There’s a dark grotto
Under the sea
With shelves and shelves
Of bottles
Clear, glass bottles
All of my secrets

A carefully watched castle
The middle of a concentric series of impassable walls
Surrounded by a forest of kelp
With razor-sharp teeth
And then the narwhals
The narwhal guards
Armed to the teeth with halibut-slicing knives
Their three-meter horns
Gleaming in the moonlight
Guarding
All of my secrets

Skeletons, trespassers of yore,
Strewn about the seafloor
Bones picked clean
By the scavenging *****
No one can enter
No one can leave
The grotto with the shelves
Shelves and shelves of clear, glass bottles
All of my secrets

But as for the *****
For the first time in centuries
The sunlight warms the waters
Melts the kelp
Kisses the narwhals
Buries the bones and torments the scavengers
Clearing away the darkness
A nonstop route through the castle
Protecting
All of my secrets

The tendrils of photons creep along
Wary
Ready for a fight
The grotto growls menacingly
Unguarded
For the first time in centuries
But upon the first touch -
Light meets stone -
The sea shudders
Ecstasy
And in repayment for salvation
Out come the bottles
Floating to the surface
Bathing in the light
All of my secrets

You were maybe a foot away from me, sitting to the side, accomplishing your task with silent efficiency. A chord rung out, emanating from your body; it drew me near. I stopped to watch, stopped to see, a man of beauty, a man of strength. No cries of anguish or pain, no cries of fear of structure or fear of imminent danger. Hope lifted in my heart; you had a different vibe than all the other guys. You could make me happy. You could keep me safe. You would laugh at my jokes and guard my wounded self-esteem.

And then four feet away, not that much later. We met for the first time, for real. A sudden recognition, an exchanging of names, a few witty (or ditzy?) comments. Four feet again, near the forbidden. Our eyes didn't meet, for you were distracted, lost in your own world of music blasting from your headphones. I traced the line defining your back with a marker that writes on air.

Seasons slipped by. You stood just six feet away in your savvy black bowtie. Fake, yes, but still considered formal. A cheap imitation at the very least, but to one of us, it's all the same. Closer yet, a foot again, only a seat away. I drew my fingers across the top of your surprisingly smooth hands, tracing your veins, the veins that carried your blood, faintly pulsing, speaking softly of gentle carresses and sweet nothings.

Eight feet away, across the classroom, I caught your eye. Mountains moved and dams ruptured as cool, silky waters quenched insatiable fires. There were things I noticed for the first time: the kindness that pampered children underlaying each tone, the strength that upheld the weak resonating from your arms, and the love that would not hesistate to sacrifice sparkling in your eyes. Suddenly, desire gripped me like a reawakened flame, heat up to par with the heat that causes your veins to bulge. I realized that those veins now contained my life's blood. My lifeblood.

I watched you run alongside me, ten feet away, racket up at guard. I've never told you that when you serve, you look exactly like the man on the back of the team shirt; indescribable yet immortalized for an eternity. Eternity, a neverending length of time, the amount of time I want to spend with you and you alone.

Twenty feet away, even further but still closer than ever. Twenty feet, the span of a hallway perhaps, from one set of locked doors to another heavy set. Still close, still close, for no matter the distance, we can bridge this gap. With what? With love. My love for you, and yours for me.


The lines before you sing softly, over and over, three resounding syllables: I love you.

A cloak of crimson petals
Unfurled for all to see
A strong and steady stem
Contented just to be

But when the wind ruffles
Her boisterous feathers
Roaring mighty fierce
And escaping rusty tethers

The petals are agitated
From their home they stray
The stem with thorns
Begins to wither away

The bees and the birds
Have deserted the one
With its beauty flown off
And its radiance undone

Little girl,
Will you do the same?
Take off and leave,
Quitting the game?

Everything was new to her
Everything was a game
She was a treasure
And yet an undeserved bane

She danced rainbows
On the shore
Laughed fire
Over the wind

Chestnut hair
Tumbled down an ivory back
Round blue-ish mirrors
Rested under slender brows
She sat down by the rocks
Watched the clouds drift around
With a chestnut prison beside her
Splashed by a bit of the ocean spray

Flawless -
In every way but one -
Insatiable curiosity beckoned her
Told her to open the lid
And so

She did.

Horrors spilled out:
One-eyed monsters
By the names of Envy and Greed,
Along with fat abominations -
Gluttony and Lust - paying no heed
To Pandora's shouts
Or attempts to flee

With tremendous effort
The lid fell shut
Trapping disheartened Hope
Within wooden walls
And she, the curse from the Thunderer,
Collapsed -
Her rainbows dissolved
And fire doused

Everything was dead to her
Nothing was a game
She was a treasure
And yet an undeserved bane

The river spoke to me.
I fell under the spell
Cast by his flowing voice.
A great rain ravaged the land,
Tearing at the innocent trees,
The skies mourned,
Crying even when
I finally arrived
At a sunbathed glade,
The eye of the storm,
Where everything
Stood still.

