i go to bed
later and later
every night
memories
of people
with gorgeous
eyes haunt me
and fill my head.
i want to be them
to someone else
i want to
haunt them
the way they
are me, hang
around in
the back corners
of their minds
some beautiful
memory, some
kind of vision
that just won't
leave them alone.
i want to keep them up
later and later
every night
i want them to see me:
to see me as i am,
as i want to be.
i want them to see me
whole
and broken
and loving
and hating myself.
i want them to see me
like a schizophrenic
and their shadows,
like a wild hallucination,
like a beam of sunlight
falling fleetingly
perfectly, sad & lovely,
falling into their eyes,
waking them up
from the daydream,
letting them know
that they are alive.
if i am going
to be brief i want
to be brilliant, if
longevity is my destiny,
i will refuse redundancy.
i want more
than anything to be
unique. i want
to haunt them
in their sleep: i want
to live forever,
i want
to be able to sleep again at night.

you hover weightless toes brushing the grass
the Earth stretching toward you and you
stretching to touch the Sun above your
spine elongates your vertebrae loosen and one
by one relax your body is warm heavy
thick like honey and you are cosmically
beautiful:  your moles & freckles are
constellations your scars are pathways
runes telling you you are alive you have
survived your hair is oceans and forests
your wrinkles and folds are full of wisdom
your bones cry life  your arms
lengthen to enfold the Sun and all
around you is warm sky floating you
holding you up and you are
the most alive lovely part of it

you breathe your troubles out into
clouds and your anxiety out into
stardust and they bring rain
and light to people on the other side
of this luminous planet in this
glowing galaxy in which you are
a point of light a glorious speck
shining among the stars you
are brilliant and faceted
complex and tumescent
with so much to give

you let go of the fiery Sun
and fall back in the
grass and the Earth is
holding you and
your weight is
returning the
embrace.

there are postcards you wrote me that will hang on my wall
and i will keep for centuries, pretty pictures
and smeared handwriting, places where the rain ate away.
you left, and we sat there like nothing was wrong.
go on with life, move on from love,
nothing now to say. you leave and we all sit,
paper-blank faces hiding crying eyes, still bodies
hugging shivering hearts. clouds pass,
the wind rustles through the air, the sun bears down
on the high desert. no one says anything
worth saying. no one does anything
worth doing. dry flowers bloom but no one is looking.
cacti wave and stretch and poke at no one.
those mountains to the north loom and dare
and nobody cares. we all sit there, desert spirits,
paper-blank, hot bodies wrapped
like so much tissue paper around our trembling souls,
say nothing, and pretend
that God has not ripped from us
something as wild and as lovely as the summer rain.

Meditation broken even
In the tide of autumn leaves
Wanting just to be alone
Homeless, empty thoughts seethe
But the silence gathered round me
And the fabric of my dreams
Surges in and takes me over
I have lost all my control
And it's not a good or bad thing
(Though it's not what I would hope)
Oceanic hills and valleys
Stretch the confines of my soul
In this dusky numbered twilight
Fumbles daytime turning night
In these streets there walks a shadow
Of a being without form,
Listless, heavy, and deceiving
Are the stormless clouds that swirl
All around me in this heaving
Chilling tide of falling light.
Where I go and what I dream of
Who I'll be, by what I swear
All is tumbling, crashing downward
Future lost and present bare
To the sea I wander ever
Hoping it will swallow me,
To the sky look on and upward
Maybe one day it will free
Release from us this silent desert
Already I am walking floating
Drifting high above the earth
There is somewhere I am knowing,
There is some place I am going.

this cinnamon realization
rolls around in my chest:
honeyed sunlight
apple-crisp mornings
laughter and fear in the name of fun
quiet anarchy
gardens, beaches, friends -
I am happy, or close enough.
what more could I ask for?
what more could I dream for?
to be home, to be with you: but
here is becoming home, October
has replaced July with orange glory;
clouds and mountains and salt water
all the same, absent sunsets,
huge-moon nights, hot sunrises,
stars and soul mates and folk music.
O that I could dance
forever in the evenings of October,
skeleton ghost and graveyard
pumpkin spice and falling leaves,
the endings that give us new life
all are here, *****-heavy
fear-free, future hallows blissfully
unknown, pasts blissfully
undreamed-of.

Years later what you will remember most is the sunshine
And the way it pooled in the streets in the summertime
Pulling colors off of buildings like taking washing off the line
Painted bodies everywhere, laughing as they waltz through the city
There is no difference between red yellow black white or grey
It’s all just more color, people splattered with diversity
Climbing the trees to decorate with rainbow streamers
In their doorways stand hesitant half-believers
Pass me the pipe and count me with the dreamers

And the rest of the world, they call us freaks
We might as well be hipsters hippies jocks nerds geeks
Here definition is something no one seeks
Children at play is all we have ever been
Hoping our mothers won’t catch us fighting again
Let your hate go, let your mind heart and eyes open

Love is what ties us together, what makes us strong
You don’t have to prove that you’re right or I’m wrong
Just raise your voice and join in the throng
We’ll climb through your windows and through your walls
Claiming plaster back to nature, painting flowers down your halls
Planting trees in the classrooms and the public toilet stalls
We won’t rest, no we won’t wait until every stretch
Of old stone house and weathered park bench
Of city block and building’s been covered in some colorful sketch

Say what you will, we are who we are
It's our hopes for the future that have led us this far
We're not afraid, not alone, though the lines may blur
We stand for a future with no hate at all
We stand for human rights and we will not fall
We're the people of Fremont and we stand tall

there are
places in this world
sinking
and abandoned
by humankind
full of life
and raw
with the beauty of
rebirth; i want
to wander
through those
great cracked halls
seeping out
daises and ivy
with you,
and breathe
the air thick
with grass
and dirt, thick
with springtime
buds of life,
and breathe
the air, swollen
with dew, back
into your lungs.