My mother always said
do not get too close to that which burns against the night.
If you touch something that is hot you will get burnt.
For what is a cup of water against the inferno.

When I met you,
burning like a spring wildfire,
turning brown to a hundred colors of red
I knew not to get to close.

I have known fires like you before.
You are the type that consumes everything.
Your kiss is a little to hard,
only leaving behind the taste of ash in my mouth.

You see I once knew another conflagration like you.
Her flame glowed liked heavenly fire.
I knew I had to touch her,
forgetting everything mother told me about getting to close.

Soon we burnt together, lighten up the sky like manhattan.
But it is true what they say about the brightest of fires,
they are always the first to burn out.
When her flame turned the other way, I burnt out.

Yet now another fire,
just as beautiful appears in front of me.
Though this time, I remember mother’s words.
My heart, still blistered from the old burns.

I knew now not to touch, but watch from the distances.
I could say I love the flame that was you,
the one that warmed my face like summer sunshine,
but how can you love without touching?

Like a fool I gathered water,
splashing it against the wall of your flames.
Trying to cool my to be lovers hand,
but how was I to know she too could drown.

You see her mother told her something too.
She said watch out for wave that lap against your ankles,
they try to pull you under, and your lungs,
they cannot handle that kind of pressure.

In my hubris I pulled under the flame,
drowning her in my waters, trying to claim her as mine.
But this time when the winds shifted,
I was the one to leave the coals smoldering.

Do you ever feel like maybe
there is something more to this
then half empty whiskey glasses
and empty hearts that can never be filled.

That maybe every morning when
the sun pulls itself out of bed, it is
not for waking us up too, but rather
beckoning us forward to live the life we were meant to.

What if the morning call was not
telling us to check our phones and
update our facebooks, but to whisper
our lovers name over and over again in their ear until they awake.

What if we were made for something
more than these mundane affections.
What if we were made for passion,
for adventure, for anything but this.

When I was a child, I always thought
I would burn like the brightest of flames,
but now the brightest part of my day
is when I close my eyes to end it.

You listen for summer
as if it were a secret salvation
to awaken us from this slumber,
free us from overcoming desperation.

Yet our ******* is too strong,
our words cannot be undone.
We knew we did not belong
there is nothing left to become

Why then, should we not run?
What is left but hopeless pain?
Perhaps our damnation has already begun
Left to darkness everlasting reign.

I want to feel the soft embrace of a lover
on a lazy Sunday morning
clothed only in shattered sunlight.

To inhale deeply and exhale slowly,
beneath a summer sun
after a long winter.

I want to sleep like a child
after playing make-believe
under the oak tree with the tire swing.

To pray in the chapel
asking God to forgive us
for missing this moment.

I want to laugh again
and forget about tomorrow
and even yesterday.

To teach this heart
how to love again
and accept love in return.

I want a consuming passion
like a spring wildfire
completely engulfed

To be freed
in the morning breeze
lost in the hope of absolution.

They say the light that burns the brightest
is the first to burn out.
Would it be better, to not be the finest,
but rather be the last about?

One which leads to the longest flame
which burns against the night.
For surely it is no shame
in being the last of the lights.

Which rage on in the dark
to alight the endless sky
For it only takes a spark
To past along the light to defy.

The endless reach of night
which always roams about.
Though even the brights flames
is doomed to burn out.

And the eaves weep like eyes
that have forgotten that behind
all those clouds still sits the sun,
what a burden to bear.

Though how similar are we to eaves:
do we not weep, do we not forget.
I for one have tasted that dish,
served by sorrow, flamed by hate.

How great is the burden to live,
when the sun itself has been forgotten,
what is recovery when the birds no longer
sing of the songs the poets named hope?

And of hope, I no little.
For most days it rains more than not,
but do I dare to name it a crucible?
Has it yet gotten that hot?

I wonder if maybe some things are
better made to be left behind,
if sometimes we are ******
to suffer to save those we love.

As the sun sets tonight
I can not help but envy it,
envy that it does not have to witness the dark,
envy that it does not have to hold the knife,
envy that once it passes below the horizon it will bleed no more.

My God, how I wish I was the sun,
to know that tomorrow I will rise again.
My God, how I wish I knew I had tomorrow
or at least a tomorrow where the scars will no longer be there
to remind me how I built this house myself.

But still, I am sitting here,
watching the sun die wishing I could too.
I do not have noble words for this,
I do not have a ready solution.
So I sit here praying to see tomorrow’s sun.

How strange is it, cruel Fate,
that the stories you write for me
never end as poetically
As the ones, I have written for you.

