One day I will find the words
One day
But not today.

Today the words scamper from outstretched hands
I, clawing for one syllable, one sound
as they melt into the camouflage of boredom
Unreachable.

One day I will find the words
pluck them from the branches of my mind
gather them into the basket of a pen
and take them home,
lay them out to dry on a blank page.

I will paste them down,
thought by thought
verse by verse, dactyl, measure, line,
Till they've made a sentence
a phrase, a page.

One day, I will find the words
they will be simple, beautiful, soft
as I take their dry hulls,
and line them up in ranks
on the field of an unwritten page.

One day I will find the words,
but it is not today.

I botched my reconstruction.
The arches of my cathedrals lie unfinished, burned bone.
You can see strait through my ribs into the living room-- one breast gone.
War is never civil
and its aftermath, never logical.
Reluctant combat of minds and hearts,
my body aches for you,
my conquered heart
reaching blindly for your familiar arms,
to find nothing but air.

I supposed I loved him
Because he could tell me I was beautiful
without ever opening his mouth.

1) October is a month for leaving
even the copper leaves
leave the embrace of the trees

2)Your ghost still haunts my bed.
If I made love to a priest
would that exorcise you
from my sheets?

3)Because I think we all have thought
about stepping on the gas
when we should have hit the brake.

You are growing.
You sound  
more like the man
I think you always wanted to be.
You emerge from this crucible
brave, unfurled, determined
and I am truly  
happy for you.

She was tired
of pretending
she didn't go to bed
alone.

Beauty is pain.
It draws them in like flies.
They have caught their legs
in my flypaper hair.
And rip them off, one by one.
They fall like eyelashes into my palm.
They love, they love.
I cannot.

I picked my poison blindfolded.
Fumbling like Jane Grey
at the execution block.
Grabbed the jar closest,
cool glass with death beneath.
It was the slowest.
Death by leeches,
who **** the spirit dry
and replace it
with lead.

It seems that depression
has a magnetic pull to poets.
We wear it, our stubborn scarlet letter,
Hidden between crinkled pages and ink spattered hands.
Our fickle muse,
if he stays around too long, he smothers us,
till we cannot even lift the pen,
and the words are left to swim around in circles
of darkening thought.

From such a gentle spirit
came such a harsh reubuke
and from such a verdant life
Oh, such an arid death!

What hope once bloomed
within thy breast
until replaced by a blossom
of such deep despair.  

The fates did deal thee a bitter hand
such cruelty thou suffered,
to be taken from day to night
and as quickly as thou were.

Thy life, thy soul, such lovely things
how kind thy smile could be
thou were indeed a rarity
in such a dreary world.

Life is a sea.
Strong and bittersweet.
Float while you can, sink if you must.

Treat yourself as gently as you treat others.
Forgive yourself, forgive others.
"Perfection" does not exist on this earth.
Love is never measured in numbers.

Don't keep your hands clenched to tightly,
whatever you hold tightest
is what will leave you first.
Love, to often, means letting go.

You cannot save them
All you can do is show them they are worth saving.
You cannot fix them.
All you can do is hand them the tools.

Always be the last to end an embrace.
Behind harsh words are wounded hearts,
every scar has a story.

People will hate you, they will wrong you, but
You will never regret treating someone with kindness.
We are all only human.

Think before you speak,
but remember silence is a double edged sword
do not let fear
keep you from speaking
when you hold truth behind your lips.

Don't let your memories rule you,
They are the past
and you are a creature of the future
do not dwell where you cannot live.

And remember, you are always worth more than you imagine.

Something broke inside me.
glow-stick soul
snapped
one too many times.
There is nothing here
but broken glass
the darkness remains
undefined
un-defied.

Men loosened Justice's blindfold
So she could "see the evidence" they said
She protested and tried to fix it,
but her scales fell out of balance.

Peace asked her why?
Justice cried and her tears
wilted Peace's olive branch
the dove drank the salt water and got sick.

Hope tried to console Peace and Justice,
But when she saw the blindfold amiss
and the dove sick
her fragile heart couldn't take it, and she died.

