I am thankful for you dear
and will until
you no longer hate me

Blessed are the dead
For theirs is peace
They know not the most
They fear in the least
They call on our minds
Their faith makes no sound
And they know not of time
From their place in the ground

I cannot recall,
the fragrance of your hair nor the sound of your voice.
I am not filled with intricate pictures of our time together.
Only the absence of your presence.

living can be tiring and decisions regretful, so often we find ourselves
marching to the beat of obligations’ drummer – unnecessary paths are safely untreaded
doing only because the doing is necessary – to keep life at its homeostasis
fixing but not tinkering – the return to normality is the goal
just accepting these ******* days for their lukewarm livability

If an easy rain
would make the rocks slippery,
he would hold my hand.

The truck was full, its open back
heaped black, and there a leg, an eye;
daylight thickened on the sweating
stack and blurred the further sky.

Ten feet away I pulled the key
and let the engine jolt and choke,
the CD skipped, an old riff jarred,
a line of meaning stopped and broke

and something in that silence straightened,
left a splintered ****** mark,
I closed my eyes and felt it there,
hating in the blinded dark.

Sometimes it’s easy to think that he might love me.
Curled up on the couch like it’s Sunday afternoon
he kisses my forehead softly.
Our faces touch, his cheekbone up against my nose.
Eyes closed we sigh and enjoy the feeling.

He asks if he’s a good blanket.
I say I’ve had softer but never sweeter.

We are not paying attention to the television.
I am stuck in feeling his hands playing with my hair,
and tracing my bones
up to my neck, asks if my necklace is real pearls.
I tell him yes they are real,
you can tell because they are imperfect,
and that is what gives them away
as genuine.

"You're a killer, son. 
I can see it in your eyes. 
I don't know when it'll happen-
Maybe the first day on the front line,
Maybe when the guy next to you
In the trenches gets his head 
Blown to bits, but some day
You'll snap. 
And it'll all become a game to you. 
And it's a game you're good at. 
And it's a game you like."
These are the words the veteran spoke
Over my father. This is who he said
My father would be. And so he ran away. 

My father took up his pen and he wrote
And he took up the mainsheet and pulled it in
Til the sail hugged the wind, and he did it for years,
But it wasn't enough for him. In the end
He studied business and now he's an
Entrepreneur, building homes and food and lives.
Recently he's been talking about starting to
Sail again. He could've been world champion, you know. 
He says he left to start a family. 

There are days when I look in the mirror,
Deep into the eyes I inherited from my father,
And wonder. In them I see his own passion 
For the written word, for the wind caught
In the sail and the water stormy and deep beneath. 
But I know there's something else in there too,
And there are days when I hope to God it's not
That same look his honorably discharged uncle saw
And scarred him with so many years ago. 
But even worse, there are times I pray it is.