I know that I will at times struggle for words…or even use too many to say too little.  Expect this. It is part of me. I will try to connect myself to the world, to circumstance, to people, with words. I attempt to stitch my fingertips to what I touch, see, and feel, with what I say. I attack with words. I defend with words. I seek, run, build and dismantle with words. There is sometimes in me a necessity for silence. But it does not come often enough. Why? It is because I fear it. I fear what silence means, because words are tangible, hey can be defined, put in boxes, made to be straight or curved, applied in context, and analyzed even for meaning separate of context. But silence? Silence can mean so many things.  There are clues with softer edges that require much more foreknowledge to obtain. Silence can be shaped by emotion into something in the mind of the beholder that it is not to the one who sits quiet. Words too can be misconceived, but with words, things are definable and misconception is almost always evident to one or the other. With silence, misconception is often left in ignorance. Both the silent and the listener are unaware of the other’s thoughts and intentions with silence. Silence is at least as powerful a tool as words.  They may both change the courses of lives. There is a time for silence and for speaking. But it is my mind which fails to know when silence is more necessary, because my mind almost by nature uses words to explain or ascribe meaning to almost everything and anything I experience.  See how long this single entry is? To explain words and their role and importance to me I am using words, because in my emotions, words are bridges, and silences are those bridges burning.  I am using words, but I will learn to use silence.

I cradle her in my arms,
Rocking her gently back and forth-
Her tiny hand griping my finger,
Wrapping it around like a pole-

Innocence is the name of such sight,
Heaven on earth is the proper name
For such a beautiful wonder and gift.
But the world is too vile, so it won’t remain the same;

The greatest murderers and villains
Once held this innocence and heaven
In the depths of their soul at birth,
But reality is the only air we know to breathe

Which hardly brings any comfort
But all man for himself
And all lives in chaos without a proper cause,
midst this filth, heaven disappears from earth.

So I cherish this moment and sight
for I am blessed to witness a glimpse
of heaven on this earth before it vanishes
by the air of reality we all are forced to breathe.

I remember the morning Tuesday was invented—
how gleeful we sang across the streets—
forgetting that the day after tomorrow would be Thor’s day
and that one we didn’t own, too.

I remember the bathroom stalls, the sins of Leviticus
we survived
comforting our confusion with the indulgence that God too
love man, kind.

Let the purgatory full of half good men sing about their sins
with pride and laugh at the moons and stars for being without limbs
and tongues to protest their innocence and Idontgiveadamnisms;

For I remember being fed the tenets of heterosexual history in elementary school
yet wondering why queer gods are the ones named after the planets.

How do I feel?
You all know how I feel!
I've been telling you all this long year
That I'd rather I died
Than spend any more time
Drowning in stale old trite tears.

How do I feel?
I've screamed how I feel.
I tore at my hair, don't you remember?
The days on that stage
When I fell into rage
Eyes wild, screams silent, wounds tender.

How do I feel?
I've told you how I feel.
I've not stopped my pleas since the fall
When the leaves shriveled and fell
I told you I was in hell
I told everyone, everything, all.

How do I feel?
I've sobbed how I feel.
Over tiles and full plates and porcelain.
My words sound so nice
You forget that they're right
Read the truth from my meek little pen.

Am I okay?
You should know what I'll say.
I've been answering you for a lifetime.
If you'd only listen
You wouldn't be missing
The boldfaced italicized signs.

How do I feel?
Angry sad hurt alone
I feel empty and hopeless and ragged.
I feel as I've felt
For a long time without
Love to make the world's edges less jagged.

Just because my worlds lilt
Doesn't mean I don't tilt
Tiptoed over a death dive.
The emptiness calls
And demands that I fall.
How do I feel?
I feel barely alive.

There is
the open book

her inquisitive look
the way

with one stockinged leg
hanging over

the arm
of the chair

the centre parted
wavy dark hair

and he sitting
across from her

at the writing desk
writing to his mother

saying how good
he was being

all alone in Paris
reading the books

she’d sent
paying his way

paying the rent
eating out

working in
getting

the studying done
leaving the girls alone

no late nights
no *****

no cigarettes
no sadness

or regrets
and looking up

from the letter paper
seeing her opposite

with his book
open on her lap

her black
laddered stockings

the way she sits
invitingly

him smiling
dotting the i’s

and crossing
the t’s

periods at the end
whispering

to the dame
be there soon

kisses on the bottom
of the letter

for mother
and the dame’s

(bottom)
maybe later

letting the ink dry
imaging what

beneath
the dame’s dress

and underclothes
may wait

and his
deep sigh.

And oh,
What a mess we have made,
My dear.

she... she left me callous and cold, ripped raw and alone, ....you...you spoke radio wave words that embedded themselves in my skin, took time to sink and burrow in, I, I made promises that shuffled into the sketched edge skyline, my lifeline, I, screamed promises at God.

You have to lower your
expectations for life.

It probably didn't help
being fed clichés for breakfast
like strawberry pop-tarts
throughout your
adolescence.

Middle school only
made it worse, when you
discovered words could
describe sadness. You learned
about math and the
improbability,
statistically speaking,
of your dreams.

The sadness picked up speed
in high school, and the teacher
you loved who smoked,
who cursed and made jokes,
who taught you how meaningful
words can be, has already
forgotten your name.

The university did not help
at all. Your tall, lost professors and
brilliant lovers
only added to the distant,
dream-like ego
of the future. Piling hopes
one on top of the other
accumulating mass,
collecting nothing.

Your dream is a tidal wave
and we are nowhere near
the sea.

If you could, please,
lower your expectations
of me.

Tell me all the horrible
things you think but
never say.

Tell me why I can't be loved,
why I am as lonely as a
desert, why I
deserve to be.

Tell me that I'm the reason
my parents divorced, dad left,
mom shut down, sister
shut me out.

Tell me why 22 years
of running in place,
contrary to popular belief,
is not good
for the heart.

Tell me about all the moments
you really saw me, saw me sneeze,
saw my flaws, my hips, my rolls and
you ignored them, kindly, holding
onto the illusion of me.

Tell me that you
never wanted to **** me,
you just felt bad for me, a sympathy
**** with extra tongue
to boost
my self-esteem.

Tell me you don't love
me while you're still inside of me,
the moment in between our
first kiss and last.

Tell me we should just
be friends even though
we never, ever were.

Tell me to chill, relax,
be buds, tell me not
to disappear again.

Please, don't let me
disappear
again.

Four years ago I left in attempt
to get on with my life, in hopes it would
appear to the other human beings
that I had gotten on with my life, out of
fear that you'd discover that I
never really could
get on with my life.

Tell me, in an alternate universe,
we would be perfect together,
a bizarro dream-land with a beach
and a hammock on which we could waste
away the beautiful
imaginary
day.

Tell me you don't want me
to die anymore
in my sleep.

Tell me that life, although
meaningless, is still
worth living.

Hesitation when I say hello

I step into your space
Hovering right above the place
I wish to put my lips
Sigh, leaning into kiss
Press my palm
On your chest
Your heart beat
Beats the best
Images of me wrestling
Smiles settling
As we roll around the floor
Just imagining
What could be happening,
In that moment of hesitation
Before I say hello