"Your hair is a glimpse of home
   Yet when it's wet...
     It's heavy..."

He wrapped himself up in deep umber waves

Dug himself into deep, dark loam

Yet still floating away in a sea of strands

Sheets of passion and poison

"It was a secret nesting in summer scorched brush."

Fragrant and Supple.

His ***** cut the Earth. He watered thick peat.


Together they would slink down dark alleys, cowered in grease covered corners.

He hit her...

She snapped at him...

He chased her salivating strands, rich auburn coat glistening.

In the late afternoon heat she submitted her secret.

He howled his hurt...
An animal infected with rage and confusion.

*

He said, "I have a 5 o'clock flight to help fight the cause." She said nothing. He swept back her tide of soft auburn...wet her with salty fear.

She stepped away slightly...
   He shuddered...
      He disappeared...

today i am at work
it is very monday
everyone's face is very monday
the halls are muted
the sky is an even grey
i can't tell if it's raining

saturday morning, the oven clock was blinking 12:00
something made it forget the time
i woke up to no internet connection
silently, i blamed my
****** roommate, her boyfriend, the cat

the cable company e-mailed me
to apologize and make promises,
speculating a downed tree or
car accident

(life mysteries: an e-mail to
tell me i don't have internet
like a letter to tell me
the post office is closed
like a missed phone call
to tell me to check my work e-mail
because a car is wrapped around
a utility pole and a boy
is in a hospital and his friend
just isn't anymore
so now this sixteen year old
has to carry the friend he
didn't mean to ****, dragging
his body down the corridor at
school, propping it up in the
bathroom each morning so
those unseeing eyes reflect
in the mirror, cradling
it to sleep each night)

it was later that day that
facebook (peace be upon it)
told me this child had died
his ghost must have got caught
in all those power lines and
the joy he had in life was too
much for copper or aluminum
to bear and so it wept great
showers of electrons and
made my oven forget the time and
made the earth forget
a boy

but today i am at work
in nine years, i've said bye-for-now
to maybe a thousand pairs of optimistic eyes
most don't come back
so each year, i silently erase them from my heart
(it doesn't hurt, after nine years)
i have become well-practiced in the art of letting go
so today i feel only guilt for feeling
nothing

i tell myself
boys die every day, i
tell myself we can't
weep for all of them

the principal tells me to send the lost kids to the library
but give the rest normalcy, so i spend the day painted thick
with forced calm over false pain over shut eyes

today i teach them where wind comes from
the way nature tries to smooth out bumps
until everything is equally cold and dead
i teach them anemometers measure wind speed
because anemo is like animate or animal and
they all mean wind or spirit or motion
because those are synonyms and i silently wonder
if boy's spirit has joined the atmosphere as some
small bright gust
dancing snowflakes into drifts and
playing music in the leaves for
millenia, racing faster as sun grows hotter,
finally escaping into interstitial space


friday, they will lower him into the ground.

Scratching these words out
drawing blood from stone,
Will you read 'em? No doubt
but you'd prefer to read alone.

My "a" s have gone gray
maybe a few times too many,
still I'd die to hear you say
you like these poems plenty.

I think you're annoyed,
told me so fair few times.
But you played and toyed,
let me commit a few crimes.

One day I'll look back.
With your face all non-seeing.
Knowing that look in fact,
was all due to my being.

                 You never really cared about friendship
                  really the opposite to me.
                   Guess your heart prevents it
                     Nothing taken personally.

"Magic is closer to science than religion;
science aims to conform nature to man, religion
aims to conform man to nature."*

Though I am no longer as mystified, this makes
Me no less a mystic. For I too pray,
Not through tears or knees
But numbers and telescopes.

You of much feeling need all your evidence --
Archaeology and historical account --
When I of such mind and curiosity
Need nothing more than the slightest feeling;

That feeling I crave beyond all else.

Just tell her she deserves to be happy.
She does.
You just need to believe it.

you let me in at 3am that night
i latched onto your mind
and you tried to smooth my edges
maybe we like to pretend it isn't real
nothing is real in the darkness
we fall asleep
and wake up in the morning
with only a terrifying memory
i wonder if you regret it
but i look forward to midnight
it's the time you're alive
i'm not afraid
until i remember it won't be the same when we wake up
this is the secret we keep
i want to tell everyone about you
but you tell me
"we only exist after midnight"

Sitting up late at night
Alone with my thoughts
Reflection mainly with a little bit of self torture
Taking responsibility for the mistakes I've made
Things I'd said that hurt others
Being inconsiderate of someone's heart

It wasn't just the bumps in the night that kept me awake
It was everything that I felt regret for
The walls I had built had started to break

Seeds of regret had been ignored for too long
Allowed to grow into inner demons
That robbed me of sleep
Stolen from me my inner peace

Sitting up late at night
Every night wondering
Will I ever fall asleep peaceably?
Will I ever be free
Of the demons that rob me?

So used to, I am now
Of carrying these burdens and this baggage with me
I wonder if I would ever know how to act
Without them breaking down my back

A sad world we live in
That just being a man
Can break you and keep you from something as natural as sleep
The wrongs we've committed and the regrets that we keep
Never forgotten but maybe forgiven
One day

Until then
I will sit up late at night
Spending time with a demon named regret