Clumsy as words, I dared approach,
And over the edge I bent.
A sight unexpected appeared to me
And reeling back with a gasp I was sent.

I gathered my senses, gazed brave as I might,
And the water within shone a shimmering light,
And reflected the white of a man's final night,
Penetrating the darkness of his final fight.

Weary from a sorrowful walk in the woods on a whim,
And the madness and heartbreaking sadness within,
I had long kept a silence, and my heart was burdened,
And so I greeted thought foe as a friend:

Exclaiming, I realized that no hunt, but a chase had taken place,
That instead I had followed dear death, and I wept.
'Twas then that I opened my mouth in prayer
And then I closed my eyes and I leapt.

Not many
Things make me
Crazy--
Chauvinism, and my family.

Time flies if you ask it to,
And shattered trust can mend.
Faith stretches like elastic,
Iron hearts can bend.

Invisible hands will carry loads-
As heavy as Atlas's globe,
Lives suspend on crystal love
And tiny threads of hope.

Coal can be taught to shine
As bright as Athena's eyes,
And no matter how far it is from shore,
The tide will always rise.

And so she rose
Like vapor,
And disappeared just as fast.
Were her phoenix shape to return
To Earth,
She could not have been less.
After a year
Or ten, surely,
There are just worms,

But the headstone is where They return to pray,
To bring the babes named for the remains,
And the grave- they call her final resting place.
So how to grieve when she is lost?
To a classroom or a hospital,
Where are her bones?
Has she yet turned to dust?
Will her bed be in a cabinet of glass?

Give it back,
From New York to Los Angeles.
It's conquered land.
Move embassies from DC to Texas--
It's not a capital just because it hosts your parliament.
Open your jailgates,
Set free those pacifists oppressed by your terrorist democracy.
Take a seat with a target on its back and cameras trained,
Pander to the ones with ready aim
While we count coins to pay for good behavior.

I saw Gaza,
I was there in green,
Not exactly
How she remembers me.

I was different then,
A child, carefree,
Before I learned
I couldn't always be.

At first she was a fence
And then a city etched
Into blue sky
And dust that stayed the same.

She expelled me from her arms
And changed her name
And embraced others
Who spit in her face.

I lost her as a home
And then to her lost brothers.
Last time I saw Gaza,
I was in green.

Tonight we begin the countdown,
We enter the zone
From the 27th to the 33rd
And we won't speak,
Not a word-
Just let the fire burn,
And when other people fan it,
We'll each have to find another extinguisher,
But it doesn't really matter
Because the last words if ever there were-
"I love you",
And because in a week,
You'll be lowering a veil across my face
And uncovering one in my heart,
And after being made to miss
That one person who is priceless,
When next we part we'll have lived a lifetime
And barely be closer to eternal togetherness.

Blinking back a constant wave of tears,
Like trying to see the road on a rainy day
And smiling to avoid the things you need to say.
Swimming for the breakers, 'cause you don't care anymore,
But they always let you down and bring you back to shore.
Rest easy, baby, close your eyes,
You know it can't hurt if you're empty inside.
You're not at the top of the food chain if you're not there alone,
You don't need a mirror to tell you you've grown.
You never know what something's worth 'till it's almost taken,
With every headline and phone call you feel your heart breaking.
Never been so scared in your life and you know
That that's the thing that scares you the most.

You dream of that week sometimes, late at night.
You feel like a doll in a constellation of light
When you realize that you're only dreaming.
You're only dreaming, babe.
Breathe deep in the dark, count your fingers and toes,
Honest to God, only He knows
What's good enough to allow us to keep,
So live and let live and go back to sleep.

When a wild spirit falls in love,
It locks her up
In a cage.

When a wild spirit falls in love,
She gives all her wild away.

A wild spirit falls in simultaneous love
For boredom does not come easily
To a wild thing.

A wild spirit is a match only for multiple men,
And so she challenges herself and ends up tangled
In a web that can only be woven by a wild spirit in love.

I just got shot
Right in the chest.

And I thought,
"Jesus Christ, that really hurts."

I fell to the ground,
Hot blood began soaking my shirt.

And through my hazy agony,
I was aware of the poetry-
Of my dying thought:
That missing you
Killed
Me.

The gray before the break
Is bleaker than the deepest black.
In that moment, neither sun nor stars are seen,
With light enough to fumble,
The world, meticulously painted,
Is one fell stroke of desperation;
The contrast of pinpricks stars in deepest night
More hopeful than this false ambition
Right before the dawn.

