The city spikes that peer out over
rock-spires in the distance taste like
coffee grounds and finger paint.
They're bitter, but they matter.

Maybe someone north of Washington will
read our S.O.S. and send an airplane full of
urban-types to gentrify our graves.

And maybe Jesus saves.

Or maybe Jesus raves with coked-up
Gandhi up in Jersey, when the
winter turns to mush.

So you want to know
what death looks like...
It looks like her,
Make-up done perfectly
Red lips that could ****
Nails black as dusk
Heels sharp as knives.

Death.
Looks like her eyes
Captivating.
Stunning. *Yet lifeless.

If guilt and mistakes are at stake
And you're stuck in a rut that's deep with door closed shut
I urge you to break open windows and take, take what you know
And put it in a skill
Use your strength and your will
For only you, this soil, can till
I want you to walk boardwalks and talk to crowds
Convey your heart and speak out loud
To draw and write the things you feel
For though it is not original, or perhaps good enough to show others
You've given yourself something that is real

If the past clings to your ankles and you can't shake it's shackles
Take the rings of iron bound to your feet and break the bindings
The past will not last in your mind anyhow and how you know that you're free
Is when you are able to stand and accept life's steep, and harsh fee
And move and go and know and live and be happy, regardless of it's toll
And if you can do this than you have done more than all the rest who feel best
And you have beaten the ultimate test
For happiness comes sparingly in short bursts
And if you're simply warily comparing the outcomes of actions
Then you are not alive, and the beauty will pass you by
and the chance for happiness will digress and leave you alone

If you can hear then you listen to songs, and words
the footsteps the heartbeats, the wind in the tree's and it's birds

If you can see then you look at the art on the walls that apart from yourself
Can still bring to you some beauty in heart
You look at the bridges in Vermont that in the orange flush fall
Paint the world their colors as they fall from tree's that stand tall

And you like that tree should stand in the wind and not bend to the fate
For when you move with the wind you'll find that happiness does not wait

So as you stare from the window in the stone house you have built
As the flowers you brought from outside are gone, or start to wilt
And you see the sunshine line the paths that you know you should walk
And the people who stand in bands with whom you know you should talk
I hope that the cold of the stone which for years you have known
Serves reminder to find the courage to walk through the door which you abhor
And find the life and light and peace that I know the world for you, has in store.

I almost threw up when I saw her
Holding lightly to your arm
I could feel my heart
Rise up in my throat

When I remembered
You aren't mine.

I have no claim over you
You are not mine to love
If you really loved me
You would be here
And if I really loved you
I would be with you

But here we are
Not loving each other

With other people
Living lives separate from our designs
Perhaps this is how it has always meant to be
Perfect predestined love can't be predesigned
By humans with so many fatal flaws

Fingers make contact with hands,
                                             we can’t stand like,
butter
flies
     on
       a
tree branch

amidst a strange wind.

Fluttering above
trees rooted in sidewalks,
out of sight.

And it feels like
the texture of our shirts
is truth,
    the cat fur,
       the bed sheets,
           our clenched teeth,
Molly whispers in our head
a meditative melody,
and we’re rollin,'
our infinite eyes
hung together
in widened silence,
enjoying a good lie.
Indigo children
with no words, just hands,
applauding the feeling,
dreading the end.
Time past,
grown up,
deflated,
we come down
to see that
sober is just
categorizing
adjectives.

stop killing
stop hating
stop terror
I'm scared