How are writers borne?
Are they picked off the shelf in a pack,
sown into dry bedrock,
watered by torrents,
of famine, illness, death.
Their genius nurtured,
by the 4 horsemen,
and their apocalypse.

Are they the fruit of wild tress?
Spread by bird wings,
and gusts of wind,
to taste the world,
as the sweet spring.
Before dropping down,
to make their own fruit,
their own tale.

Do they thrive in the city?
Like ivy creeping around a building,
clinging to the stonework,
peering in the windows,
rooted deep as subways.
As invasive,
and as honest,
as the rock doves roosting above.

Are they born of flesh and blood?
Fed on ignorance,
sprinkled with just enough insight,
that they want,
they yearn,
they learn to spit back the bitter filth,
and savour each sprig of truth,
until they sprout,
and spread their long low roots,
grasping at each pocket of air

to reach,
to grow,
to grow.

When luxury is 3 walls,
cement.
Too high to reach, too sheer to climb
Waist high rail with a metal fence
Assuring you don’t,
What?
Jump
Fly
Maybe now I understand.

When release is paper you can’t see
Sitting in the down-
pour with the dark,
wishing you had one person.
One soul there,
In your space that you share

Two others unconnected.
Friendly
But so **** distant, washing
sheets in desperate attempts to quell
all that leaking in your stomach.
In your throat
In your mind
Twisting deeper every night
The uncertainty, the **** sinking in your gut
And you can’t even make it
prose.

Playing god
Playing maker
Playing yourself
Or this self
Who is,
Or is not
The person you are,
Or might be.

Anchorless
Without one to soothe,
one to help you
Remember

That yes
I am.
Yes, there are people
Who would choose me
Over you
At any time.
You don’t even think,
because you don’t know if it’s true anymore
And how could anyone care
Enough about you
To care
To care
To care

About what?

The words steal
themselves from you.
Your mind is blank
You play at poet
Play at person
And you can’t get either right
But in the end
Does it matter
If no one knows you well enough
To see the façade fall

dizzy, dizzy
walked in the cold and now
so dizzy, dizzy
what's it like to walk and sway
on your way to the shell in
the night and maybe trip a little but
not have to
worry, so dizzy

pleasant chatter at the locked up
door, **** two nice old guys
whats it like not to have to
doubt, keep two paces back
spilling words, smiling, sharing
doubting what's it like not to
feel so dizzy

voodoo child, diet coke stomach
wind bit cheeks and a pack of
**** I don't need just for a
breathe of air in the night to not feel
so jealous and hopeless
and instead there's cold
and cold
and fear
and judgement
and cold
and dizzy

Half a world away
No closer than two stars half bright
Half alive only half the time

And I the hapless gazer
The amateur enthusiast
The wakened soul who cries with the wolves
To the moon
‘who am I to gaze’
‘who am I to covet what I’ve left’

and they, far as the distant cosmos
form constellations with pins of flickering light
that I’ve never considered before
never known or cared to know
myths, and names, and stories that I
the hapless gazer
will only watch with a bleary jealous wonder

Passing nomads gaze with me for a moment
For a moment let me dress in their clothes
Eat from their table
Drink from their cup
For a moment
With the promise of return one day
To gaze with me
On their terms
For one more moment

Half a breath
always enough just to keep relevant
enough just to keep alive
but never to offer it up for you
and I watch as someone else exhales
the life you need

and I can keep breathing by your side
as long as I have my
half a breath
but I just can't quite seem to catch
one whole enough to offer you
what you need

Half a breath
like many others
is all I have
so I'm forced to let someone else
fill your lungs

I shot myself in the foot
Almost a year ago now
but I've only just realized it's still bleeding
I felt it twinge in the fall
felt the welt as it began to fester

but **** I'd thought it'd heal

The trickle is starting to stain
and I'm not quite sure it can be stopped
I'm not quite sure that I don't just have to live with it
I've got a solder and some gauze
but is it too much to ask
that I just get the bullet out?

