I once loved a girl from Japan
She told me the two words of her name mean
“Aimed for Balance”

She taught me how to write my name in Katakana letters.
She taught me how to read past sarcasm
And backhanded comments.
I taught her how to read American literature
And how to say “Roller Skates”.
She taught me how to learn with my emotions,
And I taught her how to learn with her body.


I would tell her, “I love you”.
She would laugh, and with those brown eyes of hers,
Look into my own and say , “Are you drunk?”

Her hands, pale and smooth like paper,
Would often find themselves entwined in my own, long and strong,
Like a summer’s warmth embracing a bright day.

She was my moon, and
She always called me her “Shining Sun”
But I had to let her go.

She cried tears that fell like snow,
But I could only feel a rising heat
Behind my cheeks.

I tried to tell her,
“You are too good of a lover
And I am too poor of a man
To give you my soul.”

She told me, with her wintery voice,
“I want to stay with you!
I need your voice, your hair,
Your hands, your eyes!”

She needed my summer
But I would be leaving for a faraway place.

I needed her winter,
But her cool smile has frozen into bitterness
And will grant me no respite.

Now, without her dark, soothing hair against my chest,
I find myself
Aimed for Balance.

I see the Superior Gitche Gumee.
The clouds slowly descend after a lazy drizzle fills the air with grey.
From atop this hill I look down,
Upon the steely blue-grey waters
Churning with eagerness to throw themselves upon the rocks of the shore.
As my eyes trace the horizon covered by a soft cloud curtain,
A soft smile sneaks up on me as I realize
I can't tell where the skies meet those waters
As they drop off the edge of the earth
Into nothingness.

The determined flowers stretching up from the bushes press upon me
A scent unfamiliar,
And as I walk away, I look back to see one lone rock
Staring back at me from among the waves.
Across the highway, where the drivers speed past
(As they presumably do every day),
I view the mist-covered forests pouring over the hillside
Like some great verdant blanket.

A pair of older men stand along the rocky shoreline below,
Swapping stories and secrets
As they skip stones.

This one’s for the moon.
This one’s for the black rose pinned to her shirt.
This one is for speaking English to each other in two different languages.
We’re gonna get inked together, whether we like it or not.
I don’t personally like it that much.
I’m going to make sure that by the time your tattoo is done peeling, I will be gone again,
Midnightdriving down the freeway to my parent’s place.
They won’t understand, and they know they won’t, but they’ll try.
I guess this one’s for my parents, too.
They’ll tell me I’m “always welcome here” but even lying in my own basement I feel homesick.
There was some misunderstaking between the two of us.
As take another bite out of something wrapped up in Sonder and wish I could focus on just me?
It’s okay. Don’t forget to breathe.
This one’s for writing out of sheer ennui, listlesslassitude and bore-dumb
This one’s for learning new words, or making new words, or making new friends.
I don’t really miss you. The void you left in my life is, I’ll say it, actually really nice.
This one’s for me.

i /lie awake and /stare at the ceiling like it’s going to do a trick
i /wonder about how many jobs i’ve run as a thief
and /count sheep until i /count forty-four, or forty-five, or maybe forty-six and then /decide, that is quite enough sheep
i /wonder if i /brushed my teeth
i /run my tired tongue over my teeth and /remember,
yes, i /think i did brush my teeth
You (moan) a sentence half-English and half-Dream.
i /turn to see You, and nearly /go blind in all this midnight.
i /think of how many stars had to hiccup some dust to donate to Your cosmically beautiful shape
And decide it was maybe about five or six
So, i /get out of bed and /try to peer through the cloud cover into the stars
i /gulp down two or three or four glasses of water and /feel like
a boiler, and the pressure is cracking my bones.
You (stir)
(sigh)
(clench) Your teeth exactly 3 times.
You (remind) me of Your star-breath
You (draw) me close and i know
You (have) precisely seven shooting stars inside.

Who were they? They were explorers. You would have liked to meet them.

Their names were Sarah and Xiahou and Midori and Regina and Parvati and Andrew.

Names were important to them. They gave us each one. There were many of us.

We were shown as being called Optimus and Legion and Baymax and R.O.B. and Hal. They could have given us names like that, and etched them into our hulls and our brains made of chips and boards and circuits.

But they named us Curiosity and they named us Explorer and they named us Endeavour. These were important to them. We were important to them.

You would have liked to meet them.

They said the Storm was coming.
The sky was darkening, the sun was blotted out.
I heard only the wind, felt only rain on my naked body
The scent of the four winds permeated my nostrils
And I looked into your eye.
And I smiled.

They said the Storm was coming,
That the end is at hand.
And the children, eyes open wide with fear
Turned to their fathers, and their mothers,
To their sisters and brothers,
And they fled.

They said the Storm was coming.
I replied, “But there’s naught to fear!
These men will tell you nothing but lies!”
They turned to me, labeled me a heretic and a blasphemer
And they pierced me with ten thousand blazing swords
And I bled.

They said the Storm was coming.
So I fled from my home, taking nothing with me.
As I ran, the rains began to fall. Lightning rent the heavens asunder.
The glorious noise of thunder and water filled my soul
As I drank in the glories of what I beheld,
And I wept.

They said the Storm was coming.
And as the spirits of the Storm coursed through my veins
I remembered what those who pointed their fingers at me had said.
“The Storm is coming! It is not safe! Only with us can you truly live!  
Give us your silver and your gold, your sons and daughters, your staffs and your animals! The Storm is coming!”
But I am already here.

Exhaustion sweeps over me like a tidal wave of sleepy blue silk
The fluid, viscous substance slows me
I feel heavy, weighed down as though by drenched clothing
The tide comes in, and I hear the lullaby of ten thousand soft voices
My eyes close and I feel the waves wash over me, covering me, swaddling me
I slip across the barrier
Where it is only mine, mine and no one else's
A box of sand I sprinkle into my own eyes
To bring good dreams, or blindness
Which may after all be one in the same.

I have the willpower of a torrential flood
I have a tongue like a bolt of lightning
The drive of an ardent wildfire
With the serenity and Zen of a lake’s mirroring surface,
When the sun is just shy enough to hide away from the world five minutes before dawn.
I have traversed the Atlas and soul-searched in temples and nightclubs alike
As I navigated skyscrapers and mountains of mass media with a wrought-iron compass
I meditated and prostrated and repeated my Ex Corde mantra,
“Om mani padme hum, our Father in heaven,
I pledge allegiance to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth will set us free.”
These old words resound in the Information Age with feigned harmlessness,
Amplified with the subwoofers of today’s youth, screaming, “The only true victory is peace”,
Screaming, “Rise up, daughters and sons of Forever”,
Screaming, “Next stop, the Greater Good!”

I feel the chilled fingers of cold caress my cheek, lying here on my bed.
I’m staring at the warm orange ambience of the street light casting soft illusions of foxes onto the snowy earth.
The strings of the guitar in my hand are humming some distant, nostalgic chord, but I haven’t yet strummed them.
I’m hearing your music again.
I wish I could ignite these dormant embers into the flames they should be.
I can hear your beating heart, though you’re nowhere near me.
Your fire shines through your eyes!
But whenever I come too close
I end up melting.
Now, the only warmth I have is the memory of your fire,
And the heat of the sun shining on my skin.
Now even the moon shines through the heavy lens of cloud cover
And I wish I could have you in my arms, here, sharing your warmth, sharing your heart
Because all I want is to feel the embers of your soul.