Alone on a train track who wouldn't drink,
to loosing memories we waste to think,
and spooning your soul into someone's face.
To learning Latin, and winning a race, to all those lost pauses and almost hads,
long ago crushes and wired creepy Dads.
To that screaming rage I had as a youth,
to getting lost and loosing you first tooth.
To all the landmarks that label our life,
to the ups and the downs, and my Aunt's wife.
Let me toast to all that lies in the sun, let me drink and whine until I am done,
let me make a spectacle of my fear,
as I call out for anyone to hear.

***
Such a simple three letter word
Can carry such a heavy meaning
It can be your gender
Man or woman isn’t simple enough
You can be anything
And that’s amazing
But this is all
***

I remember in 5th grade
*** Education Class
We sat blushing
Listening to all the official crap
We listened and heard
But I couldn’t get it
This was boring and weird
This could not be ***
The thing we weren’t saying
This could not be that
*** made me shiver
*** was interesting
This was mind-numbing
So I asked in my innocence
What about ***?

And she answered, all of this is ***.

What a lie.

All of this was not ***
This was the start of ***
This was the blueprint scientific analysis
*** is more.

*** is that feeling
That starts in your gut and spreads south
*** is your palms sweaty
Because that guy stood so close
*** is a boy running his hand along your leg
*** is a girl hiding to kiss you
*** is every feeling you feel
Everything that can take your breath away
*** is all of that

And if you live right
*** is life

Because life should take your breath away
Life is a feeling
All of that
Life is the running the hiding
Life is the situation
Life is beautiful
Life is ***

I think you were here for kindergarten
We played soccer together in first
Next year was the same
I was weird and insane
You stared to be good just not fast
You stared to be cool, just not really
I was best friends with the coolest girl
I was weird but still cool
I stared to grow up
You stared to grow up
Sophomore year we got to be close friends
I was gone and I bloomed
We kissed but I am scared to hurt you or me
Cause I tend to

You were my first best friend,
And my first kiss.
We played spin the bottle,
Just us two.
We built Lego castles together after.

You were a stranger in a hotel,
And my friends dared me.
We kissed in the hot tub,
Just for show.
We didn't even know each others last names.

You were my best friend's first love,
And she was out of town.
We did all most everything.
Just never kissed because,
We couldn't forget it was wrong.

You were a friend still are.
And I am not sure why,
We kissed.
Just that we didn't fit, and
We shouldn't do it again

You were a challenge to myself,
And I think I really liked you.
We spent winter snuggling and kissing,
Just never speaking.
We stopped but weren't finished.

You were a rebound,
And you held me above your head.
We were locked in a room,
Just it was only for fun.
We parted ways and shook hands.

You were bad news surrounded by smoke,
And I loved it.
We had more fun than anyone.
Just I wasn't ready and you pushed me,
We had different timing but perfect chemistry.

You were the only other person there,
And we had nothing better to do.
We talked and waited,
Just thinking about the moment.
We had fun, I was your first redhead.

You came back for a the second round,
And I wanted you so bad.
We had one hell of a night,
Just there was someone else there.
We made memories and I hope we do again.

You are older than all the others,
And not anywhere as good looking.
We had time though, only
Just a little.
We lived the moment and I won't forget you.

You were his best friend,
And I was drunk.
We kissed in the men's bathroom,
Just I didn't want to.
We stole glances but you have a girlfriend.

You are beautiful and so unsure,
And I wanted to help you, so
We kissed on a sleepover.
Just I think it didn't really help.
We are friends that's all we learned.

I flew out of my mountain nest
on great and powerful wings
Over oceans so wide the sun
would lose his way, and lands
So strange the moon would
forget her own name
Until I alighted in a shore so
far from my beginning it could
have been another planet
A land I had heard of in whispers
and glimpsed in color, a place
of stories and magic passed through
and untainted by time
Here I started again, learning
the new sounds, flavors, and
vibrations of those around me
I am bird who has found the
perfect tree and found a
roost away from home
Here I wait for new wind to
bring me home but I wish
it never arrives because
the air here is so close to perfect.