Love tried to revive Hope
but she knew it wouldn't work,
because she couldn't gather enough
of Hope's soul to bring her back.

And for that Peace and Justice
Shunned her, rebuked her
they said she was useless
and banished her to a far northern land.

So Love fled from men's hearts
and found herself with Patience, cast into exile
Patience was happy because Loneliness fled,
But Love longed for her former life.

And with Hope dead
it didn't take long for Sorrow
to smite her.

If you fall in love with this poet, (and she with you),
Remember, she will not tell you of the words she ascribed to your name
unless you ask to hear them.
(She likes her thoughts kept secret)

If you fall in love with this poet (and she with you)
Remember, she is not as solitary as she looks
and she will let you hold her till your arms ache.
(She’ll do the same with you)

If you fall in love with this poet (and she with you)
Remember her heart is paper, and on it she inscribes in blood
the words her soul could no longer hold.
(Your name will always be written there)

If you fall in love with this poet (and she with you)
Remember the things that made her smile,
she’s serious, but needs a break from
the things that go on behind her eyes, within her soul.
(They’re darker than you think)

Most importantly,
If you fall in love with this poet (and she with you)
Remember, you will never die.
Her words will last longer than she does.
(and as long as her heart beats, you are in it.)

I do not know what to make of this.
these scraps of clay and paper
that were once “Us” and now are “you” and “I.”
Paper-mache remnants of lonely romantic’s dreams
you present to me as relics of a bygone year.
I know you would like to rebuild.
But things are better this way.
Our hearts have thrown enough punches in the dark.

I dreamed I dug a bullet
out of my own thigh.
I asked if I might bleed to death
and they said no
as long as I packed it with happy thoughts
and my mind went blank.
There was no pain, no cringing release,
grim rush to blank reality,
these legs are used to feeling.
I pressed a ***** palm to the ragged edges.
I feel better.

China Blue

China blue and snowy saucers
On the old oak table where you once sat
Alone and plaintive, dusty
I haven’t had the heart to move them yet
There’s to much of your spirit
Still in the house
It seems wrong to clear it away
When you’re supposed to come back
And drink your tea.

I went through your desk, though
It was necessary.
You never were organized
And I found myself buried in mountains
Of old bills and notes and wishes
And by the time I found the will
Paper birds had roosted all about the room
Their inked markings unreadable
Thanks to the flapping of their wings.

Your sketchbook I left by our bedside
Your notebook and Hemingway
Rest under the alarm clock
That will never wake you again
Though it rings its mournful, piercing wail
At 6:00 every morning
It scared me, the day after the funeral
I hadn’t slept all night, screamed,
Clutched your pillow
And threw mine at the foot of the bed,
The Phantom shadows of dreams disappearing
In the light of a grey morning.

Sit nos quibus pacem

Let us have peace,
tonight of all nights.
I know Time will not stand still,
I won't waste breath asking him to,
But, if, for the few hours,
till the break of day,
the guns could fall silent
the sharp tongues fall quiet,
and hate be taught for an hour, tolerance.

Sit nos quibus pacem

I know morning will break,
with joy for many, and with pain for more,
those to which this night,
is the same as the last, clanging with the hollow pains
of hunger and heartache and war,
but if we might,
for just one silver night,
have the peace
which you meant us to have from the start
I should be forever grateful.

Sit nos quibus pacem

There is pain here.
It swells, drifts,
within the ribbed cage
covered with pale, stretched skin.
My heart, the bird, beats it's tiny, wounded wings,
in fear and aching throbs,
to escape from it's ****** aviary,
but the bars are too strong,
and it sings a final, mourning note
as the bones collapse around it.

We will stand honestly together,
in the sfumato footsteps of the
centuries of lovers that met before us.
He will christen my eyes with kisses,
weave a crown of poetry in our intermingled locks,
whisper Neruda against my cheek.
We will smile
at the way our rib cages resemble wings,
our lungs, the birds, rising on each current
of fervent breath.

