understand that
Music can't be made without
Something to bleed onto.

He sits at the end
Of this long hallway,
Head shaking over his
Guitar, hoping that the sound
Will spin her into his tired arms.

But the songs won't ring
Loud enough to tell him
Why dreams are forgotten
When the music fades away.

The hum of a wistful soul reverberates
Like a voice full of fading
Memories and forbidden times,
Set upon the backdrop of this
Familiar building that’s been
Reclaimed, stolen and scuffed
By the rage of change like a solemn
Plea from God that begs not to be
Forgotten.

Leaves of orange atop its roof,
Spindles of spider’s silk scaling
Its dents and cracks that have
Been painted, glossed over to
Hide from the sky what I took
From it, to shield from
The world what it gave
To me, to block from view how
It's aged with me, to
Cast away how it stood by me
And my swollen red eyes, beside
My ****** shins and stinging wet
Tears, next to my little arms
And glistening pupils that now have
Broken the once-kept promise
That I’d stay with it forever.

I remember the sunny spring days,
Lying upon the bright green grass
Littered with transparent droplets
Of rain, the pitch-black nights lined with
Glistening stars above the roof littered
With mahogany-brown shingles, the
Peace-laden ecstasy of nothing
Happening, the sky weeping, the
Sweet scent of flowers and fresh
Leaves fluttering across the clear
Blue sky reflected in the white-washed
Windows, and the crimson rose buds
That, for some reason, wanted
To keep wilting.

The sun now reflects brightly off
The blood-red doorframe and illuminates
The lively yellow walls painted corpse
Gray, brightens the unwashed greenhouse
Filled with brown, forgotten plants I used
To water, makes incandescent the
Rusty bicycles that sit within the
Musty white garage that was once
Where I stored my water guns
And leather baseball mitts
And aspirations I swore I wouldn’t
Relinquish.

Now the booming of metal hammers
Echoes toward the thick forest behind its
Ivy-green fence, and the bark soaks up
The sound like a love-deprived
Black hole yearning for purpose,
Begging to be filled by something
Other than the ever-present stains of
Pollen and neglect adorning the face
Of the ink-stained shutters.

I often wonder if time can be turned
Back, if grandfather clocks can swing
Their gleaming silver pendulums
Toward what’s gone, wonder if I can
See once again my mitten-clad hands
Gliding across the snow-kissed
Backyard, beside the pockmarked trees
That have since collapsed and
Crawled toward the ground and broken
Into the soil, and I often wonder if,
Just once more, I can see my tiny
Footprints atop the sun-drenched patio,
And that I’ll be able to say,

This home was, is, will be my resting place,
Shielded by the trees so high above . . .