Knees, keep supporting me
You know I believe in you
Stop with all the frailties
And get me where I'm rolling to
Unscrew
All the blues
You sing and keep running in time
Well fed, sleep when you're dead
Or at least aT the end of this rhyme

Pause time, wipe off the grime
Focus on the words I have to say
Ran five hundred score, just a few more
And we can be in a happy place
Don't stop
Don't drop
Reach mountaintop and valley low
Haters degrade the progress made
Saying that we run too fast, too slow

Oh yes, do your best
Until you glimpse that finish line
Past the dream to reality
And see it was you all this time
These knees
Strongly
Wanted to finish just as bad as you
God be blessed, revel in success
We all run, but how you finish is up to you

my fingers are bruised
left, inside contours, running along the point .

a dull smear of pain

accidental smudges
of my fragility are  just
there-
lightly traced
against my joints

outside injury
where did you come from?

either way,

now you match
the

ache inside.

I'm in my own
Glass house

We cast the stones
we all
Cast The Stones
spider cracks
at first.  and I
can patch those
I'm a pro

then a dent
we'll go to Windshield World they're
the
best

And when the whole thing just
shatters

you'll sneer-
Well, why didn't you build a
castle?

and I'll reply simply,

why did you cast the first
stone?

dead birds in my ceiling
tiny imbedded wings
they know who's laughing
and who refuses to sing

their beaks are listless
no longer in need of their eyes
their ears are long gone, past
so they don't hear the future's lies

dead birds in my ceiling
tiny imbedded wings
they see when I struggle
they see
everything.

pain lacing my
back is
normal these
days

pressure at
the edge of my
throat- an
old
friend

I am
strong I
am strength

a mantra
that's losing juice
like a
battery in

the attic late
july.

if eyes are my
windows,
I need new
shades.

My eyelids are bruised. Salt drips cake the worry fraugh lines

My insides in chaos. ***** tastes familiar

**** you. I'm tearing a hole in me

For you to fit in

But you keep growing

Eventually there will be nothing left.

I have traveled back in time
Or maybe I have dreamt this place in 1987

A bank
My mother a teller
In the middle of a divorce
Or maybe the divorce hasn’t happened yet

My father walks in
He is a security guard
College dropout
Ex-marine
Loves fighting as much as I do

She never went to college
Maybe she thinks he is mysterious
He prevents a robbery
Beats a man in the parking lot

He flirts with her over a coffee break
And this is the part where everything goes fuzzy
Because I could never see my father as a charming man

I want to tell them to stop
If love at first sight
Cared enough to have foresight too
They’d stop

Maybe they were nice people once
If we all knew what we’d one day become
We could fix things

I want to tell them that they will have children
I want to tell them about the things that they will do to these children
And then to themselves
And back and forth and back and forth
Like a pendulum made of knives and soft things

But I do not exist in this place in 1987
And even if I did

I want to live
I want to live

After the sweat cools on your now
***** neck
it changes the scent of your skin

I want to place my mouth there
And taste you like the ocean
Filtered through a cloud

I get so mad at the sky
Pulling itself inward overhead
I swear that it is a breathing thing

Then rain comes
And it's breath is now laughter

It pleases the sky to keep us here
inside

But I am still a child
Man sized
Holding you

I suggest we walk in the rain

It is not cold
But we are getting wet

The rain changes the scent of your skin

Your neck is still a little *****
I want to put my mouth there