I'm sorry
I did not let go
gracefully.

I don't believe in soul mates but
I will fall for the man
who can read my poetry aloud
translate it properly, from page to voice
without compromising rhythm, or sound, or rhyme,
With a gentle poet's brogue.
The man who sees the notes of my soul
I tucked between the lines,
and finds he made the same notations
in the margins of his own.

Things fall apart.
my mother will be the first to go.
Stretched between school, a stubborn husband,
distance, and a daughter she believes is dying,
and the ever present thought
that she will never be good enough.
Taught as drum leather, she shudders,
Wracked and rent by memories of lost children
and protruding ribs.
I awoke to her crying in the next room this morning.
She greeted me with feigned happiness, but
red eyes stared truthfully back.
"I'm okay," she murmured.
"*******," I said softly.
She clung to me.
I felt the burden shift on her shoulders.
crushing her,
her over sized heart beat to pulp,
it's ****** remnants clinging to her dripping sleeve.
The people she tried to hold together,
slipping through her fingers
like sand-- as her brittle bones break.
Things fall apart.
And I wish I knew how
to put them together again.

Most days, I can fade into the cracked, plaster walls
in their peeling blue paint, smeared with oily hand prints
from wayward class demonstrations.
A prison cell? No. A holding cell? Maybe.
Where I am interrogated
through glossy textbook pages and sickly fluorescent lights
these castles of learning
are dim places indeed.

As I looked out
into the great beyond,
I, the voyager, trapped in doldrums,


Found the soul that had slipped away from me.
My quest ended, I discarded
the gravity-encased form my mother gave me,
Trading it for the light,
The soul had always longed to be clothed in.


And my soul danced,
on the dihcotomic sea of what is,
and what will be,
waltzing across the waves of dreams,
as light is want to do,
whenever it meets water.

Saying that I didn't love you
sounds more like a truth
than the lie I want it to be.

And I do not know if this is because
my love starved to death, slowly,
or because I am malleable maleficence
and when arms are offered
I bend myself into them
automaton clay
deadly mimic
powerful enough to fool itself.

When I ask my heart
there is only static
the inoffensive murmur
I have trained myself to utter
Its voice lost
somewhere beneath a barrow of expectations
unmet.

The ink in my veins seems to have run dry.
Circulation problems, maybe.
My soul is desperate to write,
but the pen isn't working,
and I'm left to make blank indentations
on a scrap of tattered paper.

It is night. We are sitting on the steps among fallen leaves, looking out into an eerily empty scene. Pale blue light shines on the weathered concrete where a single white car is parked in a forgotten spot. It's strange without people, the bustle, constant hum of voices, engines, the occasional horn.
     It feels more alive to me now. The place in and of itself alive-- as it would have been if man had never existed. If our existence had been lost somewhere up among the few stars that now dare to shine through. Those few (happy few?) who dare to look upon the tragic, transient, mortal beauty of men.
     The familiar symphony of night sounds can be heard in the little line of trees before us. The wind is plucking leaves from branches. They fall brown and lifeless at our feet. I wonder if trees miss their leaves, or if, perhaps, they have accepted the perpetual cycle of loss and renewal mankind has yet to make peace with.  Each year shorter than the last, each day longer than the first. I have always loved the melancholy of autumn, its bittersweet solitude, the leaves as quiet reminders of  mortality-- tiny deaths to foreshadow our own. No, I do not wish for death. I have, but not tonight. Tonight the air is soft and cool, and the air and sky are clear. I am finding peace in the mundane chaos.
     He is next to me, thinking. Solemn, with a tinge of sadness, but for what I'm never sure. He laments the loss of our child-like wonder, and I question if it can be regained. I would like to think so. I think somewhere, inside all of us, our childish hearts remain, molten core of memory, identity, the first, the fairest of us. Who we were before the world beat it out of us.
He has a soft, deep, murmur of a voice. A tiny gap between his two front teeth I notice when he laughs. A lovely laugh that shakes through his willowy, wiry frame. His eyes are kind and thoughtful, yet serious. When he looks at me, it feels as though he is trying to stare right through, and I turn away. For all my wanting to be known, perhaps I am not ready--yet. But parts of my spirit which have long lain dormant are surfacing again, coming towards the light. Timid, they step out, unsure of where they are, what the footing is here. But so far, solid.

