And though we dance
Platonic
Neath' absent starry night,
Running between rusted play structures,
Colliding memory with reality
Making believe

Like we used to,

I still can't disprove
That I'm forever falling
In love with you.

We walked,
Tasting the dew
On our eyelids,
Us seeing etched hearts
On parking meters,
Discussing
The depths of sadness
In our last barman's
Final pour of his night.

You walked ahead,
Leaving me to catch up with
The woman you say you want to be
As I
Make up the steps
To be the man
Who's
Every planting the seeds

I see
The kids knocking at our bedroom door
Trying to let themselves in
Hear that bronze handle
Jiggling in its socket
Like left over change in the pocket

But me,
Selfish as I am,
Selfish as I want to be,
I just want one more second of solitude with you baby
One more moment
Before our responsibilities fragment
Into a flurry of Gerber's apricot recipe and
Furies of five year old ego

You deserve
A whole man

A man
With no hole
In his heart

Expectations elude you
Like the ocean
Mysterious and dark
I imagine you poised
Neath' bedsheets of linen and gold

Dreaming of pine needles
Of saffron dust
Of a kiss you've always wanted

Of an embrace
You'd gladly take

To be haunted.

We made it home
But did not put the key in the door
Feeling the need to dance
On the street

Evading sleep

Avoiding who we are
From the choices that
Fix us

Like portraits
In a dusty museum
That people only visit on the weekend
And when they have
Old friends

In town.

To be
Dependent
To desire

Makes these chains
I carry yesterday
Today
Tomorrow
Forever

Both burdensome
And euphoric

There is no other way around me
Only through me
Questioning, denying, accepting, wondering
Fearing, loving, coming to, and leaving

When I listen
It comes
When I allow the gales
Of the upturned hand
Of the petulant misspelled priest
Take me for granted

It comes.

My distilled reservoir
Holds only so much
Perhaps none want to see
Or touch it
Or feel it or
Even know of it.

But,
I do.

To create is to see what one can do
To create is to see what one is
Who one is
What one can be

If the world wishes to watch
You dance amongst the flaming leaves
Let them watch
Let them perhaps feel a drop
Of what you feel

Benediction is granted
Not for the ones who wait silently
But those who walk through the highest grass
Traverse through the most dangerous mountains
Drink
From the coldest, purest waters

Attend to nothing
But to love and your creation

There is nothing
On the other side of the door
But the end
Of the

Beginning.

Her eyes
Filled
With shades of
Self-loathing
Sadness
Guilt
Regret
And hopelessness.

I told her,
We were born
Out of this,
Not
Into this.

I told her,
We will find it
Another
Way.

She nodded
Put her
Lips
To her tea cup
And sipped,
Her eyes
Still tainted
With the look
Of something that
Could have been
If only
There had been.

Her slippered
Footsteps
Slid across
The light beige
Wooden floor
Of our apartment
As music no one
Wanted to hear
Played below.

I listened to her
Door shut
In a disintegrated
Whoosh of self-worth.

I've seen
One of
The most

Beautiful
Open
Vulnerable
Tough
Playful
Joyous
Adventurous
­Complex
Complicated
Brave
Self-less
Powerful  and
Independent

Women
I've
Ever met

Brought down
By the shame
Of not having enough
To invest enough
Just to make more.

Money
Can collapse
The greatest of Goddesses

And give shrines
To the most
Horrible of Devils.

Fortunately,
We all get to choose
Where we hang our heads
And
Pray.

So,
Let ye' never crumble
From the charming facade
Of security or worth
From the penny and the dime.

Seek those
Who see,
Appreciate, love, and yearn
For your warmth
With nothing
But your hyperactive soul
When you have near or next
To nothing.

And,
If there is no one,
There is you.

There is always you.

See the river
Beyond the dollar.

See the Goddess
Beyond
The missed opportunities.

We are merely chances
In a world
Forever
Shedding its skin.

The ideology
Of money
Is a truth of necessities

A labyrinth
Of loop holes
And whispers,
Analytics,
Greed,
And moral silicone.

It is not us.
It wants us to think it is us.
But,

It

Is not us.