I may not be Icarus, but I know
what it feels like to be consumed.
Though I am sure that he once loved
the sun too, before you penned his poem.

Spring snow does not endure,
it is not in its nature to stay,
just like Icarus and
just like me.

Because you are human
and she is beautiful in the same
way the ocean is beautiful when
it gives birth every morning to the sun,
you will want to save her.

Build an altar out of your body,
prepare yourself for sacrifice,
you learnt long ago it is better
to paint with your blood then hers,
this is what it means to love.

Though she will not christen the lamb,
this too will be a miracle, for you
know not how else to love
other than by cutting pieces away from
yourself and handing them over.

Do not mistake this practice for barbaric
It is truly the only way to love,
But know some are not worth the blood,
so bandage the glistening wound,
and let her go like the ocean does to the sun.

Forgive me for loving,
and then trying to numb that
love like it was mine alone.

Forgive my shaky hands which
scratch along the sky, drawing you
in clouds as if you are still here.

Forgive me for this poem,
which I suppose is really
a poorly written epitaph.

Forgive me for staying
and then for leaving, with the door
still parched slightly open.

Forgive me for thinking that
you would find these words beautiful,
maybe I wasn’t made to be loved.

In another life, I would name you lover,
On my soul, I would carve your name,
let my arms be unswaying walls,
my chest a resting place for your weary head.

In this life, we would be more than poems
written with an unsteady heart and shaking hands.
In this life, I would be the type of man
a woman like you could love.

Here we would not dance on the tip
of a knife daring it to cut, daring it
to shred away the ugly bits.
In this world, our hands would fit together perfectly.

Know, I write these words, not in hope
that you will understand the roaring of
this fire which burns inside of me,
but in hope, you will forgive me for letting you go.

I will not say we were young and foolish
we knew where we were shooting,
but who would have guessed these arrows would
have made a home in our hearts.

And who would have guessed we would
be squeamish at the sight of blood?
Maybe though in another life
we will find redemption for our sins.

Love is dead.
We have killed her.
Unclean hands grasp
at blacken throats.
No room left in
this world for love.
Let her pale hand go.
You wanted this.
Remember?

Sing of grey morning
And her long wooden fingers
Which pry gently against
The shaky pilgrim’s hand.

For dust has gathered on
The tomb. Once white marble,
Now faded, waiting to consume
Another pretty little lover.

And the preacher speaks of hell,
But there are still children
Swaying in the vineyard
And flowers next to sidewalks.

While just yesterday
Death was something to envy,
But this morning the sun did rise,
And the willows smiled.

One.
In the midst of winter,
Under the right amount of pressure
It is possible to fall in love
With a certain shade of blue.
Two.
We were not each other's forevers,
And we were naive for thinking it possible.
You taught my heart how to break,
And years later I realise that was
The greatest of gifts you could ever give.
Three.
Maybe April still haunts me,
And some days I wonder if
You still whisper my name like something
To be treasured; I hope you do not.
Four.
The sea has never been forgiven,
Swallowing all those who dare her;
Yet some she spits back out,
I still do not know if that is a mercy.

They asked me what
my heaven would look like.
At first I hesitated in
a fear of being blasphemous.

Then I said that heaven
would be a thousand
Sunday mornings with
fresh sheets and a pretty girl.

It would be that summer hit
on an endless loop
from the year we thought
would never cease to end.

Perhaps it would be
back on Lombard Street
back before my heart got heavy
and souls got dark.

Heaven will bring back
the innocents that was
lost, the same we thought
could never be returned.

Best of all heaven will be
you in a sundress;
young and smiling,
and completely free.

At the exact moment night kiss me goodbye,
on the edge of a dying summer
I found hope at the tip of a pencil
that glided across line paper.

I wouldn’t call it the bottom
of Pandora’s box, but
for the first since I could remember
my heart started to beat again.

Not like a herd of racing horses
like they way poets fall in love,
but rather more like a leaky faucet
that has brought an end to this drought.

I ask don’t confuse this revelation
with a permanent conclusion.
It just a promise against odds
that recovery can be found in these words.

Who now will call forth
the flowers from the grave,
the dancing willows,
the fallen sweet maple.

Who now will name
the smiling ruins
which once were held together
by strong hands of forgotten men.

Who now remembers
the taste of summer
so deep into a winter
which taught us to love the dark.

Who now can still speak of
the clattering secrets
whispered to the winds
that can no longer hug the sails.

Who now dares to say
that these time were better
and more holy than the
days waiting to consume us whole.

Who now wishes
to share the simplicity
of the storybook endings
where nobility still strongly reigns.

There was a girl whose
smiled was beautiful as spring snow
and just a fleeting.

