In bright light, your demons look absurd,
dressed in cheap costume, seams showing,
little more than a sheet with holes to make the eyes,

Yet in the dark, they terrify,
prey on your fears,
tear through your defenses,
twisting your desires into your identity
feeding lies back on a loop
“No one will ever love you”
“You’ve already lost the one”
“How pathetic you are”
“She’s was the only and she is gone”
“He’s the only one that could make you come”
“How fat you are, or you’re too skinny”


And you believing them,  
lay down curled in their scaley arms
convinced that they are silk,
while they devour your
beautiful, perfect center,
confusing intimacy with pain,
trust with submission
getting off on your underworld fantasy
as you plan the eulogy
for your own funeral


In the light, you can see
the victim hood that you wear,
of your own design,
sewn by your hand
and pulled tight
over your eyes

With a gentle gesture
you can slide it up above your soft sensitive lenses
and recognize just how alone you’re not,
like a child who hides their eyes
and believe themselves to have disappeared

Love has not abandoned you,
you my love have chosen to share
your unprotected heart with
people and places,
substances and situations that do not serve you


Yet you’re so **** beautiful,
if you could see your
own true form you’d weep
for it’s too much to behold and yet
you lay with leeches willingly;

you’d laugh at the tears your crying
over some silly boy or girl, who, more lost than you,
did you the deepest favor by checking out of the
twisted motel that you’ve fashioned for yourself

She’s not the only one that can make you happy,
he’s not the only one that can make you come;

you’ve confused lust
and desperation with love,
as the dark is so want to make you do

My love; you’ve arrived here,
in a body that is beautiful,
with a gorgeous mind
and a future, that if you choose, can be so bright

I know it’s hard to leave dark places,
having left many of my own
but trust me on this accord,
leave your hood upon the floor,
and though your demons will thrash and scream
politely suggest they **** themselves as you twist the handle on the blinds  and let the light shine brightly in

We need you out here in the light where demons are nothing more
than sheets on springs that will never touch your light again

We see you beautiful, just as you should see yourself.

Somewhere in the distance an alarm is sounding.

For most, it’s transparent,
indistinguishable from the cacophony
of life’s noisy complexity,
causing no disruption in their slumber.

For others, it’s a whisper, one they
are convinced they are imagining,
hearing things perhaps.
One that causes but a shift from
one side of the bed to
the other as the night
becomes strange,
yet continues

For fewer, it’s an itch, a constant
distraction on the razor’s edge.
Like a dream, almost remembered
that slips away when attended to.
They stir in their sleep,
slouching toward morning,
holding on to night.

For fewer still, it’s deafening, impossible
to ignore, evolution, rising like the sun,
at times blinding in it’s beauty, with
a ferocity that demands an audience.
Those few are dreaming lucidly, fully aware
that waking is inevitable, yet still afraid
of the messy road that lay ahead.
Some have opened their eyes
only long enough to strike the alarm
in favor of five more minutes

For the fewest, sitting up in bed, eyes open,
alarm still ringing, groggy, like waking in a
strange bed, unsure of the surroundings.

Recognizing beauty, grateful for the
day, and the moment, coming to terms
with the messy nature of evolution;
so many sleeping in their bed around them as they
themselves, prepare to have their feet on the floor



And a handful have become the alarm.

Walking among the world,
careful not to disturb those
immersed in the dream,
whispering gently to fewer,
speaking quietly to fewer still,
wrapping their arms around the fewest,
rocking them gently,
and warmly embracing
the handful, reunited with
age old friends.

You will know them through
chance encounter, coincidence,
synchronicity, serendipity or happenstance.

You will find them in song, in poetry, in a
summer breeze, an old oak, in a comment
overheard in aisle seventeen.

Listen closely my love. And have no fear,
even the softest light when awakened
is brighter than the most brilliant sun of
the dream.


Somewhere in the distance an alarm is sounding,

calling you to see your own beauty,
to reject the insecurity,
**** the lies,
to recognize the
demons for what they are,
their costumes,
once so convincing,
look absurd in the light of day.

The lover that lied and the lies you tell yourself will
seem so unimportant as black light is useless
in the sun

You were made for the sun.



Somewhere in the distance an alarm is sounding,
it’s time my love, to wake up.

You’ll find me in the kitchen fixing breakfast, your favorite.

There were more than 200 people
at the party, spread out
across my lawn,
from dusk to nearly dawn,
swirling in colorful pockets
of conversation.

Undetected,
one of them left:   ❤️ U  
out of soap, on my bathroom mirror.  

