You are
Just a bitter
Aftertaste
Swimming
On my tongue.

The breeze carries magic
on this flourishing spring morn,
with the scent of lilacs inspiring
memories of golden days and
long lavender nights with you.
How long ago has it been
when in the depth of innocence,
of youthful lust that current
of something crystal clear
and sweet coursed through me
with each thought of you?
Closing my eyes, you are here
beside me, vibrant and utterly
charged with sensuality, and
just as easily, you are diminished,
like the promise of my life.

Obviously not spring now, but
a poem I started then and finished
today

--

Skip the drugs
And give me a double dose of serotonin
I certainly do like those laughable days
The heavy sun reddening my face
Just a few minutes away from my lover's embrace
But I wait so I stay here and pace
Take the pills
So i can socialize among the saddening lies
And a week is a day
When your world starts to fray
So i take a seat with glass in hand
Waiting on a phone that will never call again
In my mind I knew this had to end
So take another pill
So the world won't seem so gray
And I make another pact
Not to die today
But I lie to myself far too often
To truly know the color of my character
Like the night it might be black
Like my anger when i look back
Or I could be a saint
Waiting on my rapture from a God of grace
All I know is that there is an end
Not so very far away

i lock this ocean away inside my shell
its surging depths, a frightening display

i lock this ocean away inside my shell
tide's pull would have me drowned

i lock this ocean away inside my shell
breathless within its fathomless measure

i lock this ocean away inside my shell
but you may hold me to your ear
and hear it still, and hear it still.

whispering, whispering
(for who can contain an ocean?)

Conscience, consuming.
My stomach has turned inside
and in on itself.

My eyes have rotted
and reduced to such lifeless,
stationary orbs.

Today is the day,
I ***** my weaknesses
to teach myself strength.

This world's a story
filled with stones: those five
smooth ones; some temple
tumbling to; a mountain's
stubborn bones. Take this one,

pocked, rounded, smoothed,
rocked by currents sure
they'd find the way. Blue
(or vaguely gray), flecked gold
no miners mine, or can,

diminished thing from David's
bolder day, it chooses you.
Palmed in your closing hand,
it's good, the heft of it, live weight
to tell a tale that's true.