My wife, a psychiatrist, sleeps
through my reading and writing in bed,
the half-whispered lines,
manuscripts piled between us,

but in the deep part of night
when her beeper sounds
she bolts awake to return the page
of a patient afraid he'll **** himself.

She sits in her robe in the kitchen,
listening to the anguished voice
on the phone. She becomes
the vessel that contains his fear,

someone he can trust to tell
things I would tell to a poem.

I recall counting the
crooked lines that ran the length of your palm,
noting how each and every one
ran on and on and on
before petering out into crosshatch
and creases.

Remember when I came to yours,
that first time?
We watched an inconsequential film,
made inconsequential small talk
as we lay on that  
rough-lined sofa of yours.
I stared into your bright-blue eyes
as you glanced up at mine
(murkier, sea-floor brown tinged with green -
“Harry”, you called me, jokingly)
and we kissed
because at the time
it seemed of consequence.

Later, we petered out somewhat
(creased and crosshatched as we were),
but even now,
as I trace the lines of my palm,
I can’t help but feel that
something that day
was of consequence.

A poem falls short; I'd like, instead
to draw a single line from me to you
and watch it curl into a word
so beautiful it's still unsaid –
or press paper to the window pane
so that the day might saturate
a note that brightly warms your hands,
spills birdsong from imagined trees
and buzzes like fat bumblebees,
but I am bound by language, love; I can't.

Once, I was a dreamer.  
I would look into the dark sky above me,
and see an endless universe.  
It was full of mystery,
millions of stories and marvels.  
Now, I look into it and see nothing.  
Tiny pinpoints of light staring back at me.  
Wondering why I no longer ask for their stories.  
Blinking, expectant.  
And all I can do is stare back.  
I have no answer for them.  
Nothing that would not seem a lie.  
This is the end for me.  
The last of the starlight inside of me
has flickered and gone out.  
I’m left now with only the vast emptiness.  
No stories.  
No marvels, or wonders.  
Only the mystery.

Once, I was a dreamer.  
I searched for the truth in the stars,
the buried treasure of forgotten skies
and the rolling, grassy hills they watched over,
in some faraway land where man had not yet tread.  
I saw their secrets and held them tight behind my eyes,
as if they were my own.  
Knowing they were not.  
Knowing that they were no ones’ but the stars and the sky.  
But never believing that one day they would be taken back,
taken away from me.  
And now they have left me, the Keeper of nothing.  
Perhaps it was my own doing
that drove away those sacred lands and starry nights.  
Or perhaps I was selfish in thinking it was only I
that could look upon them as I did,
and see the wonders I saw.  
I lay here now,
beneath them.
Blind.

When once, I was a dreamer.

You long to fill the ache in your soul.
You fear to speak to your friends;
Lest they judge, scoff, or shun you for it.
Your body cries out to be comforted.
Just the touch of another human being
would lessen the pain.
But you fear to reach out,
lest someone calls you crazy.
Nothing cures forever
and the dull void makes you its *****.
Until even the bullet,
the bridge over the river,
the drugs,
the rope,
the blade . . .
Looks like your only friend.
For what is life without purpose?
And what is purpose but the need to be needed?

i hate the term
"hopeless romantic"
and i hate the way
it's the thing to blame
when you decide to be vulnerable
and i hate that you're calling
yourself hopeless
no one is hopeless
let alone some one who still feels the romance
burning in them
you are not a hopeless romantic
you are a person
who feels
loves
and breaks
you are a person who believes
that everyone feels
loves
and breaks
and you are a person who can't accept that fact
that i do not
feel
love
or break
and if anyone's hopeless i can promise you
its not the boy with the green eyes
who finds love in anything that breathes and smiles

i imagine
it's morning
that wonderful time
where you aren't really awake
but you know you aren't dreaming anymore
where everything's a bit blurred
and only the important things are
impeccably clear

i imagine
that on this morning
the blinds are closed or open
i can't tell
everything's a haze
the cat's probably asleep by our feet
the sheets might be orange
they might be red
but your eyes
they're crystal clear
that wonderful light green
so different from the seas of brown i'm used to
then that little smirk
that's always on your face
those lips
those collar bones

i imagine
that in this moment
the little infinity signs
i've traced a thousand times
are real
tattooed onto your chest
the smirk is only a smile
for me
those eyes are only crystal clear
because they're staring right into my eyes
and those lips are mine for the taking

i imagine
that this morning
is real
that is lasts forever
that it will happen one day
it's times like these
that i imagine
you're mine
all the ******* time.

Hear the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past, and future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walk’d among the ancient trees;

Calling the lapsèd soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might control
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!

‘O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass!
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumbrous mass.

‘Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor,
The watery shore,
Is given thee till the break of day.’