The movie was coming to an end
But we were in no rush to shuffle and get up to turn it off
We were solid; comfortably still and both knew
We would stay like that long after the credits
(Inhale, exhale. Your hand on my back slightly moves to the left)
We watch the screen with scrolling eyes
Laughing at the funny-sounding names we spit out loud
Gathering pillow corners in our fingers
And touching them with our noses
(Inhale, Finger tapping, rubbing your foot along the back of mine)
The names turn to nothing but we become entertained
By other things; the way my hair looks now
That I’ve been leaning on it that way
For two and a half hours
And how your eyes look like they have freckles
And I am examining them and trying
To convince you of this
But you say it’s not possible, for your cheeks hold them all
(Exhale, eyes turn away, you smile,
You travel your finger up and down my arm)
And we fall asleep
But not to end the night; to continue it
Because our sleeping bodies know that we’re beside one another
All night long
And that’s how our sleeping bodies like it
(inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale...)

What is ugly
Isn’t really ugly
But is not good enough to those who seek perfection
And I don’t

You are odd, and you’re oddities sprout from your eyes and your mouth
Like you wouldn’t believe
You are mysterious, and the mysteries keep coming as you talk to me
And there’s more up your sleeve.

You come off as things that you aren’t, and you’re exterior’s much different
Than the insides you bare.
You gather up your characteristics in a bag, and even I cannot untie it
Because you don’t like to share.

If a voice
Flutters through walls,
Or seeps from my pillow —
If a voice calls,
I want to know their name.

A wandering soul who once lived
With body and skin,
As I,
So why should I cry at the sight?
And why is darkness
What we see,
In the souls of the dead?
I see light.

Villainous hands
Belong to the living.
The dead have redeemed.
Lost souls, unattached
To ****** wrong.

The soul:
The epitome of glorious, ignorant life —
Unbiased, unbound.
Clean,
Refreshing breeze,
That raise hairs on my skin,
But I don’t run away.

Come sit,
Or dance with the sun-sparkled dust.
Peruse through the books
On bowed shelf.
Come sing of borrowed voices.
Come dine.
And exist in a place
Without exile.

If a spirit is searching
For a home between lives,
A place to rest —
Like the bird makes a nest,
Let it be.
I don’t weep,
I make friends
With the ghost that lives with me.
I am shell
To the slug you call ugly.

I am haunted.
Don’t worry for me.

I am haunted,
But I want to be.

Come with us.
Open your locked doors; your closed mind.
Archaic ways are dead,
And we spread no offerings along the coffin elm.
Forward is the way of the universe.
You are a person like me,
And they are a person like him.
When deemed unfit to move up in the world,
Along with the rest,
You are delivered six feet down.
Horizontal regrets.
But a regret reverberating too late,
Won’t be loud enough to penetrate the fertile earth,
In which we grow the flowers you cut;
The forsythias we frolic in your absence.
You wish them forget-me-nots,
But not one will remember your thoughts.

The staggering hiss and crackle of the ice beneath your feet
Is the same sputtering strain I feel in my chest;
The beat of the muscle contracting,
The beat of the muscle recedes, taking comfort in it’s nest

A phantom, masked,
The apparition of my past, taken aghast without reason taken into scrutiny, without heed
Inexcusably
Without the feud, or the fight
Or the chance at a bait cast

I stare stained glass in the face,
Unclear, tainted of a better day,
Unsure where the path lays
My spectacles unmovable,
I should take on eyes of the blind, but I can’t look away

Ravelled spools
Of spilled awake-dreams and un-sleeping grievances.
Let’s watch them like an old film
On a tattered sheet.
I want what you want — to sleep.
To say goodnight to trickling doubt,
And face the grout in the walls.

Our love sails in uncharted waters,
Where the water is murky and we can’t see the ground.

Our love walks in forests at night time,
Where odd things are cooing and making strange sounds

Our love sees through eyes that tear up,
And sometimes are blinded and unable to see

Our love blooms like a flower, then hides
When the sun isn’t up, and gone are the bees

I look at life
With a warm cloak around me,
The mantle of your amiability
And when you unfastened the veil
Over my eyes,
To my surprise,
I saw the Elysian Fields,
Waterfalls
Mountains high,
Kaleidoscope lullabies
And all my fantasies underpinned
By the foundation we blanketed
The quilt of our proclivities
The dreams we animated
The dance we seize
Our castles in the air
Our lair
I’m struck with glee,
I’m thankful for your anatomy,
I’m thankful that you took me there

If I speak of the thick liquor
Of sugar syrup on tree bark,
And in honeycomb of bees’ nests,
In the dark of the hive,
Does your water now taste of it?

