tending to my beautiful garden, growing, glowing, roots showing and hope blooming, tender petals my heart is grooming into something far from
dark and ruined
the others, cracked and crumbling, dry and deserted from thunder rumbling
all I want is to love, to keep loving
knowing love is fearing loss
knowing loss is fearing love
hearing loss is fearing hearing possible
endings nearing
tearing up then gearing up
for demolition I'm only wishing
for undying beautiful things
my mind dutifully sings
and screams and pleads for what my heart needs
good deeds won't protect selfish love,
nor intellect keep my garden intact,
in fact
it may only harden
my heart and pen
pardon my art,
I just intend
to cowardly restart
what must end..
to my garden, I try to tend...

a home, above all else,
is familiar.
it does not have to be comfortable,
nor does it have to be full.
a home is probably a favorite place to be,
or maybe it houses some of the cruelest memories.

I like homes where I can drive quick and still avoid each upcoming pothole--
ones where old neighbors and new couples hunker down for their respectful chapters of life.
I like homes where I can walk around each obstacle in the kitchen with my eyes shut tight and only bang my shins a little bit.

a home is a sense, an intuition.
it is a place where you can dance while no one is watching.
you can fling your tears and regret at the walls and let them absorb your true feelings,
hushing you with their pillows and soft sounds and views.

a home is a home anywhere you choose it to be,
but above all else,
a home is familiar,
and that is a home to me.

shivering in the snow
brittle, glittering diamonds
both so fragile and perfect..
both so deadly.
wearing each to sleep
a blanket of clear, white slumber
hushing the sounds from above,
resting in peace.

by pencil lead, I carved you
      cliffs rounded into craters
silky shadows and smooth skin
         so fine, so fine
I immortalized you,
           a thing to have-- to hold
but even paper grows old
              over time, over time

the thing about photographs..
is that they last a lifetime, mostly
if you never drop them in mud puddles
or tear their fraying edges
or forget the last names of so and so

pictures capture memories
that, otherwise, we may have misplaced
usually..
but what happens when that lovely backdrop
turns into an argument
when its subjects cannot define
if it was here or there?

snapshots freeze us in time, everlasting
except that we still grow..
or we manage to die
our youthful skin becomes crinkly
and our eyes give away more than just our years

I dunno,
still-life was never really my thing to begin with..

he shuddered the first time we touched
and the second, and the third
hitched breaths and a racing heart
careening right into mine

faces so close, sharing air
in, out...... in, out.....
his demons are my enemies
his dreams are a part of me

everything else in the world
is upside down and burning

now the only person I will ever burn for
is *you