Today I carved on the canvas of my body
A landscape made of  cuts in a line
Quick and uneven layers that set me free
Warm hues of red against a white coastline

There is no emotion in my composition
I did not sculpt my flesh in anger or sorrow
Solely in the beauty of all that I have done
And a reminder of the nightmares I know

In the dim light I found my muse, she stared
At me from the mirror and shes not scared.

There where never monsters in the closet
or under my bed, the only monsters
that I face are the ones that come at out in
the dark with the soft voices in my head.

The voices fight a battle between the
past and the present, the fears of my past
laughing as my future struggles to crawl
towards the dim light just like an infant.

But unlike the innocent infant I will
never reach the prize unless I learn to
face the shadows that claw my back carving
scars that I must hide with layers of lies.

Tingle in my palms, that flutter in my
stomach I feel before I throw back my
head as the warm comfort of your embrace
fills my insides. All that was once clear is
now blurred under your spell. My fingers can
no longer grasp on the smooth fabric of
reality. I fall into a clean
tunnel surrounded by the screams of all
my imperfections, self accusations.
Stumbling down this corridor inside
my mind I find the dark cobwebs that feel
slippery to the touch. I hear my voice
echoing from someplace far away, I
hear my screams, my moans. I feel foreign hands
across my shuttering chest. My fists bleed
as I pound against this prison made of
my bad choices and the warm blanket on
my raw senses, that pulls me deeper in.

Can you see the sadness
The constant obsessing is madness
Do you wonder where the smile is
Oh why I am no longer his

Did I ever love him or did I settle instead
Those sad thoughts always in my head
The pressure to find someone oh so strong
Too think all these years maybe I was wrong

I certainly do not regret any of the years
But lately there are too many tears
I think of what the future has in store for me
But know the future is not for me to see

I tell myself take it day by day
The  voices telling me that's the only way
I will keep going through my life
Thinking all along how hard it is to be a wife

As the sky cries gentle tears that drown the echo of
the present. With the constant poise of a mother's hum.
Not the pure and the untouched sight. Not the taste of
a thirst quenched. Not the whisper sound of a melody,
or the embrace of a long forgotten friend. It is
something else of that nature that calls me back, that pulls
my uprooted body miles away in place and time.
The smell only, the tingle from your throat to your nose.
The scent before rain. A smell of still as if we all
take a deep breath before we all can submerge our heads.
The smell after, as if we all exhaled together.
That fresh, clean token that draws the worms from their tunnels.
They bask on the pavement in a warm summer evening
allowing that smell to enter their small earth bodies.
A smell of cobblestones, sea cliffs, and the crashing surf.
That smell takes me home. To the home I have never known.
Although I have never graced her lush coast, it never
ceases to remind me of my grandmothers wool coat.
The smell of my family, of funerals and weddings.
Always there behind the laughter, the drops of whiskey,
and pain of the storm. Followed by at least one rainbow.
Of music, of dancing in a dusty Irish pub.
The sight of green pastures behind my eyelids stretching
all the way to the horizon. That is what I smell.

In a world lined by lies, we look not to
hallow men but to; Crinkled white pages.

Engulfed by the smell of home and fluoresce.
Our heads swim with what can, could, and will be.
Those imaginary heroes become.

Us and we fight monsters made of concrete
text. And it ends every time we close the book.
But our hearts continue to beat with miscue

prose, to the tune of pink love-struck blushes.
Those fairy tales and happy endings bless
gifts to those scared of their reality.

When our hands touch paper spines we blossom
Our minds unfold and become meadowsweet;
Flowers of yellow and green on a brook.

Through little black lines we see life and death,
tame worlds of dragons with words with whispered words,
and grow beyond the boundaries of literature

inspiring us to wear our own armor.
The truth to the lie of fiction allows
it to become far more truer than truth.

There was a time my face glowed with pride.
I was sea foam on a rising tide.
I felt confidant in my shoes, I stood firm.
No one could topple me, nothing made me squirm.
But something, someone, somehow changed me.
Cut the cord of my balloon soul, and set me free.
Now I am floating alone in the breeze.
I can't choose where and I am going as the wind carries.
I am all but bare, my body open as a book.
One he reads every night but at it he can't look.
The pages torn, the binding ripping.
My heart, my body burning.
Upon a pyre of forgotten and pressing worries.
An infinity of sad, happy, scary, and depressing stories.
Who wants to be? When all there is, is grey.
No light at the end of the tunnel, no other way.
Told to look to the stars, but not to believe in the magic.
How can we when we live within a tragic.
Questions unanswered, lies like a plague.
Governments flawed, futures vague.
How can we go farther when we have not gone near.
Our paths are blocked not by the hooded figure of death, but of fear.