At first I thought perhaps that it was you.
And then, all at once, I realized that it was me.  
It was finally me.
Thus, I drifted off to sleep.

I don't want you to bother
building up a thick lather,
your shower-soaped hand
moving between your legs,
then reaching the long-way round to
spread yourself wide open, bending forward
just so that you can drag the steel edge of a razor across
your soft skin

I’ve never stood
in a field of wild flowers and
thought it to look overgrown

You don’t need a single drop of perfume
on your *******, near your *** or on
your sheer white tank as I don’t mind
the taste or scent
of your sweat,
dripping
from your summer skin,
glistening in the
afternoon heat.

No need to burn
your soft long locks between
two tongs,
to pull them taut, or blow them dry
to make them straight.

Your curls,
untamed and  
and unpredictable
need no refinement;
I'll follow them as they
twist and turn

I want you my love,
unvarnished,
unapologetic,
unfinished,
unrealistic,
and most
assuredly
unshaven.

When next love knocks upon my door
I'll invite her in with warm regard
and offer her a cup of tea
as we make introductions

When next love knocks upon my door
I'll not rush her or make haste
but rather let the time unfold
as naturally as ocean tides

The next time love knocks on my door
I’ll set aside all expectation
like children dancing in the rain
happy just to be alive

When next love knocks upon my door
I’ll find a way to let her know
that while I’ve not been waiting for her
I’m happy she’s arrived
she’ll find someone that loves themselves
absolving her of great demands
save for just a moonlit dance

When next love knocks upon my door
I'll read her verses that I've written
and sing her songs forged by my hands
to make the shape of my heart plain

If love decides that she will stay,
not for the night, for ever more
I’ll love both wisely and too well
And remove the knocker from my door

Don’t look long on the darkening of the night
And give no energy to their gaze
They look upon us from crumbling vantage points
steadfast but hands empty, save for what they steal

Don’t look long on gilded pyres
Give no contribution to their cause
hollow eyed and wayward souls
They’re simply drawn to you my dear

Don’t look deeply into the dark
And hope that you will find the light
The bottom is still much further down
but it tries yet still to brush itself across your lips

Don’t look at your own reflection
through the lens that they provide
Instead sit here in repose
And conjure images of light

Don’t look away from truth
But Be the seer and the seen
and let the rag and bones
of the pretty broken turn their indifference elsewhere

Don’t look for answers in the darkness
no great secrets will be revealed
It’s just a place where hope’s been *****
tragic fools are fools none the less

Don’t look for glory in extinction
There nothing romantic about being dead
And vampire’s teeth hold no beauty
A lesson learned too late for some

Don’t look for ecstasy in the pain
An ****** isn’t worth your soul
You’ve no idea how great the risk
And how quickly your wager will be lost

Don’t look but in my eyes my dear
And walk with me from this place
There’s nothing that I want from you
But to see you delivered, unharmed.

It’s not the relationship that you’re holding on to.

Nor is it the person
lying on the other side of the bed,
across an unreachable chasm
breathing softly in the night

He is merely a part of the illusion
that you so intricately carved
and then pinned on this
unwitting soul saddled with your expectations

made him your atlas, weighed down by
your insecurities, unexamined truths that
rather than explore, you’d hoped he'd vanquish

And when he could not slay the invisible
dragons (for he is fighting with his own)
you began to hate him almost as much
as you do yourself

and yes I know, while wine nearly dulls the senses
enough to not hate being taken from behind on occasion,
it only leaves you with muffled tears once the flush
of lust has passed.

No my love it’s not.
It’s not the relationship that you’re holding on to.

You never even liked his laugh,
but he was enough to momentarily
quiet the insecurities that torment you
on your mind’s playground
that tell  you that you’re not worth loving,
how no one wants a girl with scars or
stds or two young kids


It’s not his fault nor is it yours,
release him of your shackling hopes
and don’t waste time with anger for him
not being what he never was.

Then start down a path cut by love’s
sharp edge, through the thick overgrowth of fear
rather than the other way around

And on your own, you will discover
that beauty is but the reflection of the
light that you already possess, that the playground bullies lie and that you're so deserving of your own love
and understand the lover that you want isn’t the one that is seeking the insecure, for insecure only seeks the same

I know my love.
I know that you’re afraid to loosen your grip.

But I promise you this much is true,
if you let this go and instead use your hands
to reach inside, to find out who you really are,
the light that shines from your eyes
will light the world, and as an incidental
artifact,  attract a lover matched in full

  
It’s not the relationship that you’re holding on to.

And the time has come my love,
to just let go.