you only snore the
first half hour after you're
asleep. I love you.

It’s the morning after the last heart session
Eyes open but brain still crackling with static and white noise
When I try it again
Hoping to get pen to paper
Before consciousness can recover sufficiently to intervene
And proffer pretty syntax to the poem
Hold the mind blank
And stack the words in rows of green growth
Like garden beds
That only need time and attention to bear fruit
Let truth come from some other place
Than reason or left brain
Or the extensive vocabulary
Meticulously indexed in the cranial cavity
Somewhere near the brain stem
Or maybe in the DNA
As C, T, G, and A
Storing data like binary only twice as complex
The recall mechanism operating in the darkness of our comprehension
Apprehension of its failure threatening to leave the poem unfinished
Unillustrated
Uncalibrated
Un-fact checked
Like that matters somehow
Like the facts are important in art
Like the right brain has no sense of propriety
Just as surely as the heart tells lies in gibberish
A chattering maelstrom of syllables in a cyclonic vacuum
And yet somehow the heart speaks with perfect clarity
Uncluttered rhythm
Timing and flow
So you know there is more going on here than we fully understand
Lend a hand to help decipher the intentions of a part of yourself wayward from the rest of you
Leading to a collapse of the ego
And a blurring of the lines between you and I
Turning discrete data into continuous
On the fly
On the run
Under sun and and moon and sky
Until the day that even death fails to be discrete
Or even an event any more important than a fire
Converting energy from one form to another

There once was a man with a life very kind
Until he was taken away
Now he's alone with the thoughts in his mind
And he never does like what they say

His memories hurt and his dreams are so good
That it's difficult just to wake up
Because life isn't kind anymore to the man
It's easier just to give up

His days are a hole so his brain fills the time
By telling him tales of the past
It showed him the things he had done to survive
The journey to failure was fast

He'd be here forever, alone in this place
A prisoner in his own mind
He'd run far away, change his name and his face
But his captors would chase him in kind

All he had was a mind now tormented with grief
That it gave him depression and tears
He needed an out, to turn a new leaf
In order to live out the years

He scrounged up a pencil and paper as well
And then he began to write
Things of no consequence, letters and poems
In an effort to emulate flight

When the words started coming, he first couldn't tell
That he no longer felt so alone
His thoughts were too focused on what to write next
That the writing itself was his home

He wrote on the page for a day and a night
Then he folded and put it aside
In a package of paper, stuffed tight in a box
That was red with a slot in the side

A man came to get them, the pages he wrote
To see what the people would say
But nobody knew what to do with the words
So they laughed and they threw them away

He never escaped, there isn't a smile
And the end of this woe riddled tale
Just a message to leave in the hopes you'll receive
A discarded man's thoughts in the mail.

Rain falls.
Like the way a drop of water may change the course of a river,
How a seed planted not here but there may for some form of life provide shelter,
How something as simple as a smile may prevent a name on an obituary form,
The joy relief brings when your first, second or third child after 9 months is born,
When one attempts to separate themself from the confinements of society.
When you look into their eyes the truth is seen so in yours you say "Just lie to me",
Not because you love the way they lie but to stop the rain falling from your eyes.
When you say goodbye for the last time and a lump forms in your throat,
You know and they know too that when they're gone you may not cope.
When something as precious as time gains realisation through nothing but death,
When all you have is time how much do you really have left.
Like a single song in your heart which teleports you back to the start.
The choices you made to get paid, get known or even get laid.
How a flower is tall in one season and how it begins in another.
When you woke up this morning but you did not see,
Such a trivial thing as opportunity,
Like a heart or a beat,
A hello in the street.
Rain Falls.

On nights like this,
I remember you.
Right after midnight,
on a full-moon night,
when I’m allowed to walk out …
Nights like these
Used to be our nights.
I limp to the oak tree
and sit down to breathe some air.
Ten years ago,
I sat under this tree,
and you were there.
Everything has changed
and you might have
Forgotten my name by now …
But I remember it as if
I was still alive yesterday.
Ten years ago,
Three in the morning
And I was wide awake
Sitting under the full moon
with you …
The oak tree above us
Was whispering slow
Like the unspoken wishes
Of the dead
Lying in their graves
In the cemetery
Spreading at the foot of the hill
On which our oak tree grows …
And you held my hand
Tightly in yours,
And you said, “I’m with you,
Forever.”

Well, here I am now
all alone
you must be sound and safe
sleeping at home.
Forever hasn’t ended yet,
so why are you gone?
I might be unable
To take care of you now
It’s out of my reach
To be by your side, again,
To make you smile …
But why don’t you visit me
Just once in a while?
I’m a wandering soul
Aims, I have none.
But the memory of you,
why hasn’t it gone?
Now the sun is rising
and the darkness disappears …
I must go back to sleep
to lie in my grave
in the cemetery
Spreading at the foot of the hill
on which our oak tree grows …
Until the next full-moon,
When I wake up
to remember you.

I want to have ***.
Not like how you think.

I want someone to cling to me
Need me

People say great things to you
when you're having ***

They encourage you

“God, this is great...”
“You’re great...”

I’d imagine them staring into my eyes                                                             ­     
“You are a champion”
  
“You have your life in order, unlike what your mother says.”
“You got this.”

That encouragement would rock our bed
and
make the neighbors jealous

Too bad I’m here

Sipping some cold coffee
with two lumps of sugar
and
a broken heart

I'm confident!* I scream.
A few people on coffee runs turn my way.
I check my watch and climb up on my chair.
I'm confident! I scream just a bit louder.
I am a confident woman!
I few more people pause from their lunch breaks
and shoot snide looks in my direction.
I climb up onto the table where I had been enjoying a Philadelphia roll
a few minutes ago. I take a deep breath.
I'm confident! I yell so the whole street can hear me.
I am! I don't care that I'm here alone! Or that I'm not my perfect weight!
I am confident!
I'm breathing heavily, glowing with the success of my impromptu performance.
I feel a tug on my pant leg, and below me is a weathered woman
who reminds me of my mother with the concerned wrinkles between her eyebrows
and the history in her eyes.
Get down here she snaps at me.
Get off that **** table. Now.
I hop down and sit at the table where I had been before my performance.
You can't just do that.
Do what?
Lie!
I don't answer right away, and I look around
to see if someone put her up to this. What?
Hunny she takes my hand You're not confident if you have
to prove it to me ok? So let's stay away from the tables and proclamations today.
As my mouth gapes open
she waddles off the restaurant patio and melts into the urban daytime rush.