There are moments
when I completely lose myself
to the sluice of terrible things
that are happening in this world.

These violent images
and thoughts
infect my mind like a parasite
-blinding me to reality;
but then I remember you
and all of the love and kindness you have shown me
and it makes this world just a little bit easier to weather.

Love is a blazing star forced into a tiny, red-hot, searing iron,
and if you press too hard while you're trying to iron out the wrinkles,
you might end up burning your hands and drop the iron
along with the heart of the man you were supposed to be keeping safe.

And if you go ahead and mix up a drink to cut out the tension and pain,
be careful that you don't stir up an emotional cocktail from the bottom of his soul,
because there will be pain there that hasn't quite settled and let's face it,
navigating a sea of love is hard enough even when the waters are crystal clear
but if you cloud up the water with curious intentions, it just makes it that much harder to see
past all of the stains left on your chest and the loose threads in your voice.

And on any give Monday you could see the world in his eyes,
but today all I could see were two confused storms trying to weather
the question of whether these things were dear memories shared with passion….

How she’s holding on
to her last bit of sanity,

I’ll never know.

But somehow,
she’s made an art of survival.

Camouflaging her emotions with words
and bathing in the beauty of written silence,
she’s an ivory goddess drawn on to a dreamer.

And even though she’ll never be the flower or the wine
that suits the taste of my aspirations of love,

I can’t help but feel the need
to be her knight in brass-washed armor
with my makeshift sword in hand
coming to her rescue and her young son.

I live for the moments
when I stand up and
feel the blood rush
away from my head
and into my chest

leaving me with
suffocating clarity
and a hint of hope
that I may finish my thought
before I hit the ground
so that I can rest easy
knowing that I didn’t lose my
head in the clouds
under the blankets of
dizzy and nauseous
seconds, split in half by my
obsessive fingertips,

tracing the inside of
eyelids blinking too
fast to catch the world
around their spinning-
thread heads and hearts,

writing songs to the
rhythm of the ringing
in my ears only to hear
that the sound of an
empty ocean raging
against this ribcage
container of broken
promises and worn out,
secondhand dreams
has drowned the last
bit of the kid left inside

screaming to be let out
into the world for
everyone to see and judge
because let’s face it,
they’ll judge every ounce
that I pour out in front
of their half-cast glances

but only for a second,
split in half by

my
obsessive fingertips that tangled
themselves up with self doubt and anxiety

my
dreams that I didn’t chase
because they’d gotten a head start
and I was too afraid that I’d trip
and scrape my pride on the road

my
constant fear of writing myself
into a scene that I won’t be able
to improvise my way out of

but only for a second
split in half by my fingertips

She writes with the stars
and she speaks in soft phrases,
and she holds close to the door,
for if she ever wants to
escape this world,
she needs but only take a few steps
to find open air
and the freedom in herself.

I'm jealous of the stars.

The entire world
finds beauty in
their radiant
glowing

and
cast its
wishes upon
the very fires from
which creation has come

while I sit here trying to
find myself among the
ashes that so many
stories have left
behind.