Morning
Tastes like coffee,
The aftertaste of a childhood
Back when we paced ourselves
When a day was a day, not a complaint,
We picked up any old shell and said
‘Listen, the ocean!’
Now that we’ve grown up we know that
Its only our own hearts echoing in our ears,
Reminding us that we still have a pulse
And if you think about it,
Does it mean that we are just waves?

So I wake up thinking about how
We call it daylight savings time but the only thing we are saving is ourselves,
Preserving our subconscious in all the words we never wanted--
We erased them, but the words we do our best to make disappear
Are the ones sheltered in eraser shavings,
Brushed to the floor and tracked everywhere
On the shoes we wear from place to place,
Haunting us with the very things we are running to escape.
But pushing the clock forward an hour
Will do nothing to make you run faster
Will not hold the tide in place for you to catch
Only invalidate the time you have taken to progress

And the thirty foot jump off the pier in pitch black is worth it
For the bioluminescence that swells up around us--
Is that the daylight we misplaced
When we tried to save it?
Is it the waves or your heartbeat you hear
Trapped in the bubbles of cool night air
that we take with us as we plunge home into the ocean

how much longer until my
corpse
is too broken
for all the kings' horses and
all the kings' men
to put my body
back together
again?

have you ever thought about
the similarities between
united
and
untied?

read one and
mistaken it for
the other?

felt like one
but found out
you were
the other?

I watch my amazing
wonderful
thoughtful
funny
boy.

He doesn't belong.

He is merely tolerated
by people he thinks
are his friends.

But I watch.
And I know.

He has no confidant.
He is no one's go-to guy.
He is alone.

I understand his situation.
I lived it.

And it was everything I didn't want for him.

The Loneliness.
The Isolation.
The Wondering...

Why is who I am not good enough?
Why do people not understand me?
Who do I have?

So I say to my son...
you have me.
Always me.

I will accept you
and acknowledge you
and love you.

I will remind you why
you are the best thing that
has ever happened to me.
That you changed my life.
That you are my reason for being.

That people don't understand the depth of your soul.
Your compassion.
Your understanding of humanity.
Already at age 14.

And that someday
people will regret
not knowing you
and accepting you
and loving you
while you move on to people who do.

Until then,
you always have me, son.
Always.

Do you ever think
about becoming
someone new?
About unmaking,
Recreating,
Partaking,
In the life of someone -anyone-
Who isn’t you?

Hours and hours and days and weeks and months and years
I perfected, rejected, resurrected the art
of becoming someone new.

In mere moments,
a new me.
a new world.
a new dream.

A world to be anyone
or go anywhere
Or be anything.
When I just
Don’t want
To be
Me.

New demons and angels,
New shadows and suns,
New curves and new angles,
New characters
to become.

A world not like
my own.
The trees are paper.
The people move with a blink.
Grass is woven from knowledge and
Leaves are sprouting from ink.

There I go
at a moment’s notice.
Diving, delving, digging.
Revealing
an impossible time.
Where the improbable, inconceivable, unimaginable, unthinkable
occurs every
Other
Line.

I am disappearing into the books.
Invisible to the world.
Unmaking myself,
Recreating myself,
And becoming someone new.