These things happen I suppose.
They always happen.
I used to care about something, you know.
I did.
I used to feel something when I stared at the sky.
Now the hardwood feels cold under my feet,
and my lungs have lost their warmth.
The clouds eat me whole as I walk home.
They smile.
Sometimes I do too.
But I've wandered too far this time,
these steps don't look familiar.
Someone still sleeps inside this house,
but it's not me.
Someone still lives inside these bones,
but it's not me.

I woke up with a headache again today.
This time because I knew
you didn't want to stay.
It's strange how words repeat themselves.
And no matter how much I thought
it couldn't all be for nothing,
I guess it was.
But that's okay.
I'm used to this place.
At least I know I won't
ever let anyone else in again.
It's just easier than losing
something you never had.
How foolish of me to think
I could ever be what you wanted.
You'll always deserve oceans;
I'm sorry that I am only rain.
And no matter how much I give,
I will never be enough.
You say you don't feel the same
as you used to, and that's okay.
At least you love me enough
to tell me you don't.

I feel it beginning again
Like some sort of torch being lit for the first time
In a long time
Like that song you used to love, rediscovered
I found blue eyes again,
And with them I found that sort of hope
That invades your mind
I keep finding you in the corners,
That sort of beauty that too often takes
A lifetime of breaths to explain
You are taking root in my heart,
And I am scared again.
Because I am asking you to be the light
That hits my clear prism
To create something more incredible than
Either of us could have achieved on our own

You don't have to say
anything.
Just gather together and let
your hearts pound,
so that you know
that your rhythm
is never
alone.

Those who love will never find it.
Those who love will write odes to crisp fall mornings
And hear symphonies crunched out of the yellow leaves beneath their feet.
Those who love will smile, even though they know
it will give them away
They will offer themselves up as if they had never given the mirror a second glance,
Let themselves be beaten like drums,
And a drum is just a bucket of silence
until you beat something out of it,
Beat something out of it.


Those who love will find poetry in the steam of their coffee
And beauty in even the worst of times;
Leave names like kristallnacht in our history books because they know that broken glass looks like stars,
And when a person truly loves there is nothing, nothing that can stop them from hoping.
People are like buckets of silence
Until you make something out of them,
Make something beautiful.


People who love know that tears
are the same as rain, and they are ready for monsoons
Because loving is lonely,
and for every drop out of shining eye
there are hundreds more waiting in the sky
and the people who love will dance in the downpour,
Collect every drop they can hold where the silence once was because drums can hold tears too,
and they will still be silent until you splash
and make something out of it,
make something beautiful.

We used to sit together in this place,
my young eyes wide as we blew bubbles in the shade.
Sidewalk chalk lay in a pile at our feet,
As we huddled in the tiny shelter from the afternoon’s heat.

Our hands were full of sour blueberries,
Ripe, but not yet sweet,
Freshly picked in the backyard,
And eaten right away.

Now I’m sitting here again,
I’m bigger, but there’s still space for two.
And one space will always be empty,
As I sit here and remember you.

New born babies don't have fully developed lungs

When I was thirteen my mother told me
The story of my birth,
December 29th 1995

She brought me home, but something wasn't
Right, because I was blue and didn't
Move
She took me to the children's hospital
Where I stayed for two weeks, but
This poem isn't about me,

Because there was a lot of other blue babies too
All with the same underdeveloped lungs
And still bodies,
There was one baby
Who was in the room next to mine,
Just beyond the thin hospital curtain

Every night her mother would sit next to
Her, her with tubes up and down her veins
Laying in that little plastic box
Meant to keep the blue babies alive

This women would sing Amazing Grace
To her newborn, and according to my mother
She had a beautiful voice

She was praying nothing would happen
To her blue baby, and so was
My mother, but for me

One night the women's voice wasn't singing
Anymore, the lullaby was over and she
Was screaming
Because I'm the one writing this poem
And her singing couldn't make her baby
Any less blue

That baby's little plastic box couldn't do its job,
So now the mother is feeling the same way

And the screaming was
Heart wrenching, something I never want to
Feel,
A scream my mother never wanted
To hear

Today I went into the ocean
And my lips turned blue, along with my hands and legs
I couldn't help myself from thinking
Of that blue baby and Amazing Grace

Sometimes I wish I was the
Blue baby, and that the Amazing-Grace-Mother's
Words could have meant something
More
Than the stillness of a baby with
Underdeveloped lungs

Listen.
You can almost hear the raindrops
whisper to one another.
Listen.
You can hear the rhythm of your footsteps
Muffled by the puddles on the ground.
You say you love the rain, yet you complain
Every time it reaches out to touch your face.
It is as if each raindrop is a space between
One second and the next,
Seperating the past from the present.,
The present from the future,
And it is a cliche, but they say
That now is called the present because each second
Is a gift.
Wrapped up in paper they call clouds
And stolen the very instant it is unwrapped,
You always wonder
What you will open next.
And in a clap of thunder you realize
It is not the rain you hate, but the future.
Theres always somewhere to go,
Someone to see, some reason
‘I cant go there with my hair like that’
Some reason to say I'm sorry,
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry.

Listen.
The rain never apologizes ,
And that's what makes it beautiful.
Somehow it reflects a time when man was primal,
Before he gave himself the right to fear,
And it was simple,
And it was beautiful.

Listen.
The rain whispers *I love you,
And I am not sorry.

metal redolent
fingertips decorate my
thighs with beautiful
scarlet stripes; your words
have left a signature that
stings on my delicate flesh