Where do the soap suds go
when they're washed down the drain?
Do they take the dirt and salty sweat
down to the sewers, where they won't be missed?

Once part of me, my veins and tear ducts,
there came a time for us to part, my dirt and I,
so the lathery angels kissed my ***** skin
and purified in instants a sad story of filth.

They wash away in streams of white-
ashes from car exhaust and cigarette butts,
and lines of black, like lung cancer and smeared makeup
and runny lines penned by an unclean hand.

I wonder, where do the soap suds go?
Do they toss my sins to the sea to be sunk
and forsaken, like how they came to cling to me?
Am I truly clean, or must the soap suds scrub my soul?

All your life, you've wished for wings
While I've learned the notes the ocean sings.
To stroke the sky where it hugs the shore,
To ask the waves if we've met before.
You took your first flight as I was learning to float,
You build yourself a catapult, I dug myself a moat.
Both our hearts are equally blue,
And neither one has learned to hide.
Like lovers' eyes, you're lost inside-
Intoxicating, infinite, new.
We'll gallop together on common ground,
Sea horses with eagles true love have found.
No wind nowhere, dear, ever behaves,
The sky weeps tears and the sea laughs waves.

Where sky meets sea at the end of the world,
Where they kiss and intertwine to the beat of their song,
With the sun as a lone fiery partition,
That's where we belong.

I love more easily
In the winter,
When the only sun
Is a smile,
And any lack of warmth
Belongs to everyone.

I love more easily
In the cold,
With the frost and the rain,
When all my winter
Sweats and sweaters
Make me feel better
About myself,
Than in the summer,
When there are no excuses
Not to go out and make hay.

I wonder if I'm an ice queen,
Reveling in the ****** weather,
Or just an introvert who likes sleet
And the warmth of your company even better?

It's raining and it's freezing
And the wind sounds like it's weeping
And I'm all alone here hearing it pour.

The trees are tired, the world is weary,
Even the black clouds sound a tad bit teary,
And if they didn't let it out they might explode.

And I'm curled up and my nails are bleeding,
Because a biter can never quit cold turkey,
And I'm cold and feeling fat and so alone.

And babe, I've got these thoughts spinning in my brain,
Like the hail and the rain on my window pane,
And I'm wondering what anyone thinks that I'm around for.

And I'm talking to your friend, who's a sympathetic ear,
And I tell him I'm not sure what's going on around here,
And I'm confused and doubting what I mean to you.

If you love me, shut up and show me,
Knowing my family doesn't mean you know me,
And it's raining in this town tonight,

And in my room, and in my heart a little bit,
And I sit here alone watching Frozen while it pours
And the tears not shed feel solid and I
Feel
Cold.

This week,
It's all about you.
This month, too.
This week,
He's going to forget about
All the things he says
He never got to do,
And everyone else will
Forget their gossip, too.
This week,
You're the man.
You're a superstar,
With pretty pictures everywhere
And candles drip and shine.
This week,
You're the title, hero, punchline.
Everything you were and never got to be,
Everything you prayed for till the end,
Making you even harder to bury,
Those are the things we'll talk about
This week.

Words
can fill a cavity
with layer upon layer
of quiet lies,
perhaps tears,
perhaps

Words can numb
enough to breathe
alone

in the dark
or the light

it doesn't really matter to
Words

and I still wonder
sometimes
if perhaps
Words work?

I have a wand,
I try to hold on
To the same one,
But I lose them all the time.

And when I wave it
Across the lined white canvas
Things start to come alive
All around.

My head is full of musical notes,
I tried to sing some
But they broke;
For others there's still hope.

The fairy dust my wand streams looks like gold,
It sparkles when I read it,
Warms me when I'm cold,
The letters are magnificent as they unfold.

I have a wand
That turns the music in my mind to words,
I read it back and hear a track,
The playlist of my soul.

Everything I write, the rhymes,
All the poems, all the lines
Are a universe of melodies that's all my own,
And it's never quiet in my mind when I'm alone.

The wrong eyes
Ignited
Butterflies.

A stolen caress
Disguised,
Denied.

Self- destroying words
Thought; scrawling,
Doubling, dying.

A love poem
Pens itself,
Redirection in desperation.

Because--

The wrong eyes
Ignited
Butterflies
Last night.

I conquered the giant once.
Was that not enough?