come
lover,
tell
stories.
break
evening
quick.

tell
evening
brea­k
stories.
come,
lover,
quick.

break
lover.
come,
stories,
tell
­evening
quick.

She was every captain's secret,
Five hundred fathoms deep.
She haunted and charmed the waters so,
And chased the dreams from your sleep.
Her ghost was known to plague our nets,
To dance across the ocean waves.
The bloodied corpses of her children fled
To the beaches where they would be safe.

That night her body, titanium clad,
Punctured the wall between our worlds.
Her arms, a strange bewildered dance
As startled, she uncurled.
The gaul of those men who found her!
Breaking into her home!
She had run from every advance they sent
But legends never die alone.

So few of our men indulge in mystery.
So few embrace the unknown.
Most seek to banish the fear and wonder
And so legends never die alone.
They are prisoners chained to mortal bodies
And drawn from the depths of the sea.
Her eyes, I swear, had pearls of tears
As I watched the Giant Squid flee.

And then it was time to live again.

After so many tombstone day dreams
and chills from winter's breath,

After closing living room shutters
and doubting fragile steps,

After plucking the penultimate feather
from Hope's avian breast,

Spring came round that corner swinging,
and what was there to defend?

1.
Because you are lonely too. And you know what it's like to spend hours waiting for a notification that someone values what you say. Verification that some of the people in your box of friends still walk through your forests waiting for trees to fall.

2.
Because you didn't understand the metaphor and so it must be deeper than your reach. Because people who appreciate poets are more approachable than poets themselves, and are far less likely to spend Saturday nights alone.

3.
Because the words look like family. Because when they pass your teeth it's as if your heart joins in chorus, and their syntax wraps cozy round your shivering bones. Because their eyes look like yours and because they know how to cut you, but don't.

4.
Because you are in love. And if a raccoon tore a hole in your garbage bag, ate last week's green chocolate cake, and returned it to your porch shortly after, you would see poetry in it. Because poems look like pies through rose colored glasses and it's really hard to find a bad pie.

5.
Because you hate this poem but won't tell me. Because our relationship hangs on your approval, and you know I'll expect you to make me feel ok about writing this. To tell me people don't appreciate real art anymore, and that's why no one else has responded.

6.
Because it doesn't rhyme, and there are numbers separating the stanzas that force you to read the last line slowly. Because it references Facebook and so it's something you can relate to. Because it's cliché enough to be memorable, and a little out of the box but still inside mine.

7.
Because you know why I wrote it. And you know that seeing your name beside it will be all the consolation I need. Because their is loyalty in a signature that even our forefathers acknowledged, and because it's the best way you know to take sides.

8.
Because the last thing you liked was McDonald's French Fries and you're looking to diversify your portfolio.

9.
Because you want me to remember you. Because we haven't spoken in years outside of birthday wishes and silence is a hard habit to break. Because neither of us is sure who the apology belongs to but because you're willing to take a step on faith.

10.
Because you know the impact an echo can have on its target. Because we all scream from stages built with fearful hands. We carry microphones in our pockets on nights too quiet to sleep and purge our lungs of their angst. Because this cave can not be empty. Because words are not like family unless they are spoken by someone we love. Because some nights all I need is a name to believe I still have my own.

To this mess, that has shown me
how awful I can be when I forget me
and let myself get pushed around
Did I say that?
The hatred, a boiling Spring, with a nuclear core
that won't die out, not for a million years
It sits in me, abrasive, I can be
Did I do that?
This place, unshapes me, like play doh
and I, mishapen, lash out with barbs
Barbed tongue
words so not calm, cool, collected, the proof
to myself of what they say
But I am not this
The persecuted, begins to persecute
to lose sanity and act strange and wander around shouting
outrageous insanity
can't find my center, the salvation
the sanity within, please
let me in and
let me stay

Your smile is so warm and
Your hand feels so familiar in mine
I find I’m perpetually falling
When graced with your presence
I can never be safe when I want this
When I want things that don’t exist.
I feel so sorry
I can’t pretend like you do
I wish it was real
But the impact and inevitable devastation
Is not worth your immediate satisfaction,
My hesitation is my claim to my best decision
No sudden impulse has ruined me
I remain like always
As true to myself as I know how.
I will love me as much as you always should have
And your laugh makes me soft
And your memories bring me back to who I was
Before I broke,
But some words can’t be unspoken
And I don’t want to know how long
It takes, how hard you’ll fake before
We crumble
And I am only ashes.
I’m sorry
I’m so sorry
Your pain haunts me,
But that is not enough.
I’m afraid you will think in all the wrong ways
And never know the greatest gift I ever gave
Is that I don’t love like you do.
And when things change
They never fit quite the same.

My love is torn apart
Like the yarn that comes from your sweater
You know it’s there
But you never know when it will start to unravel
Unravel 'til there is nothing left but one long string,
What’s left is my love for you
From the tints of red and blue
I never saw anything quite as beautiful
The way the thread touches your soft skin beneath it
Like it wants nothing but to be worn,
And worn out

Your love runs deep
But it doesn’t tap into the water
That makes up 90% of my body
Flowing through,
Every heartbeat
Every pulse
Every word
That comes out, is for you
More importantly
Every word
That doesn’t come out
Is for you

I keep most things in
Like a safe that has been untouched for years
The dust on top aches to dance
And whirl about
But its duty is to hold our families most prized possessions
The type of holding that no lover knows
Birth certificates, life insurance, wills,
But does any of that matter aside to prove we are but a tiny piece in the puzzle of life

We see ants like we see people, just another thing that is in the way
We’d rather stomp on their souls than lead them to where light is
Because if someone is in our way
At the wrong time,
Better believe we will make it right
Have to be at this very important meeting, at this very important time, to get very important money, to buy very important things

What a shame
We all are
But you never shame me
Sitting at the top of the highest tree
Looking about with your telescope eyes
You cry
“We are all tiny fragments found within the oldest ship in the sea!”
Underwater broken up and scattered about
The captain tries to collect us, reconnect us
But would rather drink instead
He is our god, for all we know
His head is cloudy and his eyes are dull
He gathers our pieces to construct them as one
But is rocked by a wave and loses us forever

What were you to me
But a dream,
But dust
On the flower that I gave you
Two months after we met
That you kept on your dresser
As if it would make a difference if it was there or not

Your ocean like eyes showed me the answer when I showed up that day
I was lost in them but I heard you say
“I’m going away”

My heart sank like an anchor holding up time on a never ending clock
Ticking away until one day it stopped

Shadows over  the moon -
sickles jangle towards  my feet.
Even too  much  glue cannot  be  washed away.
Profuse,  there’s  no coolness,
when the  wicker  Woman has  shorn  you
of  your  inner  sense.
Even her  poetry  was  mercurial
and  the worst is
the fallout  is  inevitable.

The number of things looking up for me today....
I'm not locked in a psych ward and everything went well.
I haven't seen anything that wasn't there so far.
And, I imagine, when I squeeze my eyes shut tonight in wait  for the nightmares, when I open them, it will be morning, and I will not have had nightmares at all.