I
NOTICED
the single snowflake fluttering softly
amongst the downpour

I know that things like
wings and roots
are sometimes invisible
(touching is better than crying-
or more sad, one of the two)

The world was never made of ice or marble
but that didn't stop you from sculpting,
not even when the nails came up like
coals and we ran faster
or when the grass came with flowers and
we fell to breathe, to feel, to laugh

You are worth
EVERY ounce of hope between
me and the sun
We are two artists: sculpting and hoping
in this world as long as this rock
holds us.

This stagnancy is a hate crime, colored red and purple like the bruise on my hip that grew and grew from crashing into the floor, until it could have been a painting made from squashed grapes and cherries.

It expanded with my fascination and my sickness. I was the hawk watching, the worm writhing, the fly that buzzed waiting for blood to spurt from the
Colors:
were my eyelids and, soon enough, my blanketed warmth, consuming me
whole.

Then the water came rushing, running down my face in torrents to hide my tears, down my spine to shock my shivers loose and away: I stood up in the waterfall and opened my eyes and
Awoke:
in my skin, alive, laughing, dry,
whole.

I still get bruises, but I'm healthy.
I don't cry, I speak:
with the words I am trying to learn.

Glass:
cold and smooth,
showing both a blank expression
and a black beyond my face's reflection:
stretches for miles from me to you, the cold
permeates the Glass
into my fingertips, saps
the remnants of you:
the warmth left tingling in my
follicles, fading
from affections, from loving caresses,
from softly wading
into beautiful sun-streaked waters
in our minds, together,
our heads locked forever,
I remember
touching Glass and staring down
the miles from me to you.

Her fingers touched at black-and-white,
caressed candle-flickering light,
glanced across a scattered scene
and picked out words, from inbetween
the spaces in her sight

The sofa screams, her daytime dreams
are faceless in the night

Trusts to fail or feel, a rusted wheel
of claiming wrong and right

Close the circles caught in knots behind her eyes,
open up to shrinkwrap sighs
grow the glowing trail of colors
twisting in the air outside: and rise
the sun is in a pair of eyes
a web of words, an unknown prize,
and hours away
a person reads, and cries.

We're taught to love straight lines.

It's this thought I wrestle with
as the road I choose turns and winds,
it's the 25-mile-per-hour speed limit kind,
it's so slow, so ****** slow and most
folks resent the view and miss the show.

Air compresses stronger than steel
at the sight of this mirror I reel
trying to find straight lines where none exist
trying to find the steps I missed.
Movement forms a breeze
of leave, and I drive.

Laughing fear away, away
Words can't feel nor can they sway
Preaching orders to blind reporters
"Stay, don't stay, and never
ever pray"

Depravity and gravity, stolid,
You can't pretend these things aren't solid,
An idea is an idea
was an idea
was once a thought
and then forgot.

CRASH

and the room is so small, so
terribly small and uncomfortable until
you remember you haven't stepped
over your front mat, you're stuck
on a door step that's glaring down at you from your feet.

and you're screaming without opening your mouth,
because the only way you know how to express
is to paint your words on your forehead
and jump through stained-glass windows.

and the night doesn't end, sunlight is a dream,
the glare on your screen is from the city lights
swallowing the sky.