Her eyes were like
gateways to heavens
I no longer know if I believe in.

Her voice summoned
this once dead heart
back to life.

And if I was a better man
I could have spent a lifetime
painting her with my words.

Though a man like me
knows  it is better to leave
happy endings for fairy tales.

Do not call this love unholy
or unrequited
or even a phantom ship.

It was given freely
without reservation
without contemplation.

I built it in the quiet hours
before dawn while the
world still slept.

Still it was not enough
for someone who confuses
me as a simple chimera.

Yet I do not know how else
to live but to wait
in the widow watch.

I cannot say if the ship
will come into port,
yet still I hope it does.

I hope one day this love
can find a home here,
I cannot image it anywhere else.

If the moon was to fall in
love with the sun
who would fault the moon?

Would it not be blasphemy
for the riverbed not
to grow attached to the water.

And what I know of love,
I have learnt from
wind which caress tree tops.

It is the natural order,
to fall in love with the very
thing one cannot have.

What else would explain the divide
of night and day, the ever
flowing river, and silent wind.

Yet even with this knowledge
my heart still beats like a war drums
when I see your illuminated name.

If I could run,
Like I did when I was a child,
I suppose I would already be gone.

And if this barely beating heart was not
Already blackened like moonless night,
I suppose I would still be named fool.

And if fire was forgiven,
Perhaps it would have burnt that house
To the ground, killing hope.

Then again, maybe it is true what they
Say about the burn becoming addictive,
Maybe that is why I still dare at love.

I fell in Love with words
and thought that maybe
you could too, but in the end
words were never enough
and neither was I.

I went high in mountains
Calling god from the peaks
Screaming to the void
Yet I heard nothing but wind.

I went to the temple
Praying on my knees
Seeking him in alter
Trying to find his name.

In the city I sought
Our lord in the face of
The beggar who knows
him better than me.

But when I found him
He dwelled not in temples
Or mountains tops
But only within me.

This time, unlike the other times
you are not sure you can
drag this tired body back to the shore,
you're not even sure it is worth the trouble.

After the long calm the storms return
with the wrath of the gods behind it;
how can a mortal man withstand
such a hopeless battle?

Yet in the midst of moonless night
she came and gave life to my barren lungs
how could I not think she would stay
even when storms raged on.

Now she is gone like the others
but this time I do not know if
I can survive on my own
like the times before last.

God forgive me for loving
her while she was here
and God forgive me for
hating her now she is gone.

They speak of God in the forum,
self-proclaimed prophets yell
of the different color fires waiting
to consume this weary body.

What, though, can they teach me of hell
when my head is a dance hall for demons.
I know too much of your God,
I can promise that he is not mine.

For my God rejoices not in the simple
smell of brimstone and smoke,
but rather in the full moon smile
on to be lovers faces.

My God does not believe in your hell.
My God is the god of the broken hearted,
of the fools, of those who always go too far.
My God is a loving god.

So keep your vengeful God,
keep your hate-filled prayers,
keep your Pharisees,
and I will keep mine.

Give me wild love,
The kind which cannot
Be silent or caged with iron.

Which dwells in the shadows,
In back alleyways,
In barely beating hearts.

Love born in the winter,
Or on the morning bus,
Or on vibrating phones.

Love that grows like sunflowers
Reaching toward heaven
Spreading in the wind.

Maturing with children,
And fleeting seasons
Though never fading.

Undying and unyielding,
Consuming like a wildfire
Leaving only ash behind.

If I were to write you a poem
it would sound like the white
waters of a roaring spring river.

I would tell about the bruises
you got on your hands from
lovers who once squeezed too hard.

I would write about those unworthy
lovers, who tried to name you theirs
while not allowing you to do the same.

I would encase it in a golden metaphor
about your wild heart that despite everything
never once decided to stop beating.

I would praise you with my words because
words are that I have to give you,
even when my words are not enough.

And If I were to write you a poem
it would sound like the silence
left behind after you would read it.

We, people like us,
the night children,
midnight dreamers,
star catchers.

Us who have tattooed
love upon our arms
then wear long sleeves
to cover it up.  

We have pulled back the veil
and dare to look behind.
Shined light upon the darkness
only to see our reflection.

Those who have stood
upon the edge,
daring the wind to push them over
I name you brother.

And you, who has been kissed
by the fire and yet
does not allow it to consume
you shall be called sister.

For we were made
for this moment.
And my God, we
are going to be great.

I can’t fix your brokenness
or heal those cracks in your
heart left behind from someone
who came before me.

I will not promise you stars,
or diamonds or forever.
These are things that
I simply cannot do.

