I've watched you
all winter, holding your beauty close.
Protecting it from the snow and cold
in your grey-green fuzzy casing.
When the time is right,
you release that protection.
Giving you the freedom to unfold your splendor.
Like hands opening.
Like fingers uncurling.
There is hidden beauty in our winter.

I'm into you,
but I'm not into
waiting around this way.
I'm here now,
but I'm not here,
willing to wait
forever.

Home is not where I want to be.
I want to adventure,
wild and free.
Away from the chains
of my adolescent self,
to grow up to be hung
on a greater shelf.
For outgrowing this nest,
wanting to fly away.
You'll be proud of me someday,
just maybe not today.

Take me away,
away from it all.
Away from these chains,
who are there when I fall.
I want to fly,
with my own compass,
I want to fly away.
Away.
Just maybe not today.

It has been one year
to the day
since I spoke to you last.
I do not miss you -
that is not what this is about.
It's just that sometimes
I feel phantom fingers in my hair.
Sometimes old photographs choke me up.
And remembering the good times hurts more
than remembering the bad.

I'm not sure if you would recognize
the way I wear my skin nowadays.
My hair is a different color,
and about a foot longer.

It has been one year,
365 days,
several startling discoveries,
a few tear stained nights,
half a dozen new beginnings,
and at least one bottle of whiskey.
But I still can't get
the taste of you
off my tongue.

~

Static

Scattered wavelengths
from a worn out speaker
cracking with each unbalanced bass note
Finding my brain on overload
and a slower heart beat
out of tune

Static the union,
tuning dial gone, volume at high
glowing in the corner of cobweb melodies
lingering on a distant shelf
now sinking lower in this
roadside armchair

An empty bottled fortress
collects the pain at my feet
glass brown soldiers stand,
bottle cap mementos flip
like dancing beans on a folding table
at El Mercado

One more for the road
a staggering venture
along crooked dotted lines, weaving nonsense
two at a time, smirking
snickering like a Pryde-ful ending
mimicking the way

Still the static, white noise,
foaming seas on wavelength casualties
and the trees cry, when birdsong of night
haunts with a sound
interrupting the dance of the beer container guards
and I tap a painful toe