Loving you is salt, just a pinch a waste and
too much will ruin the taste. Remedy this incurable sickness
in my heart with melody. Your teeth are milk and
lips are honey, beneath your smile is the almost fragrance
of a forbidden flower. I don't have the power to
recall your face because I have never forgotten. You alone
are the place where I find my senses. The mind
a prisoner and the heart is a stranger. Love, I
find a day is week while I yearn for your
return. Our passion more tender than a water lily petal
but few will ever truly feel it like you can.
Without anger our love is a fruit unripe and rotten,
and is the sweetest wine, that won't be forgotten, for
when I am with you I am intoxicated. Leave me
stumbling in a daze. I can't be sure if this
is the disease or the cure. I thought I knew
myself but love breaks all bonds. I feel if I've
been shot but it is only the half of me
now within you, and hurts when we are apart. If
the moon could be you I would love it too.

Your pace to fast for me
It feels like yesterday
No one else makes me feel

Quite the same as you do
Acting without a care
You were wearing that shirt

The Revolver album
Little girl in a bow
I always like George best

Like his lyrics and like you
Maybe it was the hair
Still smell the dust and dirt

And I was on three
Ten years ago in May
You were on a two wheel

Still hear the bike wheels hum
Friends and me just a guest
John, Paul, George and Ringo

Her heartbeat echoes from under our feet.
Eyes painted like forever changing skies.
Hair streaked the color of ripened wheat.
She draped canopies of colorful dyes,
emotions heavy like a crashing wave.
Her strong arms support us when we need aid.
Though we are her, she is ours to save.
She is a widow, a sister, a maid.
Soul glints with the anger of her black storm cloud.
Her dance follows the sway of the oak.
We must fight for her our blood and be proud.
Her mighty head crowned with a ring of smoke.

On a clear winter night
when everything feels right
the beautiful abyss
is, overwhelmed by a
kiss. Peace is an echo
of the mind, some promise,
a personal bind. The
snare of dreams and fortune
is caged in the sandman's
dune. Are we to complain
if we can't withstand the
pain? Life it isn't a romance
or fantasy. He just
explained nature and my
mind to me. I let him
submerge my lungs just yet.
With the air of mountains
one breath I hope to share.

Deadly pestilence came to distinguished Florence.
Spread east to west, roamed sickness without human cure.
Divine and human authority disappeared,
God’s wrath prohibited remedy and good health.

Families emptied, gentlemen fell to corpses.
Evil free to **** men indiscriminately,
Ignorant doctor’s advice left medicine like
filth. Day or night decomposing fortune is death.

Sick set aflame in neglecting infinite fire.
Disease black with misery, wicked affliction
with livid spots. Medicine removed anything.
Contact to dead or sick doomed a person sad death.

Every part always died. Abandoned all the laws
rightful behavior a fallen plight. Faithful shame.
Plague is a noble executor’s careless deeds.
A woman with no necessity of required

morals communicated upon death. Healthy,
beautiful, and attractive multitude consumed.
Avoid no very past pestilence in the fields.
The sick had made servants of the required dwellers.

I read somewhere recently
to release all my sorrows and anger
I must start by going within. Finding
that place where it all goes away.

My question to you is, is who are you
to say my worries can be
scrubbed away like dirt on a dish,
when they feel more like infections to

quarantine like a plague. When I
venture deep inside behind my
mental consciousness I find it crowded
like a busy city street.

I wander lost in the sounds and smells
surrounded by my illusions of
the human spirit. I fade into the
background of my mind.

I reach for a hand to help
me on my way, but I must climb the staircase
of self-doubt before I find my
own way out.

She was little, smart and brave. Barely five
her thoughts reflected an older woman.
My sister looking at me to survive,
Her silly smile asking me this question…

Whatcha  gonna do when the day turns blue?
When the sky fills with the many lonely tears,
You ask and beg then nobody comes through.
You're left soaked to the bone when no one hears.