I loved you as man was meant to love
Selfless, quiet, as few have said
Three simple words,
And meant them
As I did when they fell
Letter by letter
From trembling lips
To meet the cold stone
Which encased your heart.

Each shattered, a thousand splinters,
The O rolled and burst
The U toppled with the I and the rest
Ricocheting back from whence they came
Sharp and piercing
Their barbed points digging
With flaming points into flesh
While silent screams
Echoed loudly in empty halls.

Bleeding, not a drop, but a torrent
All at once
No single bead, but hundreds
Till bathed in red
I stood before you
Pleading
In my hands the last thread of my life
Offering them, freely
You did not realize
I loved you.

I’ve tangled myself
around an ideal,
again.
**** I, the idealist.
Someone pass me the scissors.

Half-love burns like a half-life spent
Radium lover
is your jaw rotting
From the stress of keeping everything behind your teeth
Incisor
     Canine
          Molar
In your dreams they fall into your palms
Soft and sacrosanct, grotesque, sharp pearls to string around hope’s neck
And crush it.
Love,
what were you not telling me
And why?

Upon the hallowed ground she stood
The wind blew through her hair
A swallow swooped o’er the darkening sky
And the scent of rain filled the air

She heard the voices loud as thunder
Echo o'er hill and down
And warily she watched them
Ride their ghost mounts into the town

The rain now fell in torrents
Upon the hallowed field
But she moved not from her own same spot
As a deathly grip bid her yield

A hand of ice held fast her hem
Though she struggled against its grasp
She begged it there to let her go
Then from the earth she heard it rasp

‘One kiss my bonny sweetheart
the years were long since I saw thee last
It be cold here in the hallowed ground
Though I be but a memory of the past.’

‘I fought here on the battle ground
with rapier high and voice aloft
till down the enemy struck me fast
to lie in blood on the damp ground soft.’

The hand then loosed its steely grasp
And she saw her true love’s form
A cold and bleeding upon the ground
as more furious grew the storm

As the rain then pelted down around
The long lost lovers in their embrace
His bonny sweetheart spoke to him
With trembling lip and heart that raced

‘My own true love, my only
Long waited I for your return
I scorned the suitors who sought my hand
for your memory I would not scorn.

‘I prayed long for word or news
of thy well being or how thee faired,
but none e’re came to me at all
so I waited, hoping you had been spared.’

‘A truer love man never had
that would wait through tears and time
and keep the hope that I still lived
to find that in the ground I lie.

Forgive me, love, I’ve done thee wrong
To make thee wait for me so
Take my hand with one last kiss
And then my love, you must go.’

‘Nay my only, only love,
it’s here with you I’ll stay
I’ll not go back without thee,
I’ll stay by thy side, come what may.’

So upon the hallowed ground she lay
Hair damp and soaked to the skin
And by his side she lay all night
As she clutched his hand so thin.

The town knew not where she had gone
But in the morn they found
She’s gone to be with her one true love
Dead, upon the hallowed ground.

Looking for lost lover's names
in a sea of make-believe.
Name, what is in a name?
Roses and ******* smell the same
no matter what you call them.
Meaning, memory, response,
or the lack thereof.
I was always one to hope
for things already gone.

I don't want to be more.
I want to be less.
So much less that I disappear
shrink, fold
rendered
to the tiniest sliver
indiscoverable.
So minuscule,
my hands are rendered too small
to do any more damage.

Here, again, a campaign of confusion.
Assaults of second thoughts
and broken promises.
What we failed to say then,
we're saying now.
But the question of casualties
still remains unanswered.

Green is my favorite color.
But I hate that shade of it.
Because it will always remind me of
The green scrubs you wore,
haunting cold barren rooms,
Where they took your bootlaces
so you couldn’t choke the dreams out of yourself.