******* freezing
but what the hell, it's real
ice and chill made by snow and wind and winter
storm rising up for the day, for
the night - the last night
well almost the last night
but who's counting

Tropical paradise sits on the horizon
or more like, lurks in the corner
of my east facing eyes just
to the right I see the jet trails of my
inevitable flight back
home?
thats what dad calls it but he never lived there
why is it my home to him?
does it make it easier to watch me go?
if I'm going home instead of leaving them
alone
well almost

The cold the snow the winter chill locking
us in our beds in our rooms
and we watch the news and laugh 'cause
who does fox 25 think they are anyway?
we've weathered worse man but here you are
sitting on Cedar Point acting like
no one would have thought it would flood
no one thought the rocks would come up
over the wall
that sand hills would be left with no sand
that the waves would crash up over the rooftops
like a cold and raging war
jokes on you, man
we were all in on it

I think I'll take this cold
over tropical paradise
where the cold is locked in with you
a necessity to breathe in the thick
the sagging air that wraps you in a - hug?
nah, straight jacket I say

then why do I miss it when I'm here?
The processed AC clanging through the night
the breathe of two half strangers feet away
******* shorts every day
no shoes, no shirt
no **** man it's hot out

maybe dad's on to something
maybe
may
nah

I think the problem
is I try to be profound

I yearn to pour my heart out
but with added weight
at the price of honesty

I try to take the rain
beating on the window
and make it ambience
instead of nature

The cold from the wind
a tortured soul
rather than the price
payed by a fool
who wouldn't shut the window

Some are made to be our sages

Fitzgerald and his green light
Lee and her Mockingbird
Morrison and Solomon

but what of Hemingway?
What of course and real?
What of Burroughs naked at lunch?
Honesty
but also intrigue, experience.

For a girl in her bed room
trying to be incredible
there is only the shadow of a hand on paper

And some times
I wonder, Why it is,
that I find my soul
in quotes
The lilting prose
of days long past
The musing of drummer
And loon
The careful clause of music
Over a roaring note

I wonder
Where my heart is
That I see it floating by
And feel it
Pulse with life
Only on paper

For as I walk
Down roads of wary men
I search
I grasp
And feel nothing
Feel no breath
No life
Only fear
Prickling under skin

The shame of being
‘them’
the shame of not understanding
‘them;
as they stretch out
arms grasping for a friend
a rival, a lover, a stranger
I wonder how it is
That they have the courage

I wonder how it is
That I find my soul
On paper
And over and again
In song
And watch it float by
In culture

I wonder how it is
That any person
Who knows how I feel
Who felt my shame
Has the courage
To put those words
On display

There is a monster in my soul
Wreaking havoc
Wrecking reason
and I only wish
I knew the words
to let it out.

More often than not
my feelings manifest like the notes
of songs I have ingrained in my skin
and to find the words
that translate the way anger and sorrow and…

I don't even have the words for emotions
I don't understand them
beyond their most basic of means
I don't know how to say I'm so mad I could….
but I know what it sounds like

If asked how I feel
I can feel the motion in Piano Concerto No. 1
that means my skin is tingling
my heart is beating faster then
that drum roll Jukka plays and just as fiery and just as raw

It's never come naturally to me
to discuss how I feel
my instinct is to make someone listen to a song and tell them
that
right there
that note
that tremble in his throat
the way those chords interact
That's what I'm feeling

perhaps one day someone will hear it too

The angels watching over me
to hold me as I sleep
the father with the Earth in hands
My soul is his to keep
My mother's mother's fairy tales
her daughters blinding trust
When tragedy and misery
convince her that she must

In wooden pews and basement rooms
with bible tightly clutched
I listened to the fairy tales, the fables forming rust
On alter I held out my hands
to catch the chunk of bread
That pastor always said to me
where flesh of the son long dead

Fifteen years of song and dance
Fifteen years of grace
Fifteen years spent listening
their stories gone to waste

But the world grows larger
the questions too
and the faith is quickly lost
replaced by science, philosophy
common sense dethrones the cross

I want so desperately to believe
for your sake more than mine
Eternal life is a dream to me
but I hate to see you cry

My mother's mother passed her faith
by my mother I have failed
She prays for me each day and night
but her worries I can't assail

Oh mother, mother can't you see
this faith is yours not mine
The word of God is not enough
but maybe, give me time.

