You were uncomfortable in the car. Mentally, and then physically. Your thoughts and stomach churning, your throat tight. Your body yearning to expel what you'd consumed. But nothing more than 30 minutes of discomfort, that's all. You laughed through it, comforted a friend. You sat with discomfort and then turned the page. Onto the next...

You smiled a lot. You bounded up boulders, sure of your footing. Or rather, never unsure of your footing. You moved in a pack and then alone on your own path. The rocks were beautiful up close, swirling and sparkling, embedded with coral and shells. The people around you made you happy and the sun made you happy, in that pool of warmth on top of the rocks. You wanted music, but when it was not there, the sound of silence was beautiful too. Or the sound of the desert, which is not exactly silent but something close.

The sight of the world kept hitting you in the chest. Literally breathtaking. And each time a new wave of gratitude would hit, but also some sadness. Why would you EVER give up your lucky existence in this beautiful place? What stupid, surface-level **** would make you want to do that?

Your friends needed you at one point, and you realized how much you meant to them and they to you. Ali crying broke your heart. You couldn't stand the thought of any one of them feeling alone. You thought and said, "We're all alone together," which is a cheesy line from a song that rang especially true. As scary as it is to be alone, we're all here together, separately, but to support one another.

You sat in a huddle on the edge of the world with people you loved so dearly and laughed and hugged and cried and realized the rest is just *******.

And you thought maybe all that matters is doing it all before you die and love, and maybe love is God.

Everyone reconvened and walked down a path in a big clumpy line through massive rocks and Dr. Seuss trees with music echoing through the canyon. We stopped and danced and took our shoes off in solidarity with Ruby. It was cold, but I don't think anyone was ready to leave, despite being 20 feet from the parking lot. So we danced barefoot till the sun disappeared.

Be grateful, love, and all the rest is *******.

Strong.
Perhaps a knot of muscle or
a face to wear.
Or the bartender's hand slipped.

Fragile.
Maybe a shattered glass orb or
a note about to break.
Or our egos.

Dark.
Like Edgar Allen Poe or
the center of a black hole.
Or 5:00 in winter.

Light.
"Let there be" or
something that perforates the night.
Or just the pillows,
shedding feathers through
tiny linen holes
that float down near the heating vent
then explode upward in the gust.

At night, white roses glow as bright as the moon
and as round.
They curtsey in the breeze, necks dipping.
Underfoot, pea flowers explode across the dirt,
imitating the scattered stars above.
In darkness, the most vibrant grass is deepened
to a celestial backdrop.
In this garden I can’t help but think
the moon must be a narcissist,
looking nightly down upon
her mirrored sphere --
Ah, how beautiful I am!

Your sentences were gated,
And locked within your lungs -
Your words forbidden fruit to me,
The apple of your tongue.
The uninspired oft’ find it hard
To leave another’s song unsung.

So I harvested your phrases -
I burglarized your breath,
And nurtured all your laden words
‘Till there was nothing left.

And living with your hollowed words,
I died a stolen death.

You were a Rembrandt on the subway train.
Critiques of art would surely say
The canvas of your worldview
Rivaled masters in their day.

You were a tour de force of heavy strokes
That rendered my depiction feeble.
Your lambent eyes and lightning skies --
Why hurricanes are named for people.

To you, I was a peculiar stranger
Leering through the morning rush.
Admiring your impassioned presence,
Your steady hand and vital brush.

I’ve learned that
nothing
truly touches.

“Likes repel,”
explains the unbreachable
absence between electrons.

Perhaps this is why
I feel distance
in our embrace.

Must we ask an unpayable fee?
Saying “wait” just to later decline?
It now seems that the land of the free
Is a home that the brave cannot find.

How vexatious that they storm these walls
Pleading reason and asking charity.
Oh, how dare they try escaping home
To a land we brand OPPORTUNITY.

I fear the longing of millions of souls
All brimming with fury and cause
Is more pond’rous than the marching soles
Of the soldiers defending our flaws.

What if I kneeled in a glassy church,
And prayed and said “amen”?
I’ve never touched the Holy Book,
But if I did, what then?
He wouldn’t hear my voice among
His eager sea of men…
But if He did, what then?

A quarter-life is twenty years,
Forty marks a half,
In forty years you’ll be a stone,
With a stick-on epitaph.

“She was a force of nature,
Brave and bold and bright!”
They’ll say - who never knew you -
As you’re borne into the night.
When really you were old and tired,
And didn’t care to fight.

Those turned-up, star-burned eyes,
those believers -- they mistook
truths for long-told lies,
storied pages for a holy book.

The masses yearning for a place
to fix their roaming gaze
an underworld or starry face,
a theory or a praise.

Like wild beasts who reign themselves,
they tightly bind their minds.
It’s easier to box and shelf
the whims of humankind.

I am drowning
next to the sea, with you.
Drowning in the crashing wave-sounds,
and your voice.

The white-bright sky
with its sharp birds like spears,
sees us: you whispering in my ear
and the sea.

I am speaking,
but my words are crashing,
blending with the coursing tide
and your words

I am caught here,
hearing the sea, seeing you.
blinded. And my own words drowned,
and unheard.

Only the sky
with its spearhead birds, can know.
But they are both helpless, leaving
you, me, and the sea

Unsung until the last.

It began like this

A dulcet little stream,
a secret winding path, and
two sole salty-scaled trout
wondering if there is something to be said about
The Road Less Traveled.

It ended in the sea
the crashing, wide and
Travelled sea.

I swear the star-lit hours are thieves.

Deep navy our depressant
in those free hours of the night,
Principles drenched clean in burnished light.

Inhibition stolen now,
we flail a rhythmic roadside dance
an ethereal midnight trance.

Bluey blood flowers my sleeve,
Kneeling on ghostly asphalt - still.
I don’t know what I tried to ****

But blue looks red in the morning.

Oh this twinkling city.
“Come on over --
We have the night life.”

My car is two blocks away, just past,
just past these neon lights now.
Just past these long-legged, bustiered signs.
Come here missy, come in.
Come on, hon - you want to dance?
We need girls to dance.

Walk on, purse-clutching city woman.

Oh this dancing city
Oh this shattered city.