Today I am a crumpled can.
I am a satsuma left to shrivel in the sun.
I am a star gone supernova,
I implode, cave into myself
With a kind of sick brilliance.

In my holocaust of thought,
There is no peace.
There is only war.
There are only battles to be won.
I am no longer allowed to lose this race.

Normally my veins are filled with blood,
But today it is octane and oxygen
Chemicals clashing and consuming me in flame.
I am luminescent with disease.
My skin glows bright with fear.

Inside my skull, something is raging.
I keep my head down, cast my eyes to the ground,
Concentrate on forward movement.
I cannot think for all that sadness and fear.
I didn't know my eyes could hold so many tears.

Today, I am a crumpled can, a satsuma left to rot.
I sit on the sidelines and wait for my walls to give in.

Henry says you can’t write poems about whales.
It’s too obscure a metaphor, the biology of behemoths
Is too exact. Too much science going on.

I like whales. The smooth dorsal curves of their fat bodies
Arching and twisting towards the depths,
The salt spray of their powerful breath,
And their positively massive hearts;
They understand that they are great
Yet there is something still more awesome than they.
There’s more mystery and poetry to biology than people would like.
Especially realists. Life isn’t straightforward and they hate it.
We have some very basic, very general patterns that we follow,
But they’re far too broad to say ‘always’ ever.
Every rule, every law, has been or will be broken.
And the world will keep on turning (until the day it doesn’t),
And the whales will keep on swimming (until the day they don’t).

Henry says you can’t write poetry about whales.
I don’t like Henry very much. I think he’s wrong.

I wish I could say all the things I think about you
But I can't. There's a social faux pas and besides
How do you put heartache into words
While staring into someone's eyes?
It's easy to say that I love you
From a hundred and two miles away,
But I don't know what I'd do
If I was right there, right now with you
Sitting in your car, screaming along
With bad renditions of 80's love songs
It's all very well to call you on the phone
And tell you that I miss you
That my heart is breaking for you
While alone in my room with the door locked
But if I had to tell it to the world,
I don't know that I could,
I don't think that I would.
I wish I could tell you all the things I think about you
But the problem is I'm not so sure that I mean them.

had a dream a couple nights ago.
was lying in a pool of blood.
and o, god, the pounding in my head!
was bleeding from my head.
could feel the hot sticky blood pouring out.
watched as it pooled about my body.
your body lay twisted across me,
constricting my breathing.
and o, god, the tightness in my chest!
could not shift your remains away.
lay there for a while, dying & unable to die.
moved finally, tried to stand.
standing proved impossible.
freed right hand, touched your face.
noticed hot tears pouring out of closed eyes.
woke up much later, after hours of darkness.
could not forget the dream.

and o, god, the pounding in my head;
o, god, the tightness in my chest.

I think that people are more scared than anything.
They say they're happy or
Pretend everything's alright
And even normal
But I think that when you are alone
You curl up into a ball and try to avoid the universe.
I think that pain scares us
And reality scares us and as a result
We avoid attachment, we avoid things that are real.
The hard things mostly.
I think that the reason we are so distant
And so shallow and distracted
Is that we want to ONLY be happy
All the time - we are terrified of the day when
Someone, anyone - a stranger, a best friend-
Asks if we're alright and we just can't lie
Through our teeth anymore.
And more than that, we are afraid that they
Will hate us or reject us for it - that,
Having recognized us as a broken, bleeding
Human they won't love us or even like us anymore.
We tell lies because we are frightened to death
Of the truth that is ourselves.
We are glued to our lies
With that wicked, freezing fear
That keeps you chained and sweating,
Huddled under blankets
Cursing the monsters in the shadows.
In the end we've created our own monsters,
Built our own prison walls and forged our own chains.
I don't know how to fix you.
I can't even fix myself.
****.

There are some things you will never see.
But you wish you could. You wish that there were other worlds
Close enough to brush with your fingertips.
You wish that others' dreams, their syntheses of sound,
Would make sense to you. You do not live
In this world of cubicles and blinking lights,
And if you do, you live it a hundred thousand light years away,
On the surface of some other planet.
You're not ever going to grow up. All your life,
You'll keep on imagining worlds beyond the one they swear is real.
You must have your writing because you understand
That life, even this one, is not linear. Life is not
Birth to death, and in between survival.

For now you are surviving.
But you know there is so much more than that.

I heard it from the still-winged moth
As he lazed about in candlelight
I heard it from the star-drenched earth
Cradled in the silver night
Your lips in parting whispered it
Your eyes in passing sang
And as the Earth went round the Sun
The galaxies proclaimed
There is no thing that is not alive
No thing that ever was dead
No traveler left forgotten,
No permanent stain of red.

And as the demons at the gate
Shake their blood-soaked hands
And the tortured in the dark do scream
Across the burning lands
There is a still and quiet voice
That comes in the eyes of storms
A voice that's quieter than snow
Yet louder than the cannon booms
And if you listen close, my love,
You'll hear this small still voice
That is carried on the softest wind
And exists by more than choice.

The murderers at the back doors
And the monsters behind the walls
Do beat their war drums louder now
And seek to conquer all
O be not quick to anger, love,
O be not quick to flee
For if you stay and wait a while
And if you listen close to me
There might come a still small voice
Which at once you'll hear
And know the voice of God that says
There is nothing to fear.

The moths by silver candlelight
And stars in their courses exclaim
And the Earth in all its wonder
And o, in all your pain
You know the truth when it is spoken
You know there is no end
For all the stars and universe
For every lover, fighter, friend
There shall be no death that will do us part
There is nothing as can stop my heart.

drinking tea and drawing sweaters well past midnight
I am content to sit here and just be sitting here
I'll solve my problems in the morning;
it's way too hard
to try and talk to people after sundown.
so many people shut themselves off
after dark and after darkness
so many people never bother
to open themselves up.

my life is a book that I love too much
to let it end.
I wonder if people who are going to die
know that they are going to die
if they can feel the inevitability
of their own oblivion
in the seconds before it begins.
and were you out at the coffee shop
buying scones as her heartbeat
             slowed   and     stuttered            and                          stopped


my tea's getting cold.

I've caught a wild wanderlust,
Or perhaps she has caught me,
But either way we find ourselves
Entangled, entwined; unable to pull free.

At first I did think she was merely
Restlessness, but o! what a grave mistake,
For restlessness will pass on by,
But deep are the roots wanderlust will make.

And so! my heart she beats unsteady
For o! I cannot think with a roof over my head -
My heart she needs star-light and moon-light;
Home for me is not four walls and a soft bed

My home is out there, in the world!
Where strangers and friends I shall meet
And the whole wide universe above me,
And any path I choose beneath my feet.

The world is my home and my people are humanity
And nothing has been the same, nor will it be,
Since I caught the wild wanderlust
And away she swept me.

I grew up alone.
There were people around, sure,
but not the kind to talk to.
Not the kind to spill anything
that was really in my heart to.

I grew up alone,
in a world of stories.
My friends were all heroes
and never talked back to me.
In some ways, they existed
more than I did.

My childhood was an eternity:
the endless nights,
the endless loneliness;
so separate from my brothers,
so different from everyone I knew.
I wasn’t sad. Just alone.

I grew up alone
and I’ll never forget that feeling
of being a stranger
in a strange world
with nothing but books
to keep the darkness at bay.