Last night I dreamt I was in Carolina,
the trees all twisted to the coast.
The ocean sat steady and
the roads were never ending.
“I’m only back for six months,”
dream Carly said.
“No,”
an unmarked face and outstretched hand replied,
“you’re here to stay.”
With salt on my breath I tried to say it wasn’t so
but Fate just smiled and walked away.
Orange light broke through a canopy
as I desperately tried to follow,
but the shadow faded into
the steam of endless summer…  
I couldn’t understand why I was back.
Clarity blurred and the landscape was a hill, a tree, a flower, a beach.
A bridge into sand stretched ahead,
bricks to a river beside,
and columns upon columns
upon porches upon porches.
“I have to get back!”
dream Carly screams,
but Carolina just shrugged.

His scars are
right on the surface,
in plain sight
for all to see
though
none consider.
By putting them
in plain view,
he hid them.
The world
would see raised
skin and
indifference
while all
he felt was
pain of
something
he couldn’t fit
into.

If I could explain how I feel, I would.
But I can’t.
My thoughts
are pounding the doors
and beating my tongue
but they stay exactly where they are
while I watch you drown in words
and twirl in verbs
and writhe in so much prose
I envy the mirror of your pen.

Instead I feel.

I feel and
watch lines
on shapes come alive
and jump out
in brilliant definition,
definition I can’t explain
or capture
but if I were to touch
would feel electric
and crawl underneath my flesh
and light up my blood
like a neon who had no constriction.
I’ll walk the city streets
and listen to the music
of 1,000 reactions
and watch the night turn into a masquerade
I’ll never attend.

I’ll see my adjectives
and pronouns
walking along side of me,
always trying to grab my hand
but never quite reaching.
They’ll spin around me and dangle off rooftops,
sit in windows,
curl around corners,
burn in lights,
follow the music
and live in the moment.
I’ll feel them.
I’ll feel every syllable
and every tone
and every sound in the tempo of my thoughts
and I’ll be alive alive and
humming like a beacon of manic power
no one can harness -
including myself.

I’m not thinking of anything.
I’m with the wind,
the grass,
the pollen bits
running into my cells.
There’s a song in the background,
but it’s not really there.
The sun peeks in
time to time,
but the clouds are my roof
and dim reflection
of suppressed rays
my light.
I am simply.
The earth rustles,
everything sways,
and everything I am
is all.
I am a molecule among molecules.
I am a set upon this setting.
I am something the wind can rustle.
I speak
and move,
make a difference,
give impressions,
separate
into elements
of human,
but I’m still
simply.

These things I’ve left behind are unnameable.
They are feelings
and instances
and glances around
corners
and sweeps
of the wind
and a moment
of laughter.
They are the sand beneath my feet
and the people
who stood next
to me as
I dug in my toes.
They are city lights
who will burn in
one state
or another.
They are the places I will roam
trying to duplicate
but never replicate.

I could never tell you.

I’ll look at you

and wonder

and think

and dive so far

into the brown of your eyes

a surface no longer exists -

but I’ll stay quiet.

I can’t let you see.

We’re all

far too damaged

to let each other see.

I keep clasping

your hand

like I’m not afraid.

Intertwining my fingers

around you

even though

fear of ripped out pieces

staggers

my breath.

I curl to the irony

of never feeling

so safe

and so endangered

at once,

and all I want is

courage to say…

to say…