Lay under the stars with a lover, talking about the meaning of life.
2. Take one risk that may lead to regret, but you’ll at least have a story to tell your children.
3. Fall in love with the wrong person, at least you’ll have learned.
4. Drive along a dirt road after midnight, inhaling the country air and appreciating for just one moment that technology has not yet reached this part of the earth.
5. Go swimming in a lake with nothing but your skin and the sand between your toes.
6. Play your music so loud on a warm summer night that your neighbors scream for you to turn it off.
7. Ride on one upside-down rollercoaster after just eating cotton candy and popcorn.
8. Dye your hair one crazy color and watch it fade, because any color is better than black and white.
9. Stay out until four o’clock in the morning in your friend’s car, hanging your head out of the window and just living.
10. Make memories that will cause a serious case of nostalgia when you’re old and withering from the soft caress of time.

Intensity in a writer is easy to spot
its in the callus on the finger that braces the pen
Its in the way she cannot breathe
when she looks at you
or until she finishes that line.
It's in the way you lose her for hours
as she writes, or reads, or paints you in poetry.
Its the way she tries to find words
that work better than I love you
Its that her love letters are 4 pages long
its the way she laments not being able to convey
exactly how she feels
its that sometimes her words don't seem to be constructed of ink
but life blood.
and that she is not flesh and bone
but paper and ink
She'll leave bruises with teeth
scratches with too short nails
because for just a moment she wants to consume you
we are all like that
we just want to be in your blood
to infiltrate your mind only for a moment.
It's in that she'll always remember the things that hurt you
every scar you've ever shown.
but not what she had for breakfast
it's her propensity for addiction
she'll say you make her want to be better
do not doubt her
you are the sky, the ink well, the page...
you are every beautiful passage
she doesn't love anything the way she loves words
you are words.... you are the thing itself.
you are the only thing even close in beauty
to the page.

The tears fall and mottle the parchment
                 there is no ink to run
                       to smear
                             or distort

The stain of shapes, letters, words
         are no longer present
                  to be deformed
                         or washed away

The instrument with which to write 
            no longer has use,
                    is no longer held
                          with such care,
                                such grace
                
  The desk that supports the weight
                       of my futility
                              has now crumbled
                                      in despair

The chair that held me
                     refuses to bear the weight
                           of my hollowness any longer

I've left behind
          the room that is so empty
                       except for a distant echo
                               of thoughts
                                    cultivated,
                                           cherished

Only the view from the window remains the same
            yet I do not stare in wonder
                     or for inspiration
              
             I turn and walk away from it all.

I may be gone for a little while,

Maybe for a little while longer

but I will always come back here,

here where my poems live,

here where my heart finds comfort

here where my soul laid to rest,


here

                  here,

where


**I MET YOU.....