I wore blue that day because it was your favorite color.
You probably didn’t notice.
You felt hollow when I embraced you
All strength within seemed gone.
Your eyes, my favorite shade of green, were frighteningly distant.
You were there, but it wasn’t you.
Who were you? Who are you? Who should you have been if…?
You kissed me goodbye in front of the nurses,
And I saw tears in the corners of their eyes.  
Even my mother seemed touched.

I walked in a haze across the hospital yard,
It was a bright day.
I wanted it to storm.
The garish sun seemed to mock me
As I curled in the backseat of my father’s car,
Staring at the food I couldn’t eat.
I hadn’t known
“Sick with worry” to be literal.
I haven’t known it since.
I hate that shade of green.

Nostalgia: It sounds like a disease
And it has infected me.
Worming its way through veins and valves.
I caught it
from robbing the graves of memories.
Trying to gather
the silver linings from long dead moments
dusty laughs
that crumbled in my fingers,
moulding smiles that left spots on my hands
that burned.
out, out **** spot*
I lay down in the fresh earth,
cold, how cold it is.

Sometimes I apologize
to silence
for the wrong
notes

I used to wonder
if I was going to die young. Not that I am so familiar with death
but that I could not imagine growing up.
Now, on the cusp of twenty,
the impossible age, in a sixth-grader’s mind,
those stale-******* memories fading fast,
I realize I still can’t think very far past thirty.
I’ve always got one foot in the past.

The poetry is coming back.
I can feel it.
Maybe because home is so close,
and the bitter-sweet taste of leaving
is closing in.
Home? Which is home?
Some wandering blood in says wherever my head rests,
clinging to the heart-strings
I've tied round the trees here,
Or the ones I left unraveled
far away.

Loneliness is a taste of death
Here I am, dying,
without arms to expire in.
The house is silent, as I drift to sleep,
not eternally,
yet.

I had forgotten how it aches.
Like old men before a storm,
complaining how the weather
makes their knuckles throb.
Here you are,
dredging up the things I buried months ago.
The old ache returning
as the clouds gather.

There are only small pains, now.
Paper cuts, hangnails,
sore arms from trash bags too heavy.
It is strange to be so free.
One grows used to the darkness,
the light, blinding.
I blink, my eyes dry,
I feel my pulse in my lips--
it feels strange.
I stare at the ceiling,
your memory resting on my chest,
lining the gap I want to fill,
but my hands lie empty.

I dreamed he kissed me.
a breath of a kiss,
whispered, that
Vanished into sleep,
up the stairs
and into the attic with the ghosts
I kick at
while they wring their hands.
Mother's voice, another's voice
in memory, or in thought, dream.
Startled, started,
and then gone,
the wisp of a kiss
still on my lips.

He offered her forbidden fruit.
She took it.
No questions asked, only glances given.
She sank her teeth into it as if it were a Georgia peach.
It was sweet, but
one taste,
and she knew why God had told her
never to touch it.
She tried to hand it back
and he started to take it,
then threw it back at her,
saying,
she had ruined it.

From the road, I see your silhouette on the stairs
your slim form outlined in the descent of day
A year gone, this sort of evening would have had you waiting
for me.

For a walk, for the "Let me put on some shorts."
The old brown shorts with the bleached edges
or the slim black ones.
The "Let me grab the keys."
For the, "Can you put my phone in your pocket?"
For your hand in mine
as we crossed our picnic spot to the sidewalk,
"I should collect some of these juniper berries to make gin."
For the way our strides coordinated, syncopation, across the road
to the path well-travelled.
So many diminutive moments
I didn't expect to miss.
But of course,
it's the small deaths I grieve the most.

I look for you everywhere.
Some days there are premonitions of a glimpse
The soft forlorn emptiness that pervades me
and the cheshire glitter of you, or who I think is you,
bringing the pain into focus.
We're half a mile away, at most.
I can't even half entertain the thought of crossing our divide,
but
I miss you.

Are you looking for me, too?