Angels I have heard on high
in God I place my trust
It's the son, the cross, that I decline
He's your savior, not mine.

As angels lay me down to sleep
I hope one day you'll see
My mother's mother's parables
lend no comfort to me

Oh mother, mother can't you see
it kills me when you pray
for something I cannot give you
and by each passing day
your expectations grind at me
they make it hard to stay
Oh mother, mother I'm begging you
don't push me away

The father watching over us
holds me as I sleep
and comforts me each night as my anxiety will creep
into me heart, I trust in him
but thats all I can give
let it be enough for you
I'm trying, let me live.

Why the feeling of nostalgia
when sitting in an airport on your own for the
how many times is it now?
well this is the last at least
for awhile

What can I miss when I chose
on my own
to leave this place behind, is it regret?
or the natural progression of emotion in events you can't control
but I'm in control, I am, I'm in
this motion half between happy and apathetic and
**** why'd you have to make me miss it here
and I haven't even left

Nostalgic for nothing
for what I chose to forego for myself
for the people, though few, I'll miss and mourn
for the culture for the music for the body
that no one else will quite understand

How many 'you had to be there's
how many 'I guess it's only a thing there's
how many times will I look at art
look at rocky, horror
look at a cynic and think
'**** what have I done'

It's an in-between kind of emotion
that will pass I have no doubt
pass and leave room for a chance I'd never get to take
but **** the in-between
**** the waiting

Tiles
Soaking in cold processed air
Licking with every step
feet bare and made damp
by the mornings dew

gooseflesh marks bare arms
baked from the sun
confused by the rain

mixed signals
from room to room
from out to in
in one moment bright and burning
energetic as the sun
in the next flashed by
new room
new rain

relationships half built
abandoned for the better option
lonely walks
awkward eye contact
misplaced affection
stretched thin and frayed

The gecko
stuck behind a glass door
is a better friend
a warmer soul
a more significant heat
sharing my own space

I orientate myself
from one room to another
different worlds cramped
on a single plot of land

Reason tells me I am not alone
the full bed sharing
my cold and processed space
says 'there are others like you'
but full fields I cannot open
full rooms I pass through
as a ghost through a wall
call 'you are lonely'
and there is no one
(but myself)
to blame

When the sun rises with my mind
My heart reaches out
To the people
To the places
I cherish, I trust

In joy I am awake
Fingers grasping
Heart beating as the bird’s
I could fly with
If I tried

Alone in bed
In happiness I can’t contest
With book or brush
To balance the lightness of my stomach
With the calm of my soul

Still I know, with the sides of my eye
with the back of my mind
that in the corner
By the sill, by the door is perched
Plastic coated ink
Agent of our ends

Waits for the day to end
Waits for the joy to shuffle off
The moths to settle on
Waits for the sun to set

And on the moon rise of my soul
I fumble, peace spills out to the floor
and blinded in the dusk
Ink and plastic caught in hand
Gives me air as I begin to drown

Pens are for the night
Poetry for misery

To paint my words
Even for myself
Legibly if only one time
For the earth quake to rise around me
Stitched together against each
shake each rock and tree and creature
The wind to pull at the hair
Of every person at whom I want to scream
The fury of the storm to
Make them hear for once

This quilted swell of sundry
Growing fungus and weeds
Shaking off vermin with each
Clap
Of thunder rolling underneath
Hills of cotton patchworked with the calm
Cool grass distracting
From the rage
The swell
Underneath

Oh they flow, my failures
As a river towards the valley
The defining feature in an otherwise
Sparse, pale
Landscape

Each sin like a raindrop burgeons on
And my river grows
Oh my river flows

Steady as a sieve, leaking o’er my head
In my eyes, soaking into my soil
And I’m flooded, no I cannot breathe
Under the weight of my stream
But ****** if I’ll open my mouth and
Let the water course down my throat
In my lungs

****** if I’ll drown
No I cannot let them find me
Bloated
Sodden
Choked by the rush as it consumes me

But how I want to
How one scream to release me weighs
On my mind heavier than the river I’ve made
A pressure the ocean itself
Could never hope to match

And what a trick it is
What a sick practical humour of the universe
That my river grows
And my river grows
Only as I try to keep my mouth shut

Once upon a time I could say
I never understood why
‘they’
did what they did, what I do
why did we let them dam break?
oh god I know

I suffer from secondhand sorrow.

