The gentle bite of the stars reflected in the night sea.

Holding my gaze, and holding me fast to my vision,

So that I need never know the difference,

Between your eyes and the light of day.

Turn not away from me, but into me.

So that we might savor the entwining heat of our embrace.

But if you must leave me, know this;

That I shall surely fall into the depths of that same sea,

To perish, still contemplating the wonders of you.

That I should remain, still, beneath such turbulent waters,

Eternally reflecting a love further than the stars,

It would be the sweetest rest,

Suspended in the deepest sorrow.

The most fun I ever had
Was making you laugh

It wasn't the kind of heartbreak
That you get over with a road trip

It wasn't the kind of heartbreak
You got over with a peyote trip

It was the kind of heartbreak
You carry with you through your life

It was the kind of heartbreak
That makes your heart a graveyard

It was the kind of heartbreak
That makes the grave feel like home

I was a student of her spirit
I was in love with every aspect

I was accepting when she was distant
I was joyous on each return

I was more than a scapegoat
I was more than a back-story

I AM more than just broken pieces

The thrumming of feathered wings reveals a sight,

Shimmering seas of forgotten starlight.

The ocean of sorrow between us two,

Even in dark dreams, it carries me to you.

Yours is the only light in these lonely eyes,

The fiery sun in the expanse of my skies.

Lightning may strike, fire may burn,

Yet no evil will make my heart turn.

No matter how complicated the map to your door,

I know it leads me back to my love, my heart, my core.

That's it.
That's the whole poem.
Not really much of a poem.
Not really much of a way to live either.
But it's what I got.

I try to show you
A little piece of me
But it's not like I can
Lay out my soul;

A.
  B.
    C.

I mean hell,
You won't even
Speak to me.

-
     I forget about my faith,
And all the things I'm taught.
     I see the end is near,
But all my life I've fought.
     I want to go to sleep,
To never wake again.
     What is this thing approaching,
Should I call it a friend?
     I'm feeling restless,
But I have nowhere to turn.
     Either I go back,
Or go ahead and burn.
     I see my life, my luck,
And I am sure I'm hexed.
     What should I do when I don't know,
Just what I should do next?

We joined ourselves
Mind, body, and soul
Is that not forever
You must've known some magic
I didn't
And had the heart to cast it
Because I didn't

They all start the same,
Three stars on a page.

Well, they're not really stars, are they?
Just three circles with some extending rays.

But they must bring luck, or maybe inspiration,
Since I can still write with my muse on vacation...

Three hours I searched for that airport, lost on the highway,
Man, if I'd have found it, I'd have parked right on the runway.

I didn't, I stalled on a service road, out of gas and engine dead,
And laid on the cold concrete, contemplating blowing off my head.

I need not have worried, or wasted my time on doubt,
'Cause when her plane flew over it obligingly tore my heart out.

Three days I waited to hear if she'd landed,
It'd still be another three weeks before I felt abandoned.

Three years later I was still waiting, did I give up too soon,
The night my heart broke under the October moon?

I knew she was standing under that same autumn sky,
But I finally understood,
That she stood under it with some other guy.

These stars are all I have left of her, nearly three decades later,
Three thousand stars on a thousand pages,
That are really just the holes in old notebook paper.

I am a reflection of
What should have been
The mirror darkened
Silver tarnished
Cracked in insouciance

I am the fallen fragments
Molecules devastated
Fractured facets of
Silicone sand
Meticulously separated

In scattered light
I am the shadow of
A jaded shade
An obscured apparition of
Abiding love

Framed in pain
I am the spaces between
The polished glass
The sharpened edges
The once-perfect dreams

I am the fist
Fear-enforced ferocity
I am the anger-driven
Hypervigilant philosophy
Responsible for each atrocity

I am the blood
Chasing each line
Filling each wrinkle
Draining reason
Never satiating time

I am the man
Left behind lies
Determined deficient
Dejected detritus
An unwanted prize

I am
I don't know who
I... don't know what to do
But since I don't know
I could be the superglue too

"I look like a melting gargoyle when I cry."

She laughed, like wind-chimes in sunlight, soothing and warm. She replied, "You don't have to show me."

"Will this really work? I feel silly."

"Well you won't know unless you try, now will you?" She smiled.

"Okay, okay. Like this?" I asked, crossing my hands over my chest.

"Kinda," She reached out and adjusted my hands slightly, "Like that, gently, like you're holding a baby bird against your heart."

She let go of my hands and floated backwards a pace, watching me encouragingly.

Still feeling silly, I tried to clear my mind, while remembering her instructions;

Focus, stay relaxed...

OK.

Think of hope, I told myself, and as I did I began to bring my cupped hands down away from my chest and hold them facing the sky.

"*******!" She exclaimed, leaning in, her face alight with - something.  

I started to lower my hands, thinking as I do, that she was poking fun.

Her face fell, and her hands shot out like lightning, gently bracing my hands and preventing me from lowering them. "Don't be shy," she smiled softly.

I looked up into her eyes, wary, but her face showed only concern.  I looked down again, ashamed of my reaction, and she ducked her head to maintain eye contact.  "You're a squirmy one, aren'cha?"

I felt my face flush, but I laughed, despite my anxiety.

She nodded towards my hands, "Don'cha wanna know what I see?"

I saw nothing. "Sure," I said, trying not to sound skeptical.

Apparently I failed because she let out another peal of chiming laughter.  She seemed to sober a bit, without losing her carefree smile and leaned in a bit more closely.  She peered into the bowl formed by my cupped hands like it was filled with stars instead of empty air.