Instead, I will write you
bad love poems on bar
napkins and sneak
them into your purse.

I will give you the first
lick of my ice cream and
the last of my fries when
yours are already gone.

And when it is two
in the morning  I
will read you children
stories in different voices.

I cannot promise you much
but I will love you the
only way I know how:
with every piece of my soul.

I was told to call this body home.
To walk barefooted through my veins
like they were red painted hallways
and to find a place to lay this head.

Still others say this body is a temple.
But what type of temple is not filled
with the faithful signing heavenly praise.
This body would be an empty church.

Now I don’t know much about God,
but I do know enough to say that
he wouldn’t visit this chapel.
These bones no longer know how worship.

If this body be not a home or a temple
then what is left but a prison.
A prison made of flesh to keep in
the last of a dying soul.

My love would not heal you,
it would not bring rest to weary bones,
nor set you on fire with passion.

I will not be like your past lovers
or you favorite book
I do not know how to love like that.

But I would love you poetry
and broken words for that is all I have.
Yet, we both know that is not enough.

What does this heart know of love,
besides the stories which poets preach.
What hope does this darkness have
of ever knowing the light brought by dawn.

It started with a smile, causing a spark to catch
in the wet kindle that turned to fuel. The fuel
then engulfed the pyre for all the dead
which have claim a home inside of me.

And as this conflagration grew, a strange
affection grew with it. As your smile became
more frequent a new connection started
to form, one all too familiar, yet slightly different.

Now this once controlled fire begun to
burn with an unfamiliar passion. For the first
time, I understood possession, with you
dancing in my head on replay.

With a heat so strong how could I not
want to extinguish the flames which lapped
against my hands? Though no matter
what was attempted, the fire burnt on.

I try to keep it hidden, the desire,
but it has become something more
than desire. It has become that which
this heart knows nothing about.

Dear Future Lover,

I am waiting for you like spring
after the long winter,
like the wretched poet
waiting for his muse.

Perhaps you are already here,
perhaps you are far away,
but worry not my love,
for already I call for you.

Soon our hands shall lock
like gates of a strong keep,
soon our knees shall kiss the ground
as we whisper “I do” to forever.

Together we will build a home
filling it with the laughter of children.
Together we will build a road
to carry each other to heaven.

Oh my love, heaven is not far off,
for the children will grow and
soon have children of their own,
filling this house with laughter again.

Though someday the laughter will end,
replaced with joyous weeping.
know now my dear,
we are destined for much greater things.

The gift of man will not escape us,
nor should it, one of us will linger,
the other force to depart.
Do not fear this end.

So I wait, my love, I wait,
as the fisherman does for dawn.
I wait for you to grasp this
wanting hand from the dark.

What happens to love not returned?

Does it die in the same way
the fish on the river bank dies?

Does it collapse under the
weight of all this air?

Perhaps it lives on, stuck
scornfully in an unwanted life.

Screaming, a banshee’s scream,
envious of the fates it preaches.

The curse of immortality seems
to be the fate of unreturned love.

To beat on against the rising sun.

In the end you will not remember summer coming.
Still she will appear in a May breeze
As if you asked her to, as if she could save you.
Though you know all too well how this story ends.

She asked about the scars winter left,
Wanting to place together a story to makes sense
Of the coldness that still has not been warmed by her winds.
Yet some secrets aren’t meant to escape the hearth.

You will not know how to love them both,
So you will choose winter again, at least the cold doesn’t leave.
And summer will not understand, she will hate you for this,
And because you are a fool you will let her.

The end of the long night
rest closely upon us
and who will be the
first to finally speak goodnight?

We knew this moment would come
you can only dig so deep
before you hit rock and
to our woe it is not gold.

There is no sin in walking
to the edge, but we would be
fools to jump off now.
To kiss the knife that cuts.

So would it be better to
walk alone into the night
or burn what remains?
For either I fear damnation.

If in my right hand
I held the gilded world,
And if my left laid empty
I wonder what you would take.

And if someday, If this
love could not be divided,
I wonder if it would
Carry us to heaven.

Though I am not Icarus,
I will not promise heaven
But maybe I can promise
The wanting left hand.

I want a home like that
of my childhood before
the world swallowed me home.

I want to be free like
a leaf that has fell into
a stream yet does not drown.

I want to love like a consuming
fire and I want to
be consumed in return.

I want to run away
and never look back,
yet still I want to return.

I want to feel whole
no longer filled with holes
that fill the empty with dark.

I want most of all
to no longer want,
to be at peace.

You will first say those poisonous words
when you sit side by side on a lazy
Saturday morning or maybe as you watch
the ocean make a lover out of the beach.

