There are mausoleums of empty space and stark,
White bones with shallow pools of water
Shifting over stone floors

The echo of footfalls send ripples down the hall,
The crawling, creeping feeling which up my spine follows,
To ask the final question,
Who calls upon the dead?

Call upon the empty tomb.
Ask for death by name.
Poison, cyanide, hanging by harsh coiled rope.

The generosity of life itself may now escape you,
This I can promise is true, however should you beg to carry on
I warn you.

Death, for all its rewards, will give nothing.
You may reap the joys of your losses,
Loss of pain, of hurt, of stress, of ridicule.

But there will be a great loss
Of soft touches, of warm regards, of praise, of breath.
Surely cruel words are bruising and brute force is will breaking,
But there are summer rainstorms that long to wash away your tears.

Cross the faded line where the
Sea meets the sand, stand
Between your world and our lives,
Doubt never the power beneath you,
Within you.

Deny yourself nothing pertaining to
Pleasure. May the wind kiss you,
May the sun warm until it burns you and
May your lovers never hurt you.
Rain will hide your blush if you
Can learn to enjoy the chill.

Sounds of your breath can
Bring you comfortable proof of
How deeply the universe loves you
In the deafness of coastal cities.

Tell those you’ve never known
That I love you, take ownership
Of your stand-in position as a mouthpiece
Of the hypothetical heavens,

Hold no contempt for what is
Uncontrollable, weather as an
Obstacle, creeping fears and
Bad drivers. There is
Nothing which can permanently
Stop them but acceptance of
Their inherent right to exist
and immediate cause for dismissal.

Love, for you can never regret it.

There are so many ways to learn and grow,
to challenge one’s views of life, of death,
of the time in between.

At times, yes, there is a harshness to the wind,
a bite in your mother’s words and an unrelenting squirrel
emptying your bird feeder, but
know that there will be reward for your
continued generosity of thought,
and your assumption of the best in everything.

Given patience, the universe reaches out with gentle touches,
leaving offerings of love in the form of smooth pebbles,
pigeons and friends who offer to buy lunch.

We must learn to accept
the love we are offered,
no matter how unconventional.
Seek this love, be it in the form of a high five,
or in extra napkins for your glovebox,
in petting friendly stray cats.

Find love everywhere
and accept it, because those moments are the other half of the transaction.
Where you offer up time, the universe looks to compensate your loss.

Accept the spare dime in your cup holder, the acorn cap left on your windowsill
and the smiley face drawn on your cup,
as signs that the love you put out is equally
and fully returned by the world.

vicodin is a long term friend
with a warrent for my liver
and my life.

1:43am
we had an appointment
and god only knows
i could never be late for such
a chalky sense of closure.

and the young paramedic
who burst my vein and scolded me
could only pray his words
meant more than the hum of streetlights
as my body exchanged existence
for the embodiment of thought
and a brittle concept of my phrenic nerve

which was never more at peace than when
my lungs remembered the luxury
of standstill traffic

of weighted morals

of crushing insecurity's release
and the resulted ballooning
as squashed egos cry, and the garage door screams as it's yanked open

horrid sounds and tortured motion on both accounts

spiritual cataracts torn free
commercialized visions now blur

as the orange bottle morphs from
vicodin to paracetamol

equalized views in my bloodstream
as the sheet metal ceiling shifts to plaster tiles

to a TV set

to a bathroom mirror

to an agonized woman next door

to the back windows where my mother cries where no one but the whole world can watch

to a blue plastic mattress and a first floor window covered with bars

to a pale green day room with a caged TV
where there was bleach in the stomach of a nine year old

where the dying took their resurrecting breath between games of spoons

where the hinges screamed and blood pressure was taken three times a day

this where the living came to kiss death goodbye

until next time

I can't keep myself in control.
Envy lashes in spite of all I've loved and told.
Of course I'm an afterthought.
It took weeks for you to find the guts to admit you have no spine.
You leave me hanging here, lost and terrified.
Then give me all this pain to find.
I thought I had it all settled into hidden contempt.
But now, new anger spikes my drink as I destroy myself.
You found me, you lost me.
You left me broken, empty hearted.
Nothing's ever hit so hard except for back when you first broke my heart.
I thought you could bring me the stars, now I realize all you bring with you are new scars.
I thought you'd scared the monsters from my head, you had just laced them into every "I love you" you have ever said.
I keep thinking we're alright, maybe you just don't always see when I talk to you.
Now I'm realizing that maybe I'm just see through.

Wind snaps through wild grain sprouted along the edge of the harbour
The aching creaks of the windmill over head orchestrate a haunting song
An appropriately ominous farewell to our weary sailors
Just beyond the port, we stand freshly alone and wait
We wait as they begin to vanish into the same fog from which they had appeared just a week ago
We watch as their vessel becomes a mere imperfection against a looming wall of clouds
And as they fade into the horizon, the sky darkens in anticipation of unavoidable ruin
Towering clouds shed foreshadowing tears
Weeks will pass, two months past when they should have returned will have come and gone
The same haunting cries of the windmill will soon be joined by echoing church hymns
Adorned in black veils and white flowers, we will be bathed by the same sorrowful clouds
Oppressive clouds will hang low above a candlelit procession
These fate burdened clouds will begin to weep, raindrops mingling with widows' tears