i.
your hands are too rough
for a boy with a heart
as soft as yours.

ii.
let your soul and spirit flow
from your eyes and from your lips
it's okay if someone notices.

iii.
you can learn what it feels like to fall
gentle and warm in the hands
of someone else. mine are always open.

iv.
you don't have to be scared of breaking open;
i will hold you so tight that all your broken pieces
will come back together again.

v.
the person you were before this
is still living in you, hiding behind your eyelids.
i'm sure he likes the view.

vi.
you are a hurricane.
you are the universe in full force.
you are loved and loved and loved.

they say the moon hasn't been this close to us since 1948.
after hundreds of cycles and phases, maybe it waited for just the right moment
just so you and i could share this one.

it's gravity pulls me closer, like the tides that separate us both.
but tonight, it's sliver fingers interlock mine with yours
and i feel the warmth in my palms even as the cold whips around me.

i feel like i could just pluck it right out of the velvet night
and hold it in my hands for a moment before i give it you
in all its full and glowing glory that reminds me so much of you.

i'm glad that we live under the same sky.
i wonder if you are looking at it the same time i am.
because for once, you don't seem so far away anymore.

24

There is a morn by men unseen—
Whose maids upon remoter green
Keep their Seraphic May—
And all day long, with dance and game,
And gambol I may never name—
Employ their holiday.

Here to light measure, move the feet
Which walk no more the village street—
Nor by the wood are found—
Here are the birds that sought the sun
When last year’s distaff idle hung
And summer’s brows were bound.

Ne’er saw I such a wondrous scene—
Ne’er such a ring on such a green—
Nor so serene array—
As if the stars some summer night
Should swing their cups of Chrysolite—
And revel till the day—

Like thee to dance—like thee to sing—
People upon the mystic green—
I ask, each new May Morn.
I wait thy far, fantastic bells—
Unto the different dawn!

You have such pretty eyes
They remind me all of the time
of how much I hate mine

It hurts so ******* much
To love
When you've crafted
A perfectly secluded life
Based solely on self-hate

I asked my psychiatrist
If my condition is terminal,
And he said
"That's up to you"
But I puke each morning
At a quarter to two
And it never feels like
A decision at all

I asked my psychiatrist
If I should be bedridden
And he said
"If you want to"
But I've never wanted
To live in silence
At twenty-two
And still I can't even move
So how can you say
I approve?

It's really hard
To align the lightness
And the darkness
In my mind
To make that pretty indigo color
That sanity comes in

I think in a muted grey
A dark yellow haze
Slashes of army green
That seep crimson red
All set over black
And it's always running together
Making these ugly swirls
That sting in the shower

I'm broken
I know that
Without a doubt

My psychiatrist said
"There's no such thing
As a broken human"

But I am consumed by this poison
To which there is no anti-venom,
And I feel like a walking infection,
Pumping veins full of OxyContin
Just to take the edge off

I won't survive this
& everyone knows it

he tastes of
fresh coffee and old memories
mixed together with
swallowed sentiments
that neither of us
is brave enough
to say.

It's 3 am when you wake me
with cold hands in the shape of chords,
breathing stories and whiskey
spilled on the p.a by a guy
asking for songs.

In between saturday and sunday
you tell me about the  bikes
in town for the rally,
lining the streets in rows of inert thunder
while their people drank
and moved to the music you made.

It's 4 am
before morning finds the bluff
to light up the world's earliest hours
good morning you say
before we fall asleep,
laughing at your own joke.

what does the man behind his desk
at the publishing company deem
worthy of publishing and
how much are his shoes?
I wonder if my words
will entice him enough to begin smoking,
or quit smoking,
or have a drink,
maybe sign a contract
or rather have me one,
will he turn off his Bach  
to understand or
turn up his Bach to understand?
will he analyze my grammar,
or the need of post secondary?
I wonder if he will bring forth
his obsession of
having a finger in his ***
to his wife after reading the erotics,
or will he put a finger in his ***,
will I be read in a
reader’s digest in 25 years
while a man of elder
near ***** his pants,
or will I be dwelled as an elder,
and I bet you they’re over
200 bucks.                                   MJB