Your hair fell around your shoulders
Like a waterfall
On the edge of the world.

Let me stand below the cascade
And praise god for the rain.

There is death in the water.
All of the beauty that spring wrought
is decimated as decay creeps into spoil what was once,
What can only be called,
unfettered beauty.

The kind of beauty that only can be created by nature.
The kind of beauty that we dream of raising in our own gardens.

But if it is true beauty

If it is natural
If it is easy
If it is steadfast

Consider the pine tree
It stays green all year round
Even in the darkest of days
and the coldest of nights.

Find the pine.

I brushed my fingertips
                 Up against her skin.

She was always
                    Just
           Out of reach.

Until she
          Slapped my hand away

And then
         She was


                                                               gone.

It hurts to look into the sky
and know that it's
the same blue
that flies above you.

and all the stars,
and all the clouds,
are yours as much
as they are
mine to touch.

and it hurts to see you
living without
living within

because, to live for us
would be to devastate
and demonstrate,
exacerbate,
others that want us to
live for them,
instead.

it hurts to think
of the times that may
never return
yet, constantly burn

even though those times,
though memories may last,
are probably best kept
in the past

it hurts to imagine
the rest of my life
without what you gave me,
and what you showed me,
and how you changed me.

It hurts to live
it hurts to breathe
it hurts to do anything
beyond or beneath.

And, looking back and,
with all the things we're assuming
I suppose that, it's really
that it hurts to be human.

I don’t often listen
When the stars chatter
Their restless songs at night
Because stars are fickle
And stars lie
Like the last stair
When it’s too dark to see

But last night, I opened
My heart to them
And hey sparkled and shone
Speeches of kind caring
And deliberate intention
That fell flat
A perfume of ash
In my mouth
Because hearing truth
And living it
Are rarely the same thing

Life cannot survive on lies
And, if you spend your days
Tending to the needs of others
Then who is tending to yours?
And whose songs are you protecting
When you take the blame
Again, and again, and again?

Then I realize, maybe too late,
We are not stars
Yet, we fight ourselves daily
To perpetrate as though
We can live like the gods
But only those worshiped,
Not those that live
Behind their masks

Because masks are lies
But if it protects us
Then aren’t they worth it?
Which must be what the stars say
When they are still singing
A billion years after they die

So, I come to understand that
I am not a star
I am not a god
I am not worthy of you
But, that will not make me stop
Building towers
And feathered wings
To try and rise to where you dwell
Even though I’m no better than Icarus,
You inspire me to fly

After all,
If it is big enough to break me
Then it is big enough for me to hang on to.
And that,
My dear,
Scares the hell out of me.

If I had the skill
To paint pictures of you,
I could never fill
All of the frames
I would want you to claim
But, still, I would never stop
Painting.

I often take mental pictures
When I see you on the street
To think about in the midst
Of other misadventures

Ones that I wish you could live out
So that they might be done
In conspiracy

But, even when I see you
And I know that the smile
On your face is hiding
What you feel inside

And a storm of sadness might be
Swirling within you
Causing your mind to shake
And your hands to clench

I stay on my side of the street
Because to cross it
Would be to break the law

But it is not the law
That frightens me
Because the convention
Of man
Is flawed
And artless

I would go to prison
I would pay the fine
I would stand before
Judge and jury
As they read a list
Of errors and faults
All my doing
If it meant that
When I stepped back on the street
I could cross it to meet you

But I stay on my side
I take my mental pictures
Because to cross that street
Would be to break the law
And that would break your heart.

Love -  
        not just loving you, but "love" of any
person
place
thing -  

Love -
       Is just another word for stupid.

Let's be stupid,  

          You and I.

I couldn't bring myself to wash the pillowcase for months after you left.
It still smelled like you.

You know,
              
                I would have to be crazy to not love you.

Yet,

                 Loving you is driving me crazy still.

I can't win.

You chase the flicker of lights
During wandering days
and a thousand tears
You see them, always off,
Always
          Distracted.
Always where you cannot reach.
           But
You can't stop chasing them
Even knowing they will never come.
At least not of their own
            Volition.

I miss the way you look at me
When my mind, it races on.
I miss the sound your voice makes
Even when my thoughts are gone.
I miss the comfort within you
When the somber silence falls.
I miss the sound my phone made
Each time that you would call.
But what I miss the most
And that one thing that I lack -
Is the thought of how I miss you
Knowing you'll not come back.

There is a leaf on my windowsill
A fleck that won't blow away.

And even in these simplest of things,
I am reminded that you couldn't stay.

So I tie up the lace of my walking shoes
And I go outside to brush.

But I can't bring myself to move it now
Because I love it so **** much.

Every face I see when you and I are walking
Is the face of a dreamer
A schemer
The face of someone who wants more than what they are.

But, as long as your hand is in mine,
As long I have your smile
I will carry with me, my fondest wish.
That I am full with the light of
Ten-thousand stars.

There is a drop of coffee
Drying on your finger.

Of it, I feel envy.

When I hear music
            I think of the thousand heartbreaks
            that it took

To create the words that try to convey, to assign

                                        meaning
                                                  to
                                                    emotion.

I noticed far too late
After the ink had set,
The worst feeling to bear
Was looking at my hand
and then realizing
That yours was not there.

And, so I look to see
What it is that lies beyond you
But all it is to me
is what I never want to live through.

You shattered my heart
Like a baseball
through a stained-glass window.
And, while you may have always
been the baseball;
As I look at my reflection
In the ten-million shards
That now litter the ground
I come to realize,
I was the one who threw it.

They turn lights off in their houses
When the moon, it rises high.
A thousand stars are singing
In the depths of night’s black sky.
And when pale glow’s complexion
With that darkness does ally
I only see your visage
In the sea of my mind’s eye.