The non-dominant slightly less coordinated one.
The one with more knuckle scars;
the expendable one.

There is a healing pencil eraser sized scar
where the capitate bone
(the part where your thumb sprouts from your hand)
should be and is the last time I checked.

I know how I got this one,
but I'm not sure how much longer the memory of
my flesh separating from my flesh will last.
Scars fade, memories disappear and,
hands tend to stay the same.

My left hand is often ignored and will continue to be,
until at last on my death bed I'll look down,
notice the scars again
and be grateful for the dutiful service
my slightly less coordinated hand provided me.

In a dream the word found me.

“Absolution” took my hand and brought me to tears
in a coffee shop.

Here’s to achieving illusive (and blatantly present) forgiveness!

To start
let me make myself worthy of grace.

I’ll be a bicycle tire left alone during winter, but now needed in the spring.

Would that be ok?

Now I’ll be a bouncy castle waiting
to be purchased for the hour
eager to please
quick to quadruple in size
easy to get lost in.

Next I’ll spin my own mythology,
would you like that?

So as Strabo immortalized Orpheus
Jensen immortalizes Jensen.

“I walked to and from school uphill both ways in the rain”
but
my truth is Swiss Cheese
carried in torn pockets
completely and unflinchingly real.

Here’s to forgiveness for others,

uplifting;
something special, easy and

a hand-written letter you
clutch close to your chest
not letting go until you and only you put it in your lovers mailbox.

Here’s to forgiveness of self

(once viewed as one views making a trillion dollars,
or being able to carry [your] my house
with [you] me
wherever I would wander)

and here’s to forgiving
to reliving myself of pain,
not a pardon
not an acquittal
but an opportunity to notice I am human and understand what that means.

Now at the end of this journey the ever-dawning sun of immortal love has broken my clouds, and here I am and here you are and here’s to accepting forgiveness!

So with an opened heart and sharpened mind
I’ll find the word again or let it find me
and choose to feed myself
what I earnestly feed others.

I made her worst fears come true.

After
I climbed the set of seemingly endless stairs,
walked silently into her apartment,
whispered “hello”
to her roommates,
and softly closed the door to her room
behind us,
all I had to say was
“yes”

and the tears came down in sheets.

Could you walk around the world?
You would move your feet
through red sand,
and dark green kelp
amid the darker-than-black
ocean floor.
Wouldn't that make you happy?

Imagine:

the people,
the many pigments,
the smiles and weathered faces,
the feeling that there is more.

The silence,
so real you can grab it
and wrap yourself in it.

The stillness,
embrace it, fight the fact it feels wrong,
and adjust.

As you walked, would you learn
to become part of something bigger than yourself?
You could be a mountain, a tree,
a bird you've only seen in books.

You could just be.

With setting-sun eyes I look upon your face.

I see midnight coffee refills (no decaf), and
2 AM train rides in your day-after-rain eyes.
There are secrets in your smile.
The concrete breaking wall we used to sit on
is now on top of your brow,
and the high tide is coming in to meet us.

In my face you might see the daybreak.
My smile has honest longing,
but my eye brows are a never-ending forrest;
you will find no answers there.

Please,

sit down beside me,
and hold me in silence
until we are better.

What happens when the words run out?
Me? I'll probably kick and pout.

What will you do when I have no more?
You'll probably beg and pound on my door.

Who I am kidding, that's not true,
because the truth is I'm a slave to you.
I want to want you,
        I want to need you,
                I want you to make me want you too.

I need your attention, I need your likes,
you are the breeze to my word-kites,
Please don't leave, please sit and stay,
I promise the words won't go away.

Sincerely,
Yours

When I left my house, the morning wore a shroud of fog.

When I arrived at the church,
I knew there would be no weddings,
(which she loved,)
only a funeral.

When I left her grave, the church-bells cried,
so I wouldn't have to.

When I finally slept,
I heard my prayers being answered
with a "I love you too sweetie."