Imaginary Boy
builds imaginary walls so tall he trumps the Taj Mahal.
He walks corridors to imaginary doors
where he stores his love in hoards of fantasies,

but he figures her
the mystery,
the puzzle to be solved.

Imaginary boy
composes stormy melodies.
He plays them through
imaginary seas,
but in his heart it is the sirens,
with songs diminished, sickly,
who claim his ship for the fiery deep.

While he fills his pockets with stone, he screams,
"I stored my love in hoards on board, and she's taken all I have!"

Imaginary Boy
lives in a dream, but never sleeps.
Quietly, he mumbles, "That woman, she makes me bleed."
but she could never penetrate that deep,
because he cannot see her
through his warped expectations.

Imaginary Boy
doesn't know that love resounds infinitely through our mentality,
and cognitively,
it is our decision to love,
and we decide how to love,
and who to love

Imaginary Boy,
love is a verb, never a noun,
and so very real,
so very profound,
that the loving cannot be real
if the expectations are imaginary.

When I was young a man told me,
mine was the fairest face across every sea,
on every field of emeralds,
'neath every weeping willow tree.

When I gave him my heart, he disappeared,

so I turned to the trees.
When I asked them for love,
they weathered to ash,
leaving only the sea,

when I asked her for comfort,
she dried into sand,
and I was left alone,

so, I turned on myself,
and found only bones;
nothing infinite to hold.

There is no use for beauty in this new world, only strength.
That is why gravestones cover corpses.
That is why the mountains are so grand.

Find me dancing on your shadow,
I'll be leaning on the turn.
I dream of you, for Heaven's sake. On starlit nights,
you're far away.

I call out.
To whom I do not know.

My mind dwells in distance.
My thoughts collide and trail off, out of cities;
careening ships through mist and pine.

I try to catch my balance on your eyelids as I
push down,
heavy on swollen, blue skin;
Slipping on lashes wet with
memories
that you will not share with me,
and I dare not ask about them
because I'm scared of losing my footing.

I feel your darkness like a blanket,
while I wish it would
pummel me like a flood.

Tell me, I want to know, what have you seen, boy?
Certainly war,
crushed fingers and toes;
red rivers.

What have you felt?
Certainly love, warmth, and kindness;
red satin garments.

Come on,
you've seen this before and your pulse still lingers.
Irregular,
scattered
and a little too strong, but still.

I know you've been there before,
where the fear is asphyxiating,
and sudden as a red fox in the wood.

I know you know every corner,
every thicket,
every red flag of romance.

and sometimes,
that lost love,
she palpates,
sticky in your throat.

Will you ever let me dance there,
or is that air still coarse and salty on your tongue?

Are you ever home?
Because I knock and knock on your splintered door
and I throw stones to your shattered windows
and I sleep on your scorched, frost-bitten yard

and I wait.
With impeccable patience, I wait.

I do because
sometimes behind your silence,
at that particular time of night,

you know the time,

when the moon howls at the wolf,
when the mist makes love to the pines,
and the field mouse cries,
and it is so cold,

I have to dance on your shadow,
follow the turn.
Far, far away from ego and hate and cold, steel buildings;
just a little bit adrift, hopeful, and dreamy, too.

I can't resist.
I have learned to lean,
a whirling dervish on your breeze.

I am counting off my hands
the men I cannot love,
but hold forever in gold plated frames.

My sirens call an unheard song,
that puts these men to sleep at dawn;
they dream in colors of the fall.

Before each night,
I count their eyes to see with vivid light
a woman cursed with sight.

But Love is blind,
for we cannot know exactly what we're living for
or who it is we're dieing for.

And Love is a bird
with black, dusty wings that tauntingly rap my window;
Poe's raven calling "Never more."

We reside in a circus tent
strung with Goldilock's curls

Blood-red rose petals drizzle
from flesh-tinted ceiling drapes,
floating over
bodies reborn.

Blood-red rose
petals the color
of a lion's heart that beats
rhythmically,
imprisoned in the ivory-white
cartilage of a rib-cage
close to cracking,
threatening
an untamed liberation.

Who has enough audacity
to draw so near
to trust his head
between unpredictable jaws
or
tinseled with moths
to dance
illuminated by street-lights,
like snow that never falls.

Now she is laughing
with ethereal camaraderie
at the physicality
of Earth reality
illuminating
how limited vision is
before the lights start flashing

human and star dissolve
as explosively
irreversible chemical reactions

The ringmaster,
tossing Saturn's turn,
a voice like wind-chimes
an honest sparkle in his eye,
welcomes one to roam
where hearts dance freely
in ever-lasting starlit flame,

Concluding:

As long as we thank love for feeling
we'll never fall again.

With the deepest soul
Heavy as a  blanket of snow
In the brightest star
In it's reflection
In the fearless dark
In a secret dream
Careening on the weathered beach

I will find you

In an ocean wave
Floating with the ebb and flow
Between desert sands
In the healing rays of the sun
From the patient hands of the maker
In the shifting gears
In a sleeping soldier's tears

I will find you

Making love to the muse
Lost in your hues of blue
Confusing the reaper as to who chooses youth
In love, in truth, in solitude
In depth
In the soft rhythm of your chest
In the yearning of my heart
Before you fall apart

I will find you

I have three brothers; three mirrors.
Three extra cranial lobes
where thoughts are explored; experiences shared.
Three life-long companions,
Six shoulders to lean on.

One unconditional, infinite love.