If I speak of the slumping, damp plants,
The slow drip-drip-dripping
Into the wet marsh below,
And flight of the water bugs,
Do you hear it echo?

If I speak of the soft satin viola petal,
Of bubbled, soggy foam
Along the shoreline,
Of frilly mushroom gills,
Do your fingertips feel it too?

If I speak of the sun speckled icicles
Off of barn roofs,
And trees swaying in wind,
Like synchronized swimmers
Do you see it before you?

If I speak of crisp, autumn air,
Of picked pine needles,
And low tide’s kiss,
Where the wet bear hunts fish,
Does the room now smell of them?

Our love was a flower,
but somebody came and plucked all the petals off.

Everyone around us took one, and they passed it around with whispers.
The wind took them and shoved them in our ears,
and we ignored them.

But our love is nothing without color.

Friend.
Until clouds part and world’s end.
I know this.
I know you.
Friend.

Pick-pocket.
And you pick the troubles you pocket.
You thieve me.
You thieve you.
Pick-pocket.

A teeter-totter is my mind
Up and the other side is down
Then down and the other side is up
Perhaps if both things weighed the same this would not happen
Sadly, they don’t

When I’m feeling cold
Simple thoughts of you warm me
From the inside, out

You are all puppets, you do as your superiors say
Invisible strings sprout out of your backs
And the only person unable to control anything is you
Your job is to make the little ones laugh
Until they're at your age, where they will learn like you
And give their lives to someone else to take over
You’re all zombies, and all blind to what you’re doing,
Drink up their words; of your own, you are sober
But you asked for this; you signed the papers
And you let the whole thing happen
The entire show you’ve had the scissors in your hand,
But you were blinded by the attention; by the clapping

If I drink from the empty jar, do I swallow
Will it be my pride, or the things I hide inside and cried over,
And if temptation offers it’s hand do I spit in it,
Do a bat my eyelashes,
Do I grin at it
Do I sin, and take hold of a dream up in ashes

If an empty jar calls me like a seashell song, do I press my lips to its rim
And drink from within
The drink that is desert air,
Dry as my skin
As empty as my hands
And do I grin
When it fills up again

Rain and its beauty
And the beads that fall off my
Slippery raincoat

And the glaze they place
On things they land on, and how
They can make rainbows

And the sound it makes
When it’s landing in puddles
Or just on the ground

And how it fell from
So high up and it is still
So perfectly round

And I wonder what
They think of dying so soon
After they are born

And their unique scent
And how rain is a cold thing
But makes you feel warm

I’ll stop getting mad
If you stop giving me all
Those reasons to be

And I will trust you
As soon as you stop giving
Me reasons not to

The puddle of penitence is milky and murky,
Fermenting and gyrating,
Effervescently mutating,
A reminder of berating
Within your grasp the very backbone,
The very impetus of another
The sanction you receive,
You can’t un-bleed a calloused wound
You can’t undo
A lie like a slow perfidy
Why live a life double-taking
Painstakingly paranoid,
Glancing worriedly, walking treacherously
Living in a void,
There’s nothing you avoid but a choice,
To know true bliss,
But an action can be handpicked
One slip and the framework un-clicks
Undone like the thread of a waistcoat
A waisted blow, too late to know
Don’t follow the notion below
Before you know, it’s too late
A thorny gate of ruin,
Where as soon as you pass through:
Too late to chase facts
Too late to undo, too late to retract
Too late to set intact the fractured past
Down a long distorted path of sin
Where it’s too late to take it all back
And who wants that?
Just a race you’ll never win.

If I die, remember me in summer
Remember how I loved the sun
Loved outdoors, loved to run
Loved the grass and having fun
And if I die, thank the sun

If I die, remember me in autumn
Remember how I played in leaves
Loved the earthworms and the bees
Loved the wetness on my knees
And if I die, thank the leaves

If I die, remember me in spring
Remember how I loved the rain
Loved sitting at the window pane
Loved dancing, singing, playing games
And if I die, thank the rain

If I die, remember me in winter
Remember how I loved the snow
Loved going to the Christmas shows
Loved singing songs of rhudolph’s nose
And if I die, thank the snow

Painted plastic, the brushes stroke,
Camouflaged as diamond stone,
Beneath the cloak of white-blue sky
The granite cries alone.