She remained like that for what seemed an eternity.  I held as still as I could, awaiting her judgment.  She straightened and looked at me, very seriously.  Her face was not hard, exactly, it was like a waterfall that had just stopped falling, all trace of humor was gone.

"Why are you ashamed of me?" She asked softly, no anger or hurt, just concern.

"I..." I didn't actually know how to answer.  I thought for a moment, the both of us standing there, with her holding my hands like a fortune teller.

"I think I have just been convinced, over and over, that I should be." I said somberly.

"Silly boy," she replied, her face once again alive with that same ephemeral light.  "Don't you know?  People will tell themselves all kinds of things when they're hurting.  Don't you go and let hurt steal your hope, your light!"  

I hung my head a bit, somewhere, deep down, I did know.

She shook her head slightly, and smiling a bemused little smirk, she glided closer.  With her left hand she began to push my hands back up towards my chest, and brought her right hand around to cup the back of my neck, simultaneously drawing our foreheads together.

Her eyes drifted nearly closed, as if she was falling into a trance, and as my hands reached my chest she whispered something I could not quite understand.

I saw it first in her eyes, a faint glow, and as she finished her short silent prayer the tiny glow flared into uproarious brilliance!  The blinding light suffused us, filling my vision with blue/white fire.  

Hope's warm countenance floated before me now in the heart of a star, and just before I awoke, I realized that the light was coming not from her eyes, but from beneath my cradled hands.

Love is bitter from age and neglect
Chains to bear breaking my back
Eyes deceive, thoughts betray
Tongues lie, souls decay
Words, like fire, torture and burn
Fire is soothing, pain must be earned
Ears distrust like lifeblood flows
Time is unending, destructive, and slow

Standing outside looking in,
Running circles with the wind.

Lose the self I've never known,
Chasing light that's never shown.

Forever rise to no avail,
Rusted, bent, and brittle mail.

The rising sun breaks on eager round,
It's dying screams release no sound.

This sadness might pass me by,
If I was ever left alone to cry.

Darkened dioramas seen through fading sight,
Wistful shadows of tormented light.

Twilight sifting through waking dreams,
Leaving me bare and clutching at seams.

We once flew on high with spirits of air,
We made light with the sun without a care.

Now I live only at night, sleeping through life,
Disgusted by struggle and sickened by strife.

Living for death but only dying my hair,
Heaven cancelled for the rain in the air.

So I gather my strength and I wish for the power to heal,
But when I give her my heart she says the magic just steals.

I've traded my eyes for a vision of sight,
And traded my soul for a photo of light.

Song of love, twisted by welling darkness.

Vengeful art, practiced with vicious subtlety.

The softest lips whispered the hardest lies.

She exhaled an evocation of ethereal dreams,

Whose only prophecy was eternal sorrow.

Words pour from my heart
Staining the page crimson
Shaking hand spatters ink
Pens azure life-blood leaking
Rhythmic refuge reverie
Beatboxed spittle
Tears accompany
Washing ink-blood
Into drumstick-pen dents
Petite purple puddles
Small seas of sadness
Storm-tossed soul
A sailor searching
Three-ring horizons
For spiral-bound cyclones

Silent lyrics sung, line by line,

Page by page, movies projected on my mind.

Words that moved me like waves, washed me out to sea.

Words that, like lighthouses, revealed the shore to me.


Sailors of stars, stories in hand,

Of heartbreak and romance, of adventures in distant lands.

Where words can lift you up and make you fly,

And stand with you against demons that darken the sky.


Whether high [on life] and humming happy tunes,

Or maudlin (in my cups) and singing the blues,

This drunken sailor would doff his cap,

Clear his throat, and raise his glass;


To all of the writers in their own little worlds,

To all of the pencils scratching, and all the pen whorls,

To all of the cluttered keyboards clacking,

To all of the rhythmic fingers tapping,


For all of the dreams and even the nightmares,

For all of the times your words let us know that somebody cares,

For all the truth, guiding ship to coast,

I raise my glass in an old Irish toast:


May the dreams you hold dearest,

Be those that come true,

And the kindness you spread,

Keep returning to you.


Slainte!  

Keep writing! <3

I'll never see it's like again;
The springtime coming to life
In my grandmothers back yard,
The birds singing, insects humming,
Sun dappled camouflage on the pond.
One mid-morning, mid-mourning,
Dreaming of love lost,
Hoping for hope.
It's funny, how young love is like childhood,
Gone before you truly value it,
Only cherished after the fact.
Only, cherish that fact,
Value it, before it's gone.
Humor your heart, like a child,
Hope for hope,
Dream of love!
And some mid-morning, quit mourning,
Let your camouflage fall, feel the sun,
Let the birdsong bring you back
To the wonder of childhood!
Love the autumn of life,
You'll never feel it's like again.

We eviscerated our love as if on demand,
Like fictional characters with scissors for hands.

If life were a movie, we would have pieced it together,
Using all our hope we'd rebuild it stronger and better.

We'd have a book of movie quotes we could use for a brain,
Then we'd just have to get these claymation hearts animated again...

We'd have them personally reassembled by a Halloween king,
And expertly stitched at the hands of an undead queen.

Our spirits safe, inhabiting invincible dolls,
We could rewind time, so the bombs never breach the walls.

If it was something we drank that made us feel small,
Could there be a tiny cake that would reverse it all?

Could it be the golden ticket to the show