Have you noticed
birds are in the trees
And they are flying
And singing
And living a thousand lives
Of which you know nothing,
That magic, have you noticed it?
In the way your eyes know to blink
and the moon knows to rise
and the world still blooms and spins
It lives
It thrives
Then
it dies.

Here is this voice
it is just a whisper
would you turn your head
to lean in closer?

Imagination says
there is a space
where I am not a chore,
and a place
where I am not cold anymore

Reality says
there is an abyss,
where I am a water glass
that can't feel a kiss
as you turn your head
what did you miss?

The color of sadness
Is the blue of the room
Where I laying calling out to you

The weight of sadness
Is all of the ocean
Gathered in the sound of “no”

It is a harsh velvet rope
In tropical heat
Strangling slowly
Every fleeting joy

I have measured it all
In every way
Just so I could
Hold it there and say
“I will love you again”

“Do you want to get out of here?”
Well, I thought that meant you wanted me
Now I fear
This moment we’ve all waited to see
If I could keep
Your interest in me

My small sentence
Spoken softly to the bathtub ledge
Describing the difference between anger
And the love of a stranger
As nothing at all.

If I could love
the limping
ugly
afraid
part of me
That I drag through the mud
and thorns

If I could let
the transparent
clawing
screaming
silhouette speak
Instead of kicking it
into the basement

If I could put
my deepest human essence
onto paper
for everyone to see

Then.
Then, I could be free.

Lurk against the wall
Stunning rose wallpaper
Have things explained
Look around for an exit
Stairs somehow too far away
And not that subtle
What is it that you can say?
Describe exactly the difference between two shades of gray
Or exactly what it’s like to see the floor disappear
To disappear yourself
To know absence as violent
These things have no words
So you are silent

I took this withered body:
Wilted under the pressure of the moon,
A simple shard of glass
Transparent in the carpet.
And I saw it in a new light
Of a graceful waterfall
That doesn’t know the difference
Between what I used to be
And the way I stand here now
Wash away my
Wash away my
Wash away my
Emerge a butterfly