i felt like i was in an elevator that was on the eighteenth floor,
but then dropped twenty more down, six feet deeper into the ground,
i was like a white rabbit, frozen in the headlights of a speeding car
with no chance of survival unless i took extreme measures to escape,
i tried and tried to make it out alive but in the end i died
like a train with it's passengers aboard.
that's how i woke up, in a sweat like a river,
for this is a dream i once dreamt,
the horses are coming so you better run if you want to survive
and make it out alive.
there's only one way out and that's to follow Alice.
darling, don't you know?
the good times are over and gone but dream on, dear, dream on,
it's a good feeling, i know.
the cats are out of the bag and the birds are loose,
so the feeling doesn't last long but enjoy it while you can
before our hearts and lungs collide.
the way you put one foot in front of the other and in line with mine
reminded me of when i saw you father and mother dancing one time
because if you think it through too many times,
it becomes a blur of reality and too many breaths.
i'm not calling you a thief, just don't steal from me,
cause i know i'm a decent tailor
from the many times that i've had to mend my heart with patches
of future love.
this old stuffed rabbit that i sleep with,
i've killed it with kisses and drowned it with tears
but it still has no reply to my wonderings.

the hum of voices in the coffee shop
is actually pretty comforting
even though I don’t know the stories or the how the voices sound when they’re angry,
there’s a conspiracy with the sound and my ears that make me feel at home

i hope we last like Japanese denim
selvedge threads and salvaged hearts
the wear will only make us more beautiful
and show that lasting forever is not only for old things
we'll only wear patches for sentiment
and watch the seams tear apart
how grand it will to be a couple of old things
oh, it will be grand
with our gray hair telling stories better than our words ever could

i’d love to plant you a garden
if you promise to walk through it gently,
if you promise not to shoo the bees away,
and to stop and smell the magnolia’s.
if i put a stream running through it,
would you dangle your feet in it?
the garden would love to know and
i even more.

sorry,
i don’t always say the right thing.
i don’t always use the correct grammar.
i hope you know i try.
i try because you are worth it.
sorry,
if this comes across stupid.

if your heart was a garden, all the flowers are jealous of your beauty.
these botanical masterpieces cannot compete with the way you look to me.
if your heart was a garden, i'd spend all my time there,
cultivating the colors and composing symphonies of the sweetest of melodies,
finding the music in our dissonence,
letting each note hang like the fruit off the apple tree
in our front yard.
if your heart was a garden, i'd bring you so many flowers till you were bursting with life,
the birds and the bees, humming an even tune
in the joyous breeze.
if your heart was a garden, i'd stand in the window and marvel at your beauty in the sunrise.
Your heart is a garden and I love it.

i don’t ask much,
except, just to know that you made it home safe.
i may not always act like it but,
i do care.
maybe, if i’m honest, not all the time.
every now and then,
especially when you’re in front of me but,
i do care.
i can’t believe that it’s been a few years,
since i’ve felt the inside of your palm.

if i were to create a space for you to say the things you want to say,
what would you want it to look like?
would it be a dark, single bed, room with maybe that lamp that used to be in your grandmother’s living room when you were five?
cause there will be shadows and i need to know if you’d be ok with that.
or would it be a loft, up above your parents bedroom,
where the sun light glistens off the hard wood floors,
dancing with the dust that jumps up to greet you?

i saw her face in the bricks
just like how i saw God in the streelights
her smile was in the flourish of the stone, chiseled from a mason's hand
her eyes reminded me of what i believe heaven to be like
her hair also, reminiscent of the woodwork along the sharp edges of the stained glass found in cathedrals
their spires like sharp teeth, kissing the cityscape with elegance and vengeance
making sure no one doubted their reach, higher than most and closer to heaven than many will ever get.
she's the closest to heaven i may ever get.