A god slept next to me.
The shadows of his face
Shifted with a graceful fluidity.
His skin was like silk,
Rippling in the breeze,
Perfect and serene.
If he opened his eyes,
I imagined they'd be
Priceless pearls
From the depths of the sea.

I watched him sleep.
Tiny puffs of air,
A manifestation of his
Once-divine breath,
Escaped his weary lips.
His chest rose and fell,
The vein in his neck throbbed angrily,
The blood inside
Surging against a dam.

I watched you sleep.
A wisp of air ruffled your
Indecisive hair,
The candle in the sky
Moved again,
Outlined the features of your
Now-mortal face,
Once lovely.

You roll over.
I watch your back, and
Before long,
I breathe with you.
In and out,
In and out,
In and out...

Until,
at last,
we converge.

Tread softly
Over the tracks of gentle spring
Come and go quickly
Like the breeze before the storm.

Make not a mark upon this world;
Sail through boundless seas
As larks and thrushes do.
Disappear from the flowering trees
With the incidental meet,
An ivory invitation's worth,
Of muffled May showers.

And enter as the wind
Carressing budding leaves - soft -
Cradling anxious clouds,
Cartwheeling up above
Against the paths
Of geese returning home,
Crying with muted colors.
And then the howling hushes -
Tuned at last -
With soft, almost silent, syncopations.

Tread softly, my love,
Over the tracks of gentle spring.

There were colors in my head,
A jumble, a medley,
Quickly whipping by,
Colliding into one another
Not knowing the time

To the left -  no, the right! -
Red and blue or black as night
Simple chords that have no name
To here and there yet it's all the same

Conductor!
Tell me where we're going
For only brazen confusion
Rings now to my ears
Call a lengthy rest
Four bars of four
Five or six, maybe more

To the left -  no, the right! -
Red and blue or black as night
Simple chords that have no name
To here and there yet it's all the same

Faint rumbling pulses
Underneath the dirt,
Resounds with the roar
Of sea-salty waves,
Tosses its mane -
Halves welded to whole.

To the left -  no, the right! -
Red and blue or black as night
Simple chords that have no name
To here and there yet it's all the same

Inspiration
Comes knocking twice a year
In the form of gentle snowfalls
Or heart-stopping storms
Moments that are captured
With the click of a button
And the whirring of lens

Is it really that easy
To capture a fleet-footed muse?

Is it really that easy
To capture what's worth ten thousand treasures?

Come back, my muse,
Knock on my door
For I have my camera ready now.

I'm ready for you.

A relationship is born when two strangers sit together at a table for the first time.  What’s he thinking?  Awkward small talk fills the air until gravity pulls them closer, and like a ball of hydrogen in space, everything begins to fuse.

H becomes He.  A single AIM convo becomes a series of texts exchanged despite freezing fingers.  A string of unrelated conversations becomes 81 Post-its on a clean white wall.  Somehow, across the span of a month, the heat increases, and as the couple warms up, their feelings expand, swelling to fill the space of a boisterous red giant.

When the initial passion dissipates, fusion begins again.  They swap secrets over rainbow-filled flash games, and helium reacts to form carbon.  Everything besides the core doesn’t matter - it’s all blown away, leaving a miniscule white dwarf, what two people feel for one another, aglow with the words that no longer need to be spoken.

As time passes, the light will fade, but its existence - the memories - remains forever.

Can you imagine
   the beach
          at night?
I dream each day
Each
    fleeting
          day

The seagulls would stop cryin’
And they would be asleep
Nary a soul would be in sight
But for the lone guy on the beach
The rocks to the right
Cast terrifying shadows
And their moonlit surfaces seem like
Ghasts of night

The waves pound in my head
Thud, thud, thud
A wave comes in
And smashes ‘gainst those pale sharp rocks
It claims some sand
And retreats again
Back to the depths of the lake

I would trail my feet along the sand,
To greet the rhythmic sea
The wave comes in again
And splashes at my feet

With the coolness of the water
The crispness of the air
I unfurl my wings and fly away
Leaving everything behind

glimmers in the night
give away their call
the deer scurry home -
waves rise and fall

out near the lake is new
a king and queen, a perfect two,
yet with each other had
they no truth - no glimmer
no glimmer to bind
to call the deer home
a home shot, dying down
but no complaint had she
and he was too often in town

the angels in waiting were true
they listened and watched
and listened and watched
they repeated the words
listened and watched
and after a while
pearled fingers tapped
padded moss mats
asking for more
by betting on doom

and the glimmer,
the lights of day!
without hesitation
they withered away
with those angel wings
as greed, and hate,
came into play

the lights of the night
no longer in this forest reside
they moved away quick
in here no room exists
for tarnished angel wings