We painted pictures of perfection and piety
when we were young.
We desired to show the world what we could create
together.
We were novices;
using rulers to draw straight-edged lines
across the bad and lead each other to the good.

That path made us breathe
Easy.
We could see each other plainly.
Each dipped in our solid colors- you were an adventurous red
and I,  a warm orange
Light reflected off of you and back to me;
we basked in the company.

Then life started happening to us separately,
instead of in tandem,
and our paint began to chip.
We saw the timeworn canvas, stretched and weathered.
With squinted eyes and tilted heads
we strained to see the masterpiece.

It wasn’t until we grew and knew the spectrum of our feelings
that we could paint each other in different lights.
You picked up a brush and made my eyes wider,
my skin more colorful,
gave my smile staying power.
I held up a mirror and you saw your reflection lined in gold
and how simply the paint blended with your features.

We saw what we were, but more importantly what we could be.
We pieced together a new portrait.
Fresh, vibrant colors swept across that same worn canvas.
There was nothing else for them to do
but blend with what was already there.

As we touched up the lines that held our smiles
and spackled the fissures in our perspective,
we learned about the patience of authentic art
and, with a discerning eye, saw value in our efforts.
We learned to be artists-
Our colors not competing;
We share a single shade.

i always thought
you were thru traffic
that you were just jet lag
background noise
the kiss in the rain
i've never had
but what if you aren't?
what if this
was the thousandth time
i have loved you?
what if this is just a fresh coat of paint?
what if god
keeps a handkerchief
soaked in the day we met
next to his bed?
maybe theres a reason
i reach for no one in bed
the way i would
if someone used to be there
you know, they say
the road behind us
is littered with things
we couldn't hold onto
i wonder how many times
you've slipped through my hands
like hour glass sand
do you know
how much erosion you've caused?
i heard cupid
stopped keeping count
of how many times
we came together
just to come apart again
maybe it was just a rumor
it makes me think
about how many times
i've almost had you
like if all this talk
about history repeating itself
endlessly replaying is true
i wonder how many times
things have happened already
like the time
i tried talking you
into loving me back
back fired
or the time i could have sworn
jesus & lazarus were playing chess
with my heartbeat
but it was only you smiling
how many times
have i tried to tell you
how many times
have you read this poem
how many times
have i tried not to meet you
in my dreams anymore
it's like sleep tries to warn
me of what's happening
before it does but
i keep having this dream
where i tell you bedtime stories
and each one
is a different way you die
and in every one
i can never save you
it's like you're this song
i have on repeat
and every time it starts over
i forget the words
it's like you picked up the book entitled "us"
and the back cover
said you'd leave
so you never bothered reading it
tell me you aren't
going back in that bookstore
just to do it again
or will you tell me tomorrow?
or is this the time
you don't say anything at all?
if this has all happened before
if we call it quits
before we begin
again
from the beginning
i just want to ask you
to be my fire
because i am tired
of these old lives
and i'd like to see them
burn

I am watching manufactured rainbows dance
across familiar basement walls.
And on the floor,
there are littered flecks of light
racing around my feet
to the rhythm of tonight's jam band.

And I am missing you.
And I am missing nobody in particular.
I am just missing a part of me.
I don't think I have found it
yet,
but I feel this void.

We all talk about feeling complete.
Maybe we all
have it in us.
There are strangers moving
next to me,
and sometimes we trade
smiles or cigarettes
but I am growing tired
of their empty trance glances.

I'm still hoping that you answer this.

How do I fall asleep without you next to me?
How do I know that when the nightmares come I wont be swallowed whole.
And when the terror,
The shakes
And the self important universe descend upon my head that I can find safety in the hollow of your neck and the crook of your elbow.

Iris peels back
three generous petals,
ample in exposure,
a gravitationally drawn
dress, *******,
with drops and folds, a downward-
opening, bares elegant anatomy,
stripped from the waist
of a lighter three petals, lifting,
inside, reflective,
reaching skywards, and naked
ribbed with natural frill,
raw with the colours of flower flesh
white tiger stripes
and purple veins,
curling towards the ground like tears
and lifting up like laughter,
with centered yellow streaks
that lead into the heart,
where another tri-petal formation
folds in on itself,
as if to contain some sacred secret
that is gently holding at her *****

    a trinity
    within a trinity
    within a trinity
    of beauty

her naked convolutions coil into
just the right amount of earthly space,
so perfectly held there in the air
with poised and dancing stillness,
the perfect allure
of a delicate goddess,
rooted in the ground
but living also
inside the I,
elevated by the gaze
into limitless imaginal expanse,
no mere flower, in relation
      
                she is
                an entrance
                into love

Better that every fiber crack
and fury make head,
blood drenching vivid
couch, carpet, floor
and the snake-figured almanac
vouching you are
a million green counties from here,

than to sit mute, twitching so
under prickling stars,
with stare, with curse
blackening the time
goodbyes were said, trains let go,
and I, great magnanimous fool, thus wrenched from
my one kingdom.