i met the universe when i was fifteen
she came to me from the stars, the same
sky i share with my sister.
she came to me when my sleep was polluted
with a bitter fog of guilt, and
bed without mattresses burned behind my eyelids:
here, she planted a tree
she came to me in the quiet light of morning,
she told me i was alive and that's the only thing
that really matters
but it also matters to write about it, so i do.
i impress the lines of my heart onto paper.

moon, or ocean?
i am warped by her tide
this time i do not land on my feet; this time
i do not come out dry
today the waters abuse me. the repulsive
warmth of liquid draining from my ear:
i would rather never hear again. but i could
still see your eyes that do not shine, your
eyes that are so empty and haunt faces
where they do not belong. scrape up the
tar from inside of you and tarnish everything
that my heart can love because i will always
think of you and every drink i take will taste
like your hungry mouth.

sad boy with crisp collar, good grades
he is handsome, his hands become loose before he will notice

time has told me that some places stay the same
i forgot his name, but he dressed in corduroy and
his mind was woven in brassy string
that day, clouds fused with sunshine in the last hours
they kissed the ground, soft and wet.
there's a sound that belongs to you; there's
a sound that maybe a bit of you resides within.
lost for words? yes, i am, but not too many
people are, right?
i pick a new flower for you each time one withers into death,
in the end you have a bouquet that would hold itself
together only with dry stems
and hopeful thought.

i have never been so afraid of anyone
what a fascinating way to self-destruct,
to completely ignore that fight-or-flight instinct
(i would've chosen flight)
are you going to hurt me?
almost, not quite: i'll keep waiting
are you going to hurt me?
are you going to leave?

it was august and we were on the swings
and i wanted to cry, i did
i held you so tight and i have no idea why.
you brought so much of me with you
but i will never thank you for anything
it was august and you held my hand under a pillow
it was august and i stayed with you for hours
because god, oh my god, i don't like you when you're
angry.
it was august and i'm still trying to forgive myself for what i did

calm water, gentle water-- a comfortable sea of forever
time
         ceaselessly
                              provides.
i forgot what 'warm' felt like; 'soft', 'safe'
reaching holding grasping clutching REACHING but
without hands! how weary an attempt. the deep spine
of a book for refuge, desperately sought from within
a churning maze of salty air and soaking wet misery.
dry land dry land vast open plains,
to see, to breath, to know, to be dry, to be warm--
the agony of an unmeetable need. is this the fate of
"mine", to drown forever yet never succumb to the pulling, tugging
reach of
death?
her sweet voice and soft breath on my eyelids
echo throughout the forest of the mind and linger in shadowy
overhangs. night fell early today, oh, yes it did
it fell early and dark. no moon tonight,
not even she would come out. no moon to see tonight,
but she's there, she's at work.
the sea is powerful tonight.

how is it that you walk so close beside me,
how is it that you stomach my visibly aching soul?
i make dents in my walls,
i am scolded like a dog
how is it that you walk so close beside me,
you do not speak but once, or maybe i don't hear
i become slow and gentle--
i choke on my *****, i am silent yet only in this
throat, this mouth, these lungs of "mine"
sets in--what helps?
patterns shift, squiggle, corner of this eye of "mine"
but they hide. i can't blame them

i believe in beauty.
i see it in the small blossoms clinging to trees as the sky gets bluer and the air warmer
and in the dry leaves scattered around the base of their trunks months later

i believe in beauty,
i see it in the human who desires what is pleasant,
the human who independently brings a touch more kindness into this world,
and in the human whose unanswered questions release a bitter child from within,
the human who hurts because they hurt.
how natural is it to be afraid existing in an unreasonable universe,
how natural to be tossed around the rolling and crashing waters of life
like a panicked cat.

i believe in beauty,
i see it etched into the surface of every hand written letter i’ve received
     and leaking out of my grandmother’s eyes when she remembers what she loved about
her son Thomas.
and he was beautiful too--
his eyes told the weather, they shone like the sun or darkened with a silent storm
and when he made music, the world stopped to listen to this foreign and wordless language
      he used to articulate what existed in his private corner of the universe.
he crumbled with the grace of a star:
      bright and alone,
his very existence still shining through the thick darkness of death, so natural and abstract a
      state

he is alive again when is Telecaster, so worn down from his constantly callused fingers,
      makes music again.
he is alive when his brother and daughter stand together afront his grave,
      arms around each other with teary eyes because it hurts to love someone
      whose eyes you don’t get to see anymore
he is alive in my eyes when i can feel the years he spent in my grandmother’s basement
       making an old piano sound young again--
i know this because i see him there

i believe in beauty,
i see it in death because i remember my father's life, i remember the blossoms
that preceded the dry leaves scattering the base of tree trunks