The day becomes all time, slowly filling
with blue. Overwhelming and contagious.
You can’t stop it, but you are not trying.
That’s what you have to do, fly when wingless.

Not because you can, but because you must.
Fill the world with the light inside your soul.
This is what I told her, and I began
to tell her of how a mare loves her foal.

The honey smell of thunder clouds, the feel
of a dog’s soft wet tongue rinsing your cares
down the drain. Every wound can start to heal.
Of sitting by a fire in big armchairs.

These are feelings she has yet to know. Soon
she will touch the velvet of a lambs ear.
My wise butterfly leaving her cocoon.
Of all I wish for you, one thing is clear.

Never feel the blue, and think no one will
break through.  Because you will be forever
laughing in sun. At last your worries still.
I will always be there your one anchor

Last night I decided to try something.
Something I would never tell anyone.
Anyone could have done something to me.
Me I felt different, incredibly clear.

Clear sky filled with question about what is.
Is it really bad that it felt so good?
Good that I couldn’t stop myself from more?
More experience but still not enough,

enough of this pretending to be cool.
Cool, winter, nights bring me back to this life.
Life is too precious for me to waste it.
It could be so much better than it is.

Is it my fault? Or can I blame someone?
Someone to take the fall for my mistakes,
mistakes I made that can’t be taken back,
back to the days when these bad things scared me.

Suddenly all my time is spent with you.
I feel so different now, completely new.
You leave me speechless, don’t know what to say,
still this feeling stays we will end any day.

I try to stay happy and enjoy this
moment, won’t last beyond a single kiss.
I want to reach out and hold on before
I fall. Because each time my heart is sore.

I shouldn’t feel this way and I don’t yet.
You want much more and we only just met.
Every time I let myself go I loose,
now this time only I would like to choose.

I start to cry and slowly say goodbye
This bond just started and now it will die

Whether or not I want to give a touch
I won’t get back. The price is still too much.
I am not ready, I am even scared
I don’t know when it will ever be dared.

Am not waiting for something or someone,
but a feeling that I will get when am done.
Pausing for a second to take it all
in. I don’t want to build up a wall

or be called bad names and labeled a tease.
If I ever meant something can do this please.
And if I didn’t still do it for me,
someday I will be ready I will be

I start to cry and slowly say goodbye
This bond just started and now it will die

While I wait go do whatever you need.
Have fun, make love, promise things, smoke some ****.
But I am not your girl and I never was.
Things will change, good, bad, they will just because.

I will travel I will transform in time,
you don’t want for me and that’s my sign.
When you can’t see past, what is bad for you?
I can see what you tell me isn’t true.

Troubles we have in common, things we shared.
Thoughts and feelings that I understood and cared
will never play a big role in your life
things I knew already cut like a knife.

I start to cry and slowly say goodbye
This bond just started and now it will die

I have a picture on my wall from a time before,
a picture of a man a woman smiling.
They held each other close then, but so long ago,
now things have changed so much has changed.

A picture of a man and woman smiling,
is something far and distant to me.
Now things have changed so much has changed
A past so close you could taste its sweat.

Is something far and distant to me,
really for us to cherish and remember.
A past so close you could taste its sweat,
Yet so far away only a shimmer of what it once was.

Really for us to cherish and remember,
that we all are human and can grow apart,
yet so far away only a shimmer of what it once was,
can still linger and sting.

That we all are human and can grow apart,
a thing we should watch and fear.
Can still linger and sting,
stealing our happy memories before we reached the end.

A thing we should watch and fear.
I have a picture on my wall from a time before,
stealing our happy memories before we reach the end.
They held each other close then, but so long ago.

I have scars inside that no one can see,
and I have scars on the outside I don’t
show for fear, someone will discover me.
Because I hide inside a shell of won’t.

My father used to say sticks and stones will
break your bones but words will never hurt you.
But daddy you were so wrong, words can ****.
Yet still with you I could never argue.

Dad I have changed so much in these past years.
You would not recognize your little girl,
the one who used to laugh and share her fears,
all I want is to let go and uncurl,

from this ball of everlasting haze, then
escape from this sad, harsh world of badmen.