Layer after crusty layer
sloughs away,
revealing the truth under a
painted semblance of
confidence-

Out there is
scary, and i am

Alone.

Alone on my
leaf of a home, when a
tornado, hurricane, cyclone
blows in, halts the
tranquil silence of
my world.

Or was it just a
man with a leaf blower?

This can't be Kansas,
Dorothy.

meteors and wishes galore
just one more, no one more.

on anticipatory guard
eyes dart in saccadic movement
panoramic view of just a sliver
of the most expansive expanse,
universe at a glance

finger points there
purple raging fire flying
swift and smooth,
fleeting but forever
with an afterglow,
trail of smoky gold


shooting stars are scars
and remember that
scars are stories

golden sun on our
cheeks, waves crashing at our feet;
bring me home again.

you see, i'm fine and you're fine
you keep minding your life
and i'll keep minding mine,
except sometimes, only it feels like
all the time
for me, the sun won't shine;
even when it shines
it doesn't shine in my eyes
and i don't know why-
i don't know why
no matter how hard i try
i can't define what's making me cry,
can't understand why the pain
inside abides, but it hides
and no matter how much i lie and lie
to you on the outside,
fake my smiles, my happiness,
deep down i can't deny
the depression.
i don't know why it hurts all the time
all i want to do is
get high
say goodbye
resign,
escape somehow and
find my cloud nine.
i can't climb out of this
decline of my life;
i'm done with the gray skies, wet eyes,
lack of laugh lines.
i hate to see you standing on the sideline,
always nearby,
but now matter how much you try,
you can't provide, can't supply
what's missing in my life
because i can't reply;
i'm tongue-tied and i don't know why.
i'm coming untied,
slipping through the divide,
one piece at a time,
silently screaming
i never chose this hopeless ride,
please forgive me for
wanting to die-
the pain
just won't
subside.

later, legs laced in rapture,
hinted in the heated swell of your
fleshy diaphragmatic release,
urges thickening as lungs re-expand,
stop short and sweet,
sound escalating with each
irk of the sheets –

inexplicable and evanescent
electric sensations,
an instantaneous flood of
radiating submission,
intoxicating ecstasy
you ignite in me.

looking, you hear

enormous whirring and clanging,

feel cotton lint hanging in the air,

see shadowy presence, maybe he’s there,

maybe he’s in your mind.

  

spinning spools of time,

painting swirls of color on the ground,

a little girl dressed in her Sunday Best

finally sitting down.

found at the heart of
true: it's you dear, who gets me
through the days, yes you.

birds stroll sadly, their
beaks, bodies, plumes
victim of slaughter,
winged no longer-

hanging around in milder weather
holding on to hopes of
avoiding fellow encounters.

A blade of grass
separated your pinky from mine

or perhaps a grain of sand;

now a world lies
between us,

unmovable by the winds
of our whistling hearts

which once
swept me off me feet.

Fill my senses again.

Step by
microscopic
Step.

Searching, I am
Always searching,
And needing;
Searching, but not
Finding.

I come up
E m p t y
Time

after


Time.

screaming in a crowded room,
no one hears.

sinking in a bitter sea,
no one looks.

slamming on a wooden door,
no one shows.

standing in the pouring rain,
not a single one stops.

heart shattering,
lungs collapsing.

sleep a stranger
for weeks,
weeks.

whoever said time heals anything?
they lie.

soaking the pillowcase
beneath my cheek,
tears spill over-

sobs never cease,
wont let up for
weeks.

pain lingers behind
my forced smile,

as the
world

slips
              away

Incumbent victim
gets blown around like litter,
thrown out the window.

emergency repairs to broken roads,
being less than expected,
i prompt some to ask too much.

damage,
storm-related damage,
a million surrenders
by early november,
i throw my arms up
suspending the normal.

wind, waves washed out
every east-west highway,
bypassed permission -
no such thing as
waiting for a good day.

bring in the guard and
hire flaggers, rebuilders
take gravel and rock from the
brooks and rivers,
reduce the cost of me,
consider me open to
no lanes of traffic
crossed-off gates in an absence of hope.

major reconstruction,
let's have a conversation about
existing doesn't mean just fixing
wounds suffered from the storm;

some words of warning -
be careful buying stake
in a girl who's longing for
the day she'll wake up and feel
relief from drowning.

Relentless
droplets of fear,
disguised in the
cotton fibers of
my sleeve,
absorbed in the
safety of
concealment,

unrecognizable
to your ignorant eye.

Relentless
specks of pain
shatter across the
weakening walls of
my heart,
devastated by the
daggers of
love,

shrouded by the
clout of your contumacy.