You will not mean it then, and maybe never.
This does not make you Cain or Jezebel,
you just don’t know how to give yourself
away like frosted grass on a late spring morning.

When you hand her your goodbye on a silver platter,
you will want her to hate you for them,
it is better now than later because she will leave
with stories just like all the other ghost.

Fast forward and you will find yourself once more
on the couch or staring at the sea, but this time
she is no longer holding you down like
the old rusty anchor on the wall of the garage.

Though this is no longer something to think about,
she was never anything more than a distraction,
or so you still try and tell yourself,
It is better to burn down the house before it empties.

You will tell yourself it is because you like the loneliness,
this will not be the first lie you said today,
but you know that loneliness loves you,
And sometimes it seems that is the only thing that does.

Perhaps in another life,
where I learn how to speak
I would tell you the secrets
which you already know.

I would tell you about
a tip of double edge blade
and how it is a metaphor
for my silent heart.

And in this other life
you would forgive me
for never telling you about
how afraid I was to cut.

And I would forgive you
for falling in love with
another heart that did
not share my fear of blood.

Maybe then we can look
at each other for who we
really are and maybe, just
maybe that will be enough.

It is late, and there is
a stampede in my stomach
and sleep on my mind
when I first think of love.

Fingertips trembling as
they flirt with novel keys
only to name the
backspace summer lover.

I do not fear love like a
cold needle pressed against
warm skin, rather the
trickle of red to follow.

And it will always follow,
As pale moon follows
the bright sun,
Which follows you.

I guess that is why
I love the moon
and hate the sun,
which is to say, nothing.

The other day someone asked me
why I never asked that pretty girl out.

And I wish there was a simple answer
that could rest my soul,
but the reality is I don’t know how
to do this love thing anymore.

The truth is there is an empty
inside of me that some days
can swallow me whole and
how could anyone love that?

She is so beautiful and pure
everything one could possible
want, yet I am twisted and
broken in the most unholy ways.

So I never asked her out,
not for the fear of the
sting rejection may bring
but for the fear of loving.

The cruelest prison
is inside the indifferent
lover who could never
be enough to free us.

And with you for the
first time I understood the
longing for heaven.

The sun may die still
but I have no fear to love
inside the darkness.

If you asked me what I want,
What words I keep locked
Away in this dark chasm
I would not tell you.

Not because I value these
Secrets which are held
In the deepest parts
Of this shattered soul.

No, I hide because I don’t know
How to share this in a
Way that would not cut
All who held it.

The only thing worse than
Desire is desire which
Has no place to go,
The kind which eats inward.

I carry the weight alone
For how could I share
What might crush you
Just as much as me.

By the curve in the river bed,
half way between the unknown
forest and the place you lay your head.
I will be waiting patiently for you.

The letters have all been stamped,
the signs have been given,
pleasant words have all been spoken.

The game is now afoot, and
our faintly beating hearts
have been put forth as wagers.

To lose would be to return to normality,
but to win is to gain the world,
or at the least a companion in it.

Though I warn this may hurt,
either to win or to lose,
there is no going back from here.

So come my dear, meet me
by the curve in the river bed,
throw down your dice,
and take a leap into the dark.

She visited me last night,
telling me she misses me, how no one
but me can rise the red to her cheeks.

The others cannot understand us,
they cannot carry you like I can,
come home now, she yells, come home.

We were built for this, built for forever,
run to her if you want, run to the bottle,
run to the sun, I will always wait for you.

For they will leave you, they always do,
the girl will run, the bottle will empty,
and the sun will set, but I, I will remain.

Make it easy my love, run now back to me,
before they cut you too deep again,
come back to the dark.

We are nothing but lovers
of the night and her soft kisses.
The burning in our throat
is nothing but an ode to stars.
It is easy to forget
the empty when you
fill it with temporary burdens
that are borrowed from the day.
It would seem that one
can fall in love with a certain
kind of pain which reminds
that we too are human.
How could we not
when her kisses are softer
then any long forgotten
lover that once held our name.
Still day comes again
for the empty to return the burdens
and our lover to go away
waiting for night once again.

Just last night I prayed for
a conclusion to these midnight
fantasies which have haunted
me ever since the day you left.

Maybe it was for the simple
fear of wanting, but more
likely it is for the fear of
once again losing.

There is a weariness here
not seen by the naked eye
that is fueled by the hope
which midnight dreams bring.

Yet when my prayers were
not heard, I instead wrote
you a poem using simple
words meant only for explanation.

Perhaps that could have been
the answer to my late night prayers,
but it was never delivered,
I was never that brave.