When other people's problems
weigh on you
like a beast.

When you ache and weep and wilt
under the pressure
of someone else's strife.

Secondhand sorrow
grips around the throat
clutches in the stomach
and beats the mind to grains.

All the while a guilt festers
in the havoc of my soul
because secondhand sorrow
weighs on my mind
while it should be free
to care about you.

She wonders
(more often then she'd ever admit)
Whether it might be worth it
(and she quietly believe it might)
To shuffle of this mortal coil
(perhaps earlier than she'd planned)
If only to escape responsibilities
(as she's dreadfully selfish)
And wonders how it is
That's she's kept herself so far
Tied to the ground
(Though honestly she knows)

In a world of tree bark and sand stone
she was silk.
Where others croaked and barked
her voice caressed. Where they lumbered along
with pounding footsteps
her feet ghosted o’er the ground.
Their age is painted on their skin
in wrinkles, spots, and scars while
she reflected newborn innocence.
They grapple, she embraced.
They bellow, she chimed.

Around her the brown,
the grey,
the worn and weary,
the walking dead
swayed like crumbling monuments
lit only by her glow.

But in a world of tree bark and sand stone,
silk cannot last.

Her voice, so soft and quiet
below their din grows hoarse
as she fights to be heard. She loses
her footing as the ground
shakes with their steps and learns
to keep their time
just so she might stay up
right. In their pain she wallows,
frown lines slowing eroding her as
the sorrow sets in.

She learns to match their strength.
Her laughter is drowned in their cries.

In a world of tree bark and sand stone,
silk gets caught, gets pulled.
Strands are ripped and unraveled,
the pieces are trampled,
covered.

The lingering rags falls to the ground,
forgotten but for the memory that once
their was something beautiful
where they lie.

And won’t you tell me
If you decide you’ve weathered one crack
Too many, after all this time
Don’t you know that I have tape
Or glue if you’d prefer
Though perhaps that won’t help
I know it’s still too much to ask
That I could be all you need and
I know it isn’t your choice
That the splits won’t stay closed
Despite my glue and my passion
I spit out the wrong thing and it’s no stronger
Than a post-it note, just too old that
Wont
Quite
Hold

But I have glue
Or tape if you’d prefer
Though I think you grow tired of me
Pretending that it’s sticking
And even worse that I want you
To pretend with me.

I wonder if I keep restocking
For your sake or for mine
Do I think one day I’ll find the one
That will hold like cement
Maybe think I’ll coat you in thick resin
A case of clear fiberglass that won’t chip
Won’t crack and you’ll be safe forever
Or do I hope only that you believe I will
That you only turn to me
Is it monopoly I seek?
Or absolution.

I didn't notice that I'd touched the ground
until I began to take my steps
in time with all these feet that I thought
I would never quite catch, yet
here we are in pace
and I can feel the earth under my soles almost always
for the first time
in awhile

and though the nights still make me anxious
as midnight chimes I fear I've lifted off again
each night
like clockwork
makes me anxious
so far the daylights waken me once more
grounded me
and ever forward I can move

finally

I
I know, I
I’ve thought it before, I
You’re right, of course

I
Choke on my words
Choke them back in turns
Fumbling with my twisted tongue
To spit out the right lines
Only what’s right
Only
Only my throat closes them down and

I
Yeah, probably
I should yeah, I should

I
Won't
Muscles clench and spasm at the thought
Never once made to move quite like that
Practiced at avoidance
Pro at backing down
Not even yet a novice at self-help

I
I’ll let it pass, I guess
See if things change, I
Don’t want to rush

I
Know six years is hardly rushing
But **** it’s worked before
To batten down my hatches
Close off the heart of my mind
Choke back, choke back
Clench, hold, avoid
Rush, rush, away

I
Yeah
I know
You’re Right