Engineers of humanity
Trick you
How to
Go about your life.

Artists
Trick you
How to
Live your life.

Yet
Once
The money
Comes -

Watch.

For the first
Becomes the later,

And the later
Becomes the first.

Won the lottery today.
The big one.
The big big one.
Yes sir' the big one.

Gonna' put a little away.
Gonna' spend a little too.
They say some've gone crazy
With all that money to spend.
Wasted it all.
Spent too much.
Loaned too much.
Killed themselves.

Not me.
No sir'e not me.
Not me.

Whatever the streets whistle
I try to say it back
Say it back
You know, so the streets n' the road ain't lonely

Cause money can't talk, you see?
Can't tell me nothing because
Money can't talk, can't speak, can't talk, you know?

An' since the money can't say nothing
Cause you know money can't talk
Cause people n' nature and things are actually things that
Produce, function, you know actually do things, you know?
Money ain't nothing but green paper
With faces of dead men and dead scriptures
That only make measly kindling that smells funny
When you put flame to it,
But since money can't say nothing to me
I don't listen to it, hell, can't even listen to it
For it's got nothing to say n' nothing to do
But trying to control me

Ain't nothing controlling me
Cept' the bottle n'
The woman n' love

Woman n' love one n' the same

Lost track of what I was saying
Lost track of what I was telling you
My apologies
All sorrows are tinted with golden fringe
And the ten commandments of our lord God
Ok and farewell

I won the lottery you see
156 million smack-a-roos
For me, that's a lotta' silence
You'd understand what I meant
From the conversation we were
Having earlier
If you weren't listening, I understand
I ramble
Always have

Won these 156 million n' my first thought was:
Im gonna' give a million to each girl I was
Seriously with
Seriously heels over head with
Love I'm saying
And not just a million to each girl
Because that wouldn't be fair to the amount of time
Time is the most important construct of any relationship
It's a building block of both commitment and scorn
Of love and disdain

Time is a contradiction in any relationship
It is both a definer and a destroyer
A solidifier and a quantifier
A terrorizer and mortifier

A distant page on a snow slicked hillside
void of letter
A fragrant rose
on its last petal
A still cocked ocean erupting
with crooked horizons

The last line
When its the first line
Is the first line
And the last

So, 100 thousand
To every month
I was with a girl I really loved
Only got four or five
They know who they are
And they know who I was
When I was with'em
Even if I didn't
Or they don't

Don't see it as payment
For being with me
Or dealing with me
Or some kind of reparations
I guess
It's something like,
I wish I coulda' done
Or I wish I coulda' been
I guess
It's like I hope you use this
With someone who loves you now
That needs you now
To make life easier
To make life better
To make life
What you deserve it to be

N' that I love you
For everything that you
Were to me
And are to me
And will continue to be.

Today, yesterday, and

Always.

We knew not where we were going, only that we were going. People looked at us as if we were ghosts, as if were figments of their imagination. I would order toast and coffee at those diners along the 1 down to LA and those backroad waitresses would stare at me in a kind of genuine disbelief, almost making me think I wasn't real. Perry, she said she woke up one morning, I don't know where we were or how we even paid for the room, but she said she looked in the mirror after waking from some TM sleep trick she was ******* around with, and said she only saw half of herself. I asked her what the hell she meant and she said it was like looking through a linen sheet hanging on laundry line with the sun bright behind it. Like I was fading right before my very eyes, she'd said in a fo' southern bell accent. She shrugged and laughed as she finished putting on her cherry red lipstick, smelling of apricot jam and American Spirit cigarettes. Maybe that's what happens when you're moving as far and as long as fast as we were: you start to fade.

Seb had never bought a train ticket before. He'd bought a plane ticket, a movie ticket, paid a parking ticket, but never a train ticket. He'd tried to do it online, but his credit card was maxed and his checking account was closed, so his only option was to pawn his PS4, the promise ring his ex-girlfriend had given back to him, and return the college textbooks he wasn't going to use. That and a few other knick-knacks he traded in at Buffalo Exchange Clothing pulled $300, enough for a one-way from Chicago to San Francisco with $67.45 leftover. Luckily, he'd quit smoking.