there's something sad when it snows.
the flakes falling under our sighs
the world buried a little deeper

a little more lonely

hats and gloves and soup our only company while
we shiver

Almost like a mirror to
Look at you. A sort of Alice on the other side
Of the looking glass.
You are a reflection I never thought might exist.
But there are flaws spiderwebbing cracks into the glass,
The picture so minutely cracked here and
There that it might all just
Fall out of the frame.

Words, picked like highhanging fruit,
Stack and
Form the
Edges of your
Mind--
brilliant walls of Buckingham but also the boxes of fruit
(high hanging like the words) floating down congolese waters
and into the heart

--of Darkness? only kurtz knows
but does it matter? still Grand as ever--

They're words I see in myself on my side
And music from Mechanicsburg Anchorage Dar es Salaam
sings down the same Congo we share

But the only cracks I see are with me.
Your words and wit are the envoys,
Celebrated diplomats from the Heart that lies
downriver.
eyes flash and the Fruit is bountiful and
Hail the heart (wherever whatever it is down the River).

The words are strong as the man who sent them
(somewhere in the Heart)
Such strength to speak and shout
Respect commandeddemanded in the fruit

I often wonder if I have it.
And each time I know I don't
Another crack is born.

the tally man sends his beautiful fruit--
strong as everforever
To the world, smileonface and gleamineye--

and you're him
on the other side
at the Heart.

I never mean to be that guy,
But every time a friend uses another friend's Facebook,
The go-to gag will be a status saying "I'm gay," with
Eyeroll emoticons and LOLs promptly following.
Giggles and pointed fingers echo off the walls and
Into the ears of the suffering silent.

Those two words used as punchlines are the heirs,
The progeny of a past bathed in blood.
They are words weighted down by chains linked with laughs
And locked by the smiles and eyerolls.
The free ones revel in the fire baptismal they impress upon
Those left chained to the wall in the shadows.

Like children, they delight in the minor sting of the fireball that destroys those they mock.
Eyes sparkle and smiles flash at the fictional thrill that entertains them and murders the ones who dare to speak.
Their drums beat as the celebrate the chic
Game they get to play--playing Chicken with a train that isn't there
While others are strapped to the tracks by their shadows,
The darkside of the dance.

Songs and howls fill the skies and mix with the screams of the tortured to put the icing on
Their twisted fandango--a brilliant spectacle to distract from the cries for help;
A spectacle as brilliant as the screens of their phones as they type the jokes stained with sadness:
"I'm gay LOL haxored," with the laughs following
At the circus, while miles away a boy sobs into his sheets,
The cold stars his only company.

The great tragedy is that
We never look at each other--
Little gods dancing to a Billboard Top 40 together while
Being unbearably alone.

All we do is look at the ground and the sky,
But never the eye.

The beat drops and our feet move and our arms flail to
Disguise how meaningless we think we are.

If only we knew our gospels are in each other's eyes.

look

Who do we cry for when all there is
Is the sound of shoes clacking on the floor
And our tempered breath in the dark?

Dance with me in the street under the
streetlights flickering and stars crooning.

hand in hand
us and no one else
the lights
the stars
the silent music and

our hearts in orbit

why do we love
open the door to be robbed
raise the portcullis for invasion
leave our frail hearts open to the skewers and the pain
open our arms for an embrace at knifepoint
put our neck in the guillotine
feed each other our torn-up hearts?

for a smile or a kind word
in fair exchange?

the story of love is loosened ties and running mascara