The force of habit
drives me
to ****** noses
and
cracked ribs,
crushes me
down into the
dust,
grinds my
bones
down into
brittle sticks.
The force of habit
drives me
to drown,
to seek
sadness,
avoid the sun.
Why?

Can't you see?
Just look out of you.
This beauty
comes not only from within,
but from farm, field, mountain, and glen.
Happenstance and luck had no place
within what is simply heaven's grace.
But yes another gift was choice,
and yes what shakes is my voice
because I cannot force
this society's course.
I cannot show you this is real,
that it is not just how I feel.
That this is truth.
This is light.
But what hurts the most
is seeing the ghost,
the old you,
the knowing you,
the you that's gone.

I've heard it said that
to move on
is to grow,
but I disagree.
How can you grow if
you don't stop
sometime?
A tree doesn't run,
it stays.
Its roots
nurtured,
drawing strength
from its stationary
nature.
So I stopped
and I stayed
and I grew with you.
But then I figured out
that people aren't trees.

How word conveys thine yonder form
is winter’s ice upon my ear,
No mouth can so describe the warmth
lay hous’d inside my heart endeared.

Despite all speech that one might find,
though vastly far it always spans,
your essence will lay undefined,
far beyond all ink-spotted hands.

But here I stay ever toiling,
grasping my pen yet unprepared,
Cursive paper onward coiling,
My crumpled sheets lay uncompared.

So know my love you’re all to me
beyond that which our words can see.

I helped my neighbor mend his walls,
but then I tripped and fell,
the walls rose up before me tall,
leaving me in hell.
Ladders in production?
Oh no not that at all,
We use found trees for firewood
but flames, they do not warm.

He stayed by the bed.
He waited.
As she spurned
love,
traced her fingernails
on collars and firm
chests,
chasing a carnal satisfaction,
he waited.
Through crowds she waded,
each stuttered step
in those sinful heels
drove stilettos through his
heart.
He waited.
Then she finally came back.
After all of his waiting,
she journeyed home
to stay at his side.
So he stood up and left.

I see people float on like leaves.
Gliding, soaring, humming about,
not a care in the world.
Glorious reds and yellows,
triumphant, even in the knowledge
that they will all end.
And so I drift along as well,
but not with a whisking of the wind like others.
I slowly make my way in the
murk of a puddle, rolling through
mud and the accumulated pollutants of
what ifs and slow eating depression.
What I would give to fly.
What I would give not to feel.