I’m losing my grip, slipping-
one tear drop
at a time, looming
over the abyss. I’ve tried so hard to wrap myself
in sunshine, to smother the bad
with material stitched from love and life.
But my blanket is just a fire and fires grow
stronger in the dark. Maybe

that’s why I keep getting burned.

When you experience a negative
emotion, you’re supposed to feel it
completely and accept it so you can let it
go. But when the darkness
comes back, it comes back
all at once, and I’m afraid
it will devour me
whole.

I am not the body tangled in your
sheets when you thread your fingers through
my hair. I am the tickle that sends shivers
down your spine as I whisper your name. I am in
the gasp of air that catches in the back of your throat.
I am not the chest you lay your head on
after a night of fitful passion. I am the
spaces in which our fingers intertwine, our touch
echoing like the soft pop of a roaring
fire. I am the hint
of a smile that plays on
your reminiscing lips.
When you kiss me, I dissolve.

A picture’s worth a thousand painful memories.
Out of sight, gnawing at your mind.
A face no one will ever love.
What doesn’t **** you ***** you up mentally.
Treat others the way you want to be treated,
and still get treated like you’re worthless.
Actions speak too.
Silence is detrimental.

Live for the day that all your dreams come true,
the one that marks the beginning
of the rest of your life.
Live for the nights that capture
the celebrations that will never be forgotten.

Live week-to-week on the paycheck that refuses
to pay the bills while you eat ramen
for the fifth meal in a row and
listen to the neighbors fight.

Live because of the love those decades with her
brought your beautiful family,
and despite her absence,
live the rest of your years knowing
one day you’ll see her sunlit face again.

Live in the months,
live by the hours,
live despite the minutes,
live for the seconds that hold the most precious things,
and above all,
live for the moments.

I fell in love at the age of eight with
the dramatic circus arts and the unusual
appeal of something so weirdly pure.
Some say it was destiny, but whatever captured
my heart that day fastened its unyielding
grip, and lured me back
to my forever home. With glitter
on my eye and the feathers cascading
down my pinned and curled hair, I learned
to soar in sequin-covered spandex. I found
my wings under the big top
in the popcorn-tainted air. Over the years
I have lent my heart to many,
but it will live forever under the circus tent.

26 combinations of arcs and dashes:
the foundation on which
we build meaning,
names created from nothing.
Generous swoops like cradles and pointed lines
that tango in a dangerous duet.

We think:
to not employ such a terribly powerful tool
is to diminish it, but this absence only hurts us more,
leaving the waiting soul as barren as the womb
of the mother-to-never-be.

An intangible monster whose strength
stems from paradox, lighter than
a butterfly’s kiss that crashes
down in volcanic eruption. A bomb
that can never be disarmed.

Standing on a corner in Montpellier, a woman
shows the truth
the world begs to hear. With her
pale face and red lips, she tells
the stories people refuse.
She is not cruel, but she is
too understanding of the world to elicit the
happiness people so desperately want
to believe in. Those
passing by speak freely, unaware
of her observations, newly cast
stars of the next epic tale. Tirelessly
her hands knot, twist, stretch,
trying to cause the world to see reason,
but she acts on
an invisible stage to an uninterested audience.
She is not crazy, but she knows
the lies they would rather bury.
Bound by the silence
of her words, she paints
pictures in the sky of what we all try not to see.

Standing in the middle of the crowded room,
I look around at all the glossy eyes and rosy cheeks
floating over ***** smiles, brought about by the spirits
in the cups with which they choose to drown their days.

I look around at all the glossy eyes and ruby faces
as they stare in astonishment at the lifeless lips
of the friend that chose to cherish the days
filled with happiness.

I stare in wonder at the plump lips
of the man who is present in all my days
as he fills them with artificial happiness.
We’re miles away and only inches apart.

The people present in all my life
float along wearing broken smiles because they’re supposed to.
I’m always miles away when I’m inches apart,
standing in the midst of the crowded world.

I didn’t fall in love with his mind, or his eyes, or his voice. I fell in love
with the way he could take a common question such as “what is love?”
and give me the only answer that could
break the shackles tethering me to anyone but him.
I fell in love with the way the quizzical clouds rolled over the stormy blue skies
that held all the things I did not yet know about myself, how
with one long gaze,
he raised just as many questions as he gave me answers.
I fell in love with invisible safety he effortlessly breathed
across the ivory peaks and valleys of his mouth
and one crooked tooth on the left.

He didn’t fall in love
with my heart, or my soul, or my will. He fell in love with the way
I never questioned driving across town each day
in a gas guzzling truck that gets a whopping 17 miles to the gallon.
He fell in love with the ego boost accompanying the unceasing
words cooed in affection. He fell
in love with the strings I tied around my own wrists
when I handed him the reins.

He didn’t vanish
like I expected after the last 400 kisses and prolonged embraces.
His voice didn’t sound like a stranger’s
when he called 10 minutes later.
His presence didn’t leave my life.
It remains, popping up in unexpected flashbacks,
but his physical being left me behind,
and I could feel his body leaving mine like
a magnet resisting the separation of its companion.

His presence doesn’t leave me
raw and unable to breathe like a bare body
enduring the cold winds of a winter rain. Instead,
I am forever ****** with every “what-if”
appearing like a seemingly benign tumor, but only
I can feel the malignant pressure as I lay awake at 1 in the morning
feeling the vibrations of the violent shakes
that have so tragically married the tears he used to evoke. I am cursed
to search for the one that will outshine the bright beacon of my past,
drawing me back in like a senseless insect toward the deadly light.

He is the one that has found a home in me,
the one that time can’t erase.

A mysterious being of immeasurable force.

She plays men like puppets
made to stretch every molecule
toward an unattainable fleeting notion of perfection,
only to have it yanked ever so abruptly out of reach. She sends them
spiraling into an emotionally sadistic cycle of perpetual
pain, punctuated by brief moments of blissful ignorance.
She is a siren of the soul, singing a song of promise that creeps out and lassoes the heart.

Her flowery perfume of victory effervesces toward the unknowing sailor,
filling the emptiness he has dug into himself. The smallest whiff spreads
hope - an invasive vine through the body,
wrapping around sinews, planting thorns like anchors
refusing to ease up their iron clad grip.

We hold onto this impossibly small beacon of light
as if our very lives depend on the grip
with which we keep this air of possibility, all the while
this very thing is what is pulling us down
into the watery crypt of depression – head over heels, plunging
deeper into the darkness so we no longer know which way is up.
It is here that she takes her prey. The once beautiful maiden is now
the innermost fear of man.

She engulfs her prey and the blackness follows.

Love is no abstract thing defined by the constraints of the clock.
Gaining meaning with time.
Gaining power with days.
Gaining strength in years.

Love is no fashion trend or folly of the bored.
It is not cool.
It is not a hobby.
It is not a “just because.”

It is the soft whisper of breath that sends shivers down the spine;
Warmth to the soul.
It dances on skin
Like a child tiptoeing through a meadow.

It is the joy that accompanies the moments apart.
The feeling of peace.
The sudden grin.
The daydream of bliss.

Love should be measured in beautiful moments.
In kisses.
In smiles.
In happiness.