Relentless
streams of defeat
stain my
innocent cheeks,
washed with
resignation,
no longer sworn
to secrecy;

streams of defeat
drown my defense,
reveal a jumble of
hopeless
broken
p i e c e s.

terminate this
i cant
narrate this anymore,
cant take this.


miles behind,
oceans in between,
no rearview mirror
no hindsight debris

gaze straight,
fixation on open space
numb, riding waves
limbs dumb for oceans,
cant, wont stay,

motionless.
nothing but a


wilting bouquet,
don’t you
agree?

unusually calm,
remedied when he held the
once-starving me,
seems like a century ago -
but no less dramatic, just
oldfashioned now -
every day i await
gold.

infinitely flexible, malleable
in every way imaginable;
sprinkled in magic with a taste that can

2. complicatesimplifyconfuseand
clarify;

3. a compass with which castle crafters
map their masterpieces, built from layers of
similes and metaphors and symphonies of sound,
of memories and apologies and everything bound;

4. a reel of delicate threads which
fervently await a seamstress of words to
weave them together;


*impressionable when you don’t mean it,
fleeting when you do.

letters form words form sentences

mean nothing. what is

ink to paper

cursor to crater, take a

matchstick to bluffing -

blowing language of ethanol

from the mouth of a traitor;


empty english played weighted

spit low and stuck,

leave scars and scuffing and

i was never enough.

one of those astronomical,
super-events in outer space,
core-altering;

what happened was
You.

fooled myself into
believing you could save me;
still suffocating.

i feel the trace of your handprint on my heart,
a loop for every glimpse of love
a swirl for every start
of something beautiful.

we were
a wonderland-

i wonder when
(i know exactly when)

our bottomless free fall
hit rock
bottom.

Look up at the moon
and reach your hand toward the sky;
I reach for you, too.

dawn,
i am clean,
unmarked, but the day happens,
life happens;

she comes home at night,
abuses me,
ruins me,
dirties my purity.
she brands me with
her own scars and more with
fresh wounds.

her crimson ink
bleeds onto my lines, haphazardly
some days, rough days, most days.
when the world scored a
knockout and she's down for...
a while, she's
bleeding all over me-
splatters and splashes in a rush
and then just a drop, and
eventually it stops.

i swell in red, but
she can sleep now.
pen down.

dawn will rise again,
i'll start again,
clean.
the night i end blank,
safe from the whippings and
harshness of experience, and she
doesn't come to me-

it's the end of her,
the death of me.

they
settle a lonely haze over the
whole day
and this is when i miss you the most, when i
remember the warmth of your arms
fit snug around my body, the way my
head nestles a niche in your shoulder and your
flannel feels soft against my skin.

it's too bad we
lost our chance, but not
we-
me, really.
i scared you and
you ran, no matter what you
say. your assurance before
well, you
just didn't know what you were
committing to, did you?

except
i never held it to you,
never expected much
but, but what?
much was too much based on the
standards in your own head?

it doesn't matter that it's
too late (it's always too late) it's just that
it could've been good, could've been
exactly what you used to want and
exactly what you showed me
i could've had.

but you got afraid and we
lost our chance.

days like today i miss you,
want nothing but to crawl into
your bed, drift away next to
you while the rain falls all day and
into the night.

You are my anchor
Through the storms that threaten to
Pull me out to sea.

fingers slipping
losing grip,
gripping slits-


letting go,
though falling,
airless, weightless, *know nothing.

final words
start lost beginnings,
stories of an ending
started long before you pinned it-

i was
dying in the sun all along.

raging internal war. feeling bombs detonate in the caves of my core, exploded shrapnel tearing up my lungs, my stomach, my heart. but you cant see the lacerations, the spitting blood; just a despondent face, buried in hands that do a poor job of concealing it, so out of place.

Egg laid;
A brand new
Start
To a seasoned
Cycle.

A whole new
Everything,
If I could
Just
Break through this
Tough exterior.

Fear remains
undiscovered
For a
Moment,
But this won't
Last;

Blissful Ignorance
Innocence
Never Lasts.

fading into dark
oblivion, sensory
receptors gone numb.

While you sit across from me,
bound in your wheelchair,
you watch the race,
like every Sunday afternoon.
The late-day sun streams
through the glass door,
dancing off every word i don't say.
My silent gaze wanders outside,
as i recall the days when
trivial concerns plagued my
juvenile mind.
Can i play on the beach today,
i would ask my mother,
blissfully unaware that
Life held greater worries.
Now, my burning question
hangs, reserved,
for i dread its assuredly
lethal response,
yet i know and you know
that your end crawls closer,
fearless of what it will
Forever take away.

a boat settles at the dock,
restrained, lifeless,
desperate for release by the
magic touch of your fingers.
beyond the bay,
far beyond the
everyday continuum of ordinary,
a world awaits.

let the current of the wind
overcome the hesitancy and
fear which escape your disguise,
and consume those canvas sails with
brave existence.

spread your arms
wide like wings, and
let the wind breathe the
life of your flight.
the clear sky beckons you;
refuse to allow
stormy weather to stop you but
for a moment;
rough waters will reside.

let the salty air expand your lungs,
infiltrate your blood with
resolution, courage, fortitude.
the ocean ahead sees
endless possibility, if you believe that
nothing's impossible.

should you feel alone,
should you be fearful,
look to the sun and its blanket of clouds--
you will find me;
look to the moon and its
blanket of stars--
you will find me.
i dwell in the water beneath
your hull, in the
breeze of the earth
that sweeps your skin.

pursue your heart's desires
and acquire a taste for dreams, because
we'll dream; we will dream.

i see you in heaven's dreams.