I just wanna leap through the window
of my introspective confines
housing the old familiar finger tapping
that i frequent in my times of need
maybe i should pray
clutch my ever-nervous fingers together
long enough to shell out conversation
with a presence hollow enough
to hear the echoes inside its holy

clear water streams down
my gaunt, blank expression
as if i just exited the ocean,
my heart desperate to devotion
letting go of the only hand
that's ever reached out to help
i'm sorry that i can't seem to
bring myself to hold on
& this cliff diver seems to have forgotten
his bungee cord at home
packed away in the same suitcase
that shelved his insecurities

I keep trying to piece together
a functioning poem but nothing
is fitting the way I need it to
I guess it's a symbol of my mind
Or anything  having to do with me
I have pieces of unfinished business floating in my notepad
all I can do is write the episodes of my life that flash in my mind
I didn't pay for a drive through movie
but I got in free
except it's all things
that've happened to me
A showcase of my emotions
over the years plastered in my mind
on a giant screen
I don't ignore you
I want to hear every word
you speak so I never forget them
but how do I explain
"I didnt hear what you said
I was watching the episode
of when I broke his heart
the morning after his birthday
I'm sorry will you repeat that?"
I always loved picture frames
as a child thinking they could hold some precious moment I never had

Childhood
more like a broken swing set
in an abandoned park
If little me only knew
I would be walking around
with thoughts of you
I have a list of things that replay
in my mind and I fear it will never stop
I am an abandoned house that is only filled with pictures of my memories
Sometimes I feel so fragile
I think if you were to hold my hand
it would shatter
The paint is peeling from my walls
and there are holes in my floorboards and after walking in the dark
of my house for so long
i believe I've fallen through
one of them

My only hope is when the
sun finally rises I can crawl out
to reconstruct
I will replace every fried wire
and every broken board
I will paint and furnish
until my head is my home
and that doesn't sound
like a nightmare anymore

My only hope is that you can stay until I've sent every demon my way packing

don't feel sorry for me.
I am a competent,
satisfied human being.

be sorry for the others
who
fidget
complain

who
constantly
rearrange their
lives
like
furniture.

juggling mates
and
attitudes

their
confusion is
constant

and it will
touch
whoever they
deal with.

beware of them:
one of their
key words is
"love."

and beware those who
only take
instructions from their
God

for they have
failed completely to live their own
lives.

don't feel sorry for me
because I am alone

for even
at the most terrible
moments
humor
is my
companion.

I am a dog walking
backwards

I am a broken
banjo

I am a telephone wire
strung up in
Toledo, Ohio

I am a man
eating a meal
this night
in the month of
September.

put your sympathy
aside.
they say
water held up
Christ:
to come
through
you better be
nearly as
lucky.

My fingers laced a crown,
as you carried me into the lapping water.
I drew a breath...

And you tucked me into death's bed.
Water filled my lungs
with a slip of your invasive tongue.
--A goodbye kiss.

You left me there.
Slipping down into the icy waves.
Beneath the rising water.

My breath gone as you dissolved from my bubbly view.

She was beautiful, so blissfully ignorant to the turmoil in the world. She encapsulated all the beauty of the earth. Looking at her was like the first time experiencing what love was. The first sun rise, the first rose, the first ***** cat. Her clothes danced around her never really touching her; as if afraid the slightest brush against her tanned skin might alter it in some way. Nature knew.

I wish the traveling circus were still around to run away to. It's not about being afraid to leave as much as it is needing a place to go. But my father was a mountain and my mother was a hole. And we're caves, mouths open and full of the cold. Been sitting so long myths have been made about the things that live inside us. The children come on dares to look in there. And yell in fear, at first only to have those sounds echo back. Then they laugh. There was never anything to be afraid of. Our bodies are full of that noise. Mostly the laughter. It lasts longer. It feels better. But is easier to forget because no one ever learned anything by laughing as much as being brave. You have to be scared to be brave. And moving from this place takes the strength of an earthquake sometimes. But you should know, your hands will never be big enough to hold all the rubble when the mountain crumbles. I remember when the cancer hit. The chest x rays from when they removed the portocath. Backlit, your chest resembles a busted cemetery gate from some ghost scene in a Sherlock Holmes movie. Broken. From letting all your ghosts go. And don't focus on all the things your hands can't hold. Your head fits just fine. Your hand. Cupped over your mouth to catch all your sighs. Can hold a cup of coffee to give to someone. Flowers. A poem. Tonight. Tonight you realize you're a mountain twice removed. A marble statue. So strong and so beautiful people will come a long ways just to see you.