I want to take you
by the hand and show you
everything worth seeing
in this world.

I want to take you
on a ship out to sea
so you can see the power
that rages in your eyes.

I want to take you
on a picnic beneath
the Eiffel Tower
so you can experience
the aesthetic that falls
just short of matching yours.

I want to take you
on a gondola ride in Venice
so you can sit under the stars
and hear the gentle waters
and know what I hear
every time you speak.

I want to take you
running with the bulls
so you can feel your heart
threaten to burst out of your chest
so you can feel what I feel
each time you walk into the room.

I want to take you
across the world
until I have shown you everything
so you can know first hand
the wonders of the world
and how you best them all.

I may never change the world with words.
I may never write a string of syllables  
that a high school kid will be forced to memorize.  

But I know that I must try
because the world is a wonderfully awful
brutally beautiful place and everyday
I look at something I saw yesterday
and still it shakes me.

And maybe I write too many poems
about too few different things like
women that get stuck in my head
the way poems sometimes get stuck in my pen
or... did I mention the women?

But I'm going to keep writing
about the same four things
or the same one girl
until I can read it back to myself
and instead of it reminding me of what I ment
it will show you what I saw.

Because in the end you gotta do
what you gotta do and I HAVE to do this
and I don't care how much I was
called a ***** in high school or last week.
And it doesn't matter if I meet somebody in a bar
and when I say I'm a poet they smile and walk away
and never look back.

Because I AM a poet
not because I made the choise
but because I was born this way

and before you comment on how
I'm stealing the slogan
of Mamma Monster
I'm going to say that it's not about
being gay, or the wrong color,
or being sluttier than most people like,
or being crazier than most people can handle,
it's about absolutely owning who you are,

because deep down we're all a little queer
and you can let your oddities make you invisible
or you can make them turn you into a monster
and let you be the thing that goes bump
in the middle of the day.

And if you don't like it
I apologize for this unpoetic end
but you can go **** yourself.

"Some say that time is like a river,
flowing swift and sure in once direction.
But I have seen the face of time, and I can tell you:
Time is an ocean in a storm."  -The Prince of Persia*


i lie awake wondering where the Days have gone.
so many plans for the break lie in ruin,
victims to the ravages of Time.
nothing accomplished, nothing lost.
Time stood still as the Clock ticks on.

Seasons pass like Hours and i wonder
where do they all go?
the Summer heat seemed to last Forever
but the sudden chill of Winter means Eternity
can't come Soon enough.

a Year long gone floods over me and my mind Rewinds.
what i would not have given to go back, just for a Minute,
and bask in her smile one more Time.
absorbing every wave of the Hand

the Future looms on the horizon
and i crave to run forward.
so many promises left to fulfill.

if i could just stay here.
Now
with you, just as you are
just one more Day.

Tomorrow never ends.
last Week is always waiting.
remember your Future plans
Years forgotten are ever Present.

I loved you the instant I saw you
despite the fact that I didn't know you,
which is to say that I believed completely
that you should have been a painting.

As years of class slipped past us
I met you, learned who you are
and with each day you became
less of that painting and
more of a person.

By no means perfect,
everything about you
shook me to my very core.
A five minute conversation with you
could electrify my soul after
days of all work, and no sleep.

I began as a simple infatuation
I realize that now.
It grew into so much more.

I step outside
seeking asylum from the
hustle and bustle
of a life that I'm sure
is easier than I make it.

And I realize that during
my work the world
has changed without
my knowledge or consent.

Snow has taken a place
I for so long saw as
harsh and bitter and
transformed it into something
mesmerizing.

And as my fatigue
overwhelms me
I find myself sitting
on the only bench
in a pillow of white.

The cigarette begins to burn
and I am lost
somewhere between the
smoke and the snow.

Women and restless thoughts
churn inside my head
like the only blizzard
I can't seem to ignore.

What to do with you?
It would be so easy
to just walk away.

But like the snow soaking
through my jeans
you have this persistent ability
of reminding me just how alive
I really am.

I need to get up
but all I want to do
is sit and let the bitter
chill of life creep
deeper into me.

I wish it snowed more often.

Oh baby you,
you got what I need!*

Or at least I thought you did,
because like the cigarettes I sometimes smoke
I picked you up because I needed a change of pace
and you seemed like the coolest option.

And after a while I was addicted to every bit of you
too long without a drag and my hands started to shake
and I made Oscar seem like a nice guy.

Ever focused on my fix I fought harder and harder
to keep you around
which only left the high feeling like the norm
and the norm feeling like madness.

Eventually the pain of addiction took its toll as it always does
and I swore off of you.
Still nothing every truly goes away and when I see you
I still get the itch to....
But I don't, I can't

I'm an addict and I know what you do to me and
I realize now that what I thought I needed
I only wanted
far to much to have.

I've found other ways to get that high now
ways that lift me up but that also let me down
without leaving me twitching and craving more.

Oh baby you,
you had what I wanted,
but you don't got what I need.

Before I met you
art was just a collection on pictures
I never really understood,
music was just a sound I used
to fill the spaces between conversation,
even my own poetry was just something I did
so I could look back and say I hadn't wasted my life.

But after I met you
everything made sense.

Art isn't just a pretty picture.
It's some poor fool's attempt to capture
a beauty such as yours in paint.
Music comes from when a somebody tried to make real
the sounds we all hear when you walk into the room.
As for my poetry, it is no longer my attempt to prove
I existed but instead my futile attempt to prove to the world
that you are no myth but are actually the most
spectacular woman to ever grace the earth with your existence