I woke up with a headache this morning,
I think I drank too much of you last night;
even if most of it was in silence.
But silence is what you make it,
and there’s no need for words
when I can hear your heart beating
from across the table
and your pupils are larger than the lids of
the two unfinished coffees that sit in my car.
I desperately search for something to grasp,
so I must avoid your eyes
because they’re far too much to handle.
So I find the freckle just above
the end of your right eyebrow,
and the extra hole in your ear
that you did not fill with jewelry tonight.
I pretend that every day I will see you,
and today you are the deep blue sky
filled with wispy clouds;
an ocean of reminders that
there’s so much more to find
inside of you.

Can you handle me on sleepless nights
after midnight when past regrets
turn into future fears?
Will you be able to calm that sea?
Because my teeth feel loose inside my mouth
and some days I worry too much.
Some days my clothes are a tad bit too big
or too small,
and my glasses don’t sit right.
I guess they still keep you in focus.
I wonder what you’d think
if you saw all the thoughts I had.
What if I’m not enough?
You’d think it’d be a question
but some days it just becomes a statement
that I bury underneath fearful eyes.
I guess I forget that it can be answered.
But what if?
What if I’m not enough.

I thought I would run out of words
when soft beams of light peaked past the horizon,
like the letters would sink down with the moon.
Because for years I’ve made the stars my ink
and the night sky my canvas.
I guess the sunlight just feels strange
when you’ve spent so much time in darkness.
But now it warms my frosted fingers,
pulsing liquid lava through my veins.
Sleepless nights becoming tired mornings.
But they are new.
And so am I.
I can write about hope,
even if I have so little left.
I can write about truth,
even though I lie right through my teeth.
I can write about peace,
even though I see none of it in me.
And I can write about love,
even though I haven’t the faintest clue
of what it could be.

I will never tell you that you look beautiful.
I will never tell you that (you) look lovely.
Because those statements hinge on sundresses
and too much time looking in the mirror.
After all, it is just a piece of glass.
And you (are) too,
because I see right through the beaming
reflections on your skin.
And you are deeper than the ocean,
calmer than it too.
As sweet as dripping honey,
and as (soft) as morning dew.
You’re that feel(i)ng at 2 (am), when the Sun
is asleep and somehow I still don’t feel alone.
And you are every gentle raindrop landing
on (quiet) rooftops in late July.
Your roots sink further than lofty White Oaks,
and your reach extends far beyond their branches.
You keep every beam of sunlight,
your eyes like glowing coals,
and every morning the horizon must borrow
from all the splendor that you hold.
They fill books with all your essence,
and it’s still never enough.
So I will call you what you are.
You are lovely.
You are beautiful.

Today's the day I start anew.
The search to find what's really true.
I'll search my soul to find what's inside.
My hopes and fears can no longer hide.

I'll start this quest to save myself.
To recover the strands of mental health.
I'll prove I'm sane and full of grace,
And abolish the outsider in my place.

The problem is not knowing where to start.
Is it my mind, my soul, or even my heart?
All I know is that the time is now.
The questions remaining are when and how.

The final piece to the puzzle is you.
I can't figure out the role you do.
My greatest ally, or my greatest foe.
I guess only time will truly show.

So this is melancholy
That bittersweet taste every time
We part ways

That deepest sigh I always utter
Whenever your lips touch mine
Because I know in a second or two
You will be gone

I have never looked forward
To our meeting
For you have always
Left me breathless
And wanting

This is insanely foolish
And I know soon
I’m about to face my doom

But every time
Your fingers
Trickle my spine
Or your breath
Suffocates me
Or your taste
Numbs me…

I find myself
Completely giving in

Until your whole being
Inhibits my system
Slowly poisoning my veins
Until my blood ceases to flow
And my heart resists pumping

But there I go again
Poisoned from the reverie
Of you and me

The car engine starts
I know this is goodbye
So long then
Until the next confluence
Of our thirsty mundane
Incongruent lives

My wife, a psychiatrist, sleeps
through my reading and writing in bed,
the half-whispered lines,
manuscripts piled between us,

but in the deep part of night
when her beeper sounds
she bolts awake to return the page
of a patient afraid he'll **** himself.

She sits in her robe in the kitchen,
listening to the anguished voice
on the phone. She becomes
the vessel that contains his fear,

someone he can trust to tell
things I would tell to a poem.