Above the puddle, although wee
His belly masked in lily pad
The pond beside, he takes a peek
While wishing he was grand.

Poking out of tortoise attire,
The bird beak pecks the grounded corn,
Though the other winged prey higher,
She yearned to be earth-bourn.

If we fill the water of wishing wells,
If we gladly call the puddle a pond,
We break biologic boundary spells
And sing our fateful songs.

I fasted
Tried to see what it is to not have you
Tried to release your hand
I lasted
Maybe a moment or two,
I allowed myself to starve of you,
But what hors d'oeuvres could compare
What wine would I lick from my lips
And taste better than you there
I fasted
I failed
Let me hear your thumping ohm,
I am done with this nightmare
Take me home

Fire is only hot to the touch so I watch the flames flip around like ladies coming out of water and throwing their hair out of their eyes.
And I watch the colors infuriate the grass beneath, for being so bright and making that green so dull. And I watch the heat that I cannot feel
The temperature only visible mentally
So for a while I pretend it’s cold
Because I can
And for a minute I pretend it’s wet, so if I had stuck my hand inside
I would not burn to black
But become glazed in red water
And maybe it would taste of coconut or something similar
So that if I licked my hand
I’d enjoy it because of my liking of coconut
And while I’m at it
I pretend the entire world is completely different
And my mind is finally at ease
Until I’m called into the tent to sleep and the snore of my friend brings me back to where I am
And what I’m really doing
And how the world really is

Sadness is much more important
Than the reasoning behind it
I will help you fight this feeling
And shine a light to blind it

Well I made it across in my boat
The murky sea, plentiful in doubts and sorrow
It ate up my oar
And I sobbed as I used my arms in replacement
But I’ve made it across and this land is glazed in flowers
I’m finally okay

The tree sobs happily,
In milky water.
The water bug kisses the fetid foliage.
And all is damp.
All is good.

The marsh is alive in the night.
The call of the cricket leg plays,
Along to the baritone frog croak.
All is good in the marsh.

Muted tones of green
And copper
Grow short and tall,
Sprouting from their liquid home.
Grey stones
(But you wouldn’t know),
Carpeted in moss and lichen.

So dead,
So alive.
The mystery,
As sweet as the cool lacquer of dew
Misting over me.
I blink the haze from my eyes.
Aye,
But I still cry.
I still weep with delight,
Of the sight before me.
I cry with the tree.

And by sun,
The milk-water looks as ice,
That moves as gelatinous dancers,
Or as silk
In the wind.

If the rain only knew,
That the swamp will be wet either way.
But when the sky
Matches color and dress
With the grungy mire,
Everything looks as it should.
All is good.

When the fatigue of the tree festers
When the leaves weep
And side-sweep
And sap leaks of the arboraceous bole
The foul smell of dampened,
Fermenting flora
The bog
The muck
The moor
Forever grot and grunge
But never moans,
Never loathes the morning
Never curses the sun for rising
Or hexes the moon,
Or thinks life bleak or banished
It settled in its mold
The duty it was told,
It’s destined purpose
As a puddle upon plates of terrain,
A tamed stain, remaining unmoved
And unaffected by
You and I,
Unaffected by passerby’s
Translucent and still,
Entirely exposed and yet unseen
Insouciant,
Tranquil
Composed
Serene

Your tongue of no's
licks me dry

I have a brain of water
taking the shape of whatever it's in
and when it is in you
you manipulate it

and I say the words you want
and I think the thoughts you got
and I walk the steps you walk

but I don't let go of my balloon
I play with it in my room
and I fly when you leave
I go back to me
and there's all the yes's I want there to be

My mind like octopus tenticles
Reaching for the depths of the ocean
And the air above the crashing waves
Wriggling, bringing me to the places I wish to be

You grabbed my hand
And you’re pulling me down the exact paths you once placed ‘wrong way’ signs in front of.
And I’m thinking
‘Perhaps you’re just feeling sympathetic’, because you once were unintentionally scared of my love.
‘Too good to be true’
Is the line that’s repeated inside of the walls in my head ever since.
But I best believe it
‘Cause believing is better than doubting it’s true and losing my chance.

Show me how I can be just as important as a single tree;
A necessity on its own, but part of many.
Show me I'm just as unreal as the ocean;
Almost never-ending and full of unimaginable mysteries.
Show me I'm as grand and vital as the whole earth,
For if I am not, I will simply love the earth instead.

I do not wish to speak for the trees.
I wish for them to speak through me.
If you listen,
Nature’s voice crashes upon the shore,
She whispers at dusk,
And moans through the murky cattails.
How dare we silence such art.
At times,
We paint her playful green a mucky black.
And we expect her whimsical warbling to wash away our worries.
Why do we extort her this way?
Does mother really owe us such things?
Let us lay in the mud and play,
Let us gather her stories, and sway as she sings.
By sitting, waiting, watching.
Holding, pausing.
We will put ourselves aside while she grows.
We will stay long past the sunset glow.
For when dark follows light,
The show does not end.
The show never ends, nor begins.
And we can only know the meaning of life,
When we finally join in.

Nature feeds me the notes
And I bellow them out
She sings alongside me;
The grass whistles, the trees hum
And when all is quiet in the woods at night-time
The sky is in symphonies
The moon sings its song
And the stars, harmonizing along
And if in this you are missing out
Where have you been?

Because of you, it is not only my mouth that smiles.

My fingers, when comfortably placed between your own, either hand, smile.

My hair, when slowly and carefully you're playing with or fixing it in any way, smiles.

My back, when those arms of yours are placed along it and I feel safe from any harm my troubled, paranoid mind could imagine, smiles.

My eyes, when the vision of you or the actual you is directly in front of them, (preferably the actual you), smile.

Can I be the man in the woods?
Who walks with viridescent leaves,
And reaches like branches
With purpose?

Can I be him —
He who couldn’t be bothered
Whether empty sea-salt shells
Lie against his stalk?
His talented, contorted arms
Pimpled in thin, brittle bird eggs.
Home to the silk-giving wolf spider.

He knows vines,
Not as something that strangulates,
But as garment.
Saprophyte and toadstool
Like jewelry,
Dress his textured body.
Extravagant, speckled robe for his promotion,
Into new life-giving.

And if I can’t be him,
Can I at least ask what it is
To know the sky closely?
And how it feels
To speak so clearly without voice?
To root-dance —
To be the rooftop of the rabbit,
And the watchtower for the owl.
To taste earth-given water with taproot,
And stand as a landmark
For the soaring hawk.
I know he would tell me,
He loves to share.

His nurturing stance.
He smiles at the small aphid who feeds.
And without needing anything in return,
He gives riches to the forest,
Endlessly,
Even long after he falls.
Aye, like a Phoenix,
He may even be born again
Of his own remains.

I wish I could be him.
But instead,
I write these wishes
Upon his pulpy skin.

“Fine”
I said, to doubt
“Fine, have it your way”
And at that
He grinned
And certainly did have it his way

Counting the beautiful things as I walk
Seeing what nature has done to the world without our help
What the world could have done if we had never came here
To destroy what it is capable of
Oh earth, I am sorry I’m one of them

I hate the sounds that I am hearing,
These sounds they haunt me so.
These sounds are sad, and make me frown,
These sounds are sounds of letting go.

An airplane has the sound of leaving,
A faucet, one of running (away),
The fridge reminds me of standing still,
Lost for words with none to say.

The floor, it creaks, but not as much,
‘Cause now it’s only my feet left
You aren’t around, and the lack of you
Has taken sound; committed theft.

Your cessation
The conclusion I’ve come to
The fate we never un-dwindled
The fate we never bared
But it was a fate of mine and someone else
A fate beheld
Against you
Without you
A fate unshared

Why yes,
Your meek existence has not gone unheard
You showed me the way
Walked me to the path,
But now you must watch my fading back
This was no fortuity
No fortune with me,
No future you seek was held in my teeth

No,
Your kismet is kind, though blind
It’s behind you
Let your debossed muddied stride
Be your guide
I’ll wave goodbye
You belong somewhere still
But it’s not by my side

The firefly clouds, glowering teasingly,
Scintillating with sweet melancholia
At the site of their eternal lure
In it’s inward sinking creases
As it corrugates
Into it’s bellowing pleats
(Like my blanket in which I’m receding)

The cherry blossom beast, dusty rose
And swaying with my sorrows
Ebbing when the wind blows
It knows my abnormalities
The clockwork of it’s mastery over me
Gleaming at me like a haunting unshaken,
Taunting my nightmare’s return below
As it’s colossal significance
Outweighs my inward woes

The lacklustre paralysis of flat rock
The slabs strategic and few
Receive the drum of the deluging skies
And support my view,
As I’m rooted upon one as my royal prize
My throne amidst illusion
I watch each suicidal drop fragmentize
And flower into bulbous aqua crowns
And quickly dematerialize
A mirrored release of my inner cries

The cascade; an adventurous torrent,
A majestic meander,
Humbly and monstrously resplendent
Equanimous and independent
In feud with the far-flung thunder’s hum
But alas, it knows it’s echelon
As I’m the queen of my own ascent
This idyll,
This heaven I mindlessly invent
To repent
And release what is unpleasant inside me

You drive me around
And take me to places I’ve never known
Or even thought to know
And these places
Aren’t always anything special on their own
But they’re places that you brought me
And so they’re special places I went with you
Special, unlike if I had been alone

Is this lechery for your trickery?
Is this wicked at play,
But I like it anyway?
Do I have say, at all,
Within these fallen walls
My eyes gleam and sway
The chandelier jingles,
The doors close,
My eyes glow
Is this lechery for your trickery,
Or do I just love a good show?

Five fingers.
Five fingers too late, and an empty plate.
Wasted day.
Wasted fate, wasted away.
They say it’s always darkest before morning,
Yet dawn is a moment that we sleep through.
We miss it,
We reel it in with fishing rods,
We wish it near,
We kiss it when it’s here.
But we are usually too busy to see it,
Our beady eyes focused on reliving the past.
Misery will attach like a leech.
And regret is a creep
Who lurks in the woods behind maple leaves.
Above closed eyelids
Does hope make a home.
Overcoming what’s been done
Is not a race of hare and tortoise,
It’s the bullet of a gun.
I am a foreign song,
Resident of a place I don’t belong.

I sit, sit, sit
And I pick, pick, pick
At my watch

I’m sad, sad, sad
‘Cause I had, had, had
But I lost

I’ll cry, cry, cry
And I’ll sigh, sigh, sigh
‘Til I rot

the tree didn’t weep

it did sag deep down and fall to the grass tips of the lawn

the drops dripping, plip plip plop, from the tree branches to the green blades

into the ground, with the worms and bugs

that climb back up through their dug hole

and climb up the willow

to see the sun coming up that morning

on a thursday where the clouds were blue, the sky was white…

I’m tugging your sleeve
I feel like a small child with their parent at the amusement park
And I’m saying to you, mentally,
“You’re just jumping at everything that comes at you!
Taking it under your arms and caressing it
Announcing it loud and clear!
Your plans are made”
But oh,
You let them go when something more shiny and new comes along
And you let go of all you said before and now you’ve scribbled out your future
And are writing a new
And what is this? A comical change? Are you doing this for the fun of it?
Because you’re bouncing like a bunny
And smiling along the way
And I can’t help but never take you seriously
Because with the dusty things you have now
There are shinier things to come
And you change your mind as often as I bite my nails

Tangled,
Wiry sleep-thoughts
Still float
In the cloud above my head.
A headache,
Born of the annoying red flowers.
A self-diagnosis of pure envy;
I hate all that is beauty today.

The salmon’s bones,
Fragile,
But not as delicate as myself.
The salmon still swims upstream.
I melt between the wooden dowels
On the back of my chair,
In the dining room,
Where I eat my salmon and greens.
I took out her bones,
So now she feels like me.

Gather yourself,
And I’ll pour you a glass of my antidote
Under your shell the maggots collect,
Recollect your demeanor and your best memories, we all need reminders that we don’t just have enemies,
Release
Find the keys to the chest,
And let your chest beat be a palpitating reminder of the rest
Take a gander at my remaining treasures
Fleeting and weathered
Unlike your rising regret
You’re focused on the things you need to forget
Clutch my clenching flesh-cloaked metacarpal bones
Before my rationality and my senses go, or at least before your will to live releases so

Finding beauty has to be the easiest thing I do in a day
Next to breathing of course

I see all things beautiful through these lucky eyes of mine
Don’t you just wish you had eyes like these

What is beautiful does not have to be considered so by the majority
But seen a different way, or simply just noticed
But you have to be pretty talented
To notice