For years
I have gasped in
Music
replacing myself
with it,
finding its expression
better than any attempts at my own
And there is peace,
however brief.

They call me a dancer,
but I have lost something
in these years.
something hard and sacred,
and in losing it
I have grappled to find it
not knowing
that it is gone forever
with the song that carried it away.

You are there with it,
within the song.
So when I dance I can be with you;
and when you text me
from out of the ****** blue
it is slightly shocking and
it is from far away-
   (farther than the song, anyway.)

That i can hardly read your name
that I can barely make out the words
of your bluish text
because both are from another planet,
and the experience is as vague as
how I choose to remember you.

And how can I answer your call?
Luckily, dancing requires no words.

Discipline and self-reservation
are not my strong suits;
I'm a passionate person (as you well know)
but in remembering you
I have mastered both.
I don't indulge in your memory anymore.
your kisses are gone with my size 2;
I don't even remember what that feels like.
And our conversations
which I once memorized like lyrics
now murmur distantly,
hum like a deep rhythm.

And though it rests within me,
forever it will sleep.
because I have buried the rhythm
like I have buried your name.
I can hear it,
I can even sway my hips to it,
but I will not call back,
and I will never invite you to dance again.

You are gone.
This song and my dance are all that remains.

Like the swooned flamingo
Fall clumsily
into my arms, soft bird.
Against me gently,
Your sleeping flesh
would push
and I would succumb
to your shape,
trapped by the bulbous density
of our peace,
And I,
I would bow to you.

Take down the street lights
I"m not afraid of the dark,
Nor am I any less vulnerable
if my isolation is magnified
by one of these buzzing
thin g s.

Their odorous hum is offensive
and they violate my vision of the
innumerable galaxies
living simultaneously
with ours.

I squint,
wanting to witness Them
as they witness Me,
But even the moon's illumination
   shining down acceptance
      like high noon heat
is interrupted
by the harsh orange-ness
stinking up
   the shallow space.

The shadow they cast
hovers beneath me
   lonely, irrelevant;
I prefer the one the moon draws,
dripping out behind me
to linger in places I have passed,
or stretching out in front of me
   like a perpendicular mirror
to show me places I've yet to go...

Take down the street lights:
Of these shadows
and of any mysteries the Darkness holds
   I am not afraid.

The feeling is like mushrooms.
That's the only way I can explain it,
but to sobers I say,
It's like being reminded of an old truth
you once learned, but forgot about
until recently.

You've wandered into the forest
taken an inviting path
And when you come to the tree
at which you usually glance,
acknowledge in passing,
You decide this time to stop and take in
its bark-bound beauty.

Tall, cylindrical like a leg
rough skin with feather hair,
the tree is still, like calm,
harmless.
Unable to resist, you reach out to touch it
feel the hard bark under your palms
the whisty brushes against the leaves
As the breeze makes movement
all around you, small rustles,
Nature at rest...
It is the same tree you've always passed,
but something has changed.

- Flashes of an old lover laughing
or pulling you into an embrace,
eating,
walking up to the car,
looking away -

You withdraw your hand from the bark
and use your eyes instead
to survey the trunk you thought
was shallow.
Though you are alone
it seems that something is aware of your presence,
not a threat to it,
not like a predator aware of its prey
or even visa versa;
But for some reason
you get the oddly familiar sensation that
This Tree
is looking back at you.

And indeed it is rational
to decide that you were in
a nostalgic mindset,
an imaginative contemplation
on such a natural force as
Momentum,
and you can wiggle free of the feeling
that way;
But you have to admit,
there is something about
the moment,
about the tree
and about the way you're almost finally
seeing each other
that seems...
intuitive.

Gloom and
Gusto
Degrade my little hands,
Green with the slime
and grime
and grit
and sticky dirt
Stolen from the
Gut of my enemy,
My God.

Dreaming of greatness,
consumed by the girth
of life and sin
only to find that it
is not Good.
That my gluttonous hunt
as been but the
Greed of questions,
the fervor of eager,
That my mind,
my soul,
is grotesque.

And all this time
I thought this was
Graduation.

Golly gee, a tree!

So tall he stands, as from a dream.
I stroke his spine, but without a purr
He whistles back,
To me he lures.
Hands rest softly,
Knees bent weak,
I close my eyes to hear him speak:
"Child, baby, sell your soul.
It's me to whom your secrets told.
Sit down, be still, and feel me breathe.
Be sure you know me before you leave.
Alone forever, a tribe you'll lack,
I love you baby, so whistle back."

One single tear sent down my cheek.
My eyes are open, but hands still meek.
A slave myself, I'll never be free;
I belong to him, my friend, the tree.