It was an atmosphere
It was an oxygen mixed with southern fog
Southpaw gloves tied in sailor knots
Waves of golden grains in ocean wind
The rolling hills behind property lines

It was the question you asked
not with words but in the way you breathed against the window glass
as I leaned against your Corolla
And we sang under the overpass

It was graffiti
It was graffiti
It was the cavernous concrete cats with purple hair and acid wash jean jackets
melting the light of their city's street lamps into the obsidian void of moistened pavement

It was the way the reverb spread the major seventh across the sky with burnt orange cascading into the violet of the minor ninth
which reminds me of crickets and summer nights (and violins and cellos and midwestern jazz bars)
and how bar chords are a guitarists way of flipping off a crowd-
surfing the web for an answer to why I'm still single-
handedly the handsomest man in my car currently.

It's the cloth in my empty passenger seat
soaking up the air of my A/C heat
and the scent of the soil spilt from the succulent I was given at a wedding last fall
and now I don't know if my trunk will ever smell clean at all

But I'll let this night be interstellar
I'll take a bath in the Big Dipper and write you a letter about Orion's Belt
or how I miss the stars sparkling in your eyes making contact with the E.T. in me.

Phone me home, darling.
I'm lost at sea.

-W.J. Thompson

I remember the noble days
When the poems I wrote were more
Than just half-disguised attempts to save myself
Too often now, I forget
To remind you that you're beautiful

You are beautiful
You are what makes life worth living

Too often now, I forget that words are meant to be
Out and spoken
And even though each stands alone in its meaning
Like the language that binds them all together,

Not one of us is alone.

(n); mistakes, broken hearts, emotions
(adj); overdone, drastic, desperate
(v); to cry, to please, to manipulate, to be a "victim"

These chains get heavier and heavier.
They get harder and harder to carry .
As I fall to the ground I cry and cry.
So much pain, so much pain.
A light shines down on me.
So bright it breaks every chain.
That light was Jesus. He broke every chain.

I was five when I asked my mother,
while holding a box of crayons,
"What color is me?"
She smiled and explained I was the color yellow;
radiant and life giving.

I grew, and grew, and when I was ten I asked my mother again,
"What color am I?"
She leaned really close.
Looking me up and than down.
"Blue," she spoke.
"The color of the skies and sea's.
Vast in wisdom and deep with honesty."

When I was fifteen
and started to come into myself,
I asked my mother again,
"What color am I this day?"
She looked at me, reading me as if I was  book.
"Red. You are the color red.
Unshakable with passion but uncertain in your strength."  

The year I turned twenty, my life was barely beginning.
I was filled with such trepidation about moving away from my family.
I asked my mother, standing in the threshold of our home,
"What color am I now?"

My mother paused in her answer,
her eyes seeing something I never would or could.
A smile spread on her tired face,

"My darling little girl,"

She spoke touching my cheeks.

"You are the color of the sun, yellow; radiant and life giving.

You are the color of the skies and sea's, blue; vast in wisdom and deep with honesty.

You are the color red; unshakable with passion, and most certain in your strength.

My bright and shining daughter,
you are a rainbow for all to see.

I didn't really know much about whirlwind love
or shotgun weddings
Until I went out with a forbidden boy in my new city
almost immediately we were struck by lightning
electric and on fire
with his hand on my face
dancing and kissing and sweating and laughing
someone thought we were married
so to make it right
he got down on one knee and I spent the week as Mrs. S
I broke all my own rules with him
*** with the lights on, holding hands in public
giving up my jaded and calloused heart
my favorite moment?
standing in the shower with him
listening to Beach House
hot water falling on us like sweet honey in the summertime
the soft glow of afternoon sunshine beaming in from the window
we took turns washing each other's hair
and kissing each other's necks
nothing has ever felt so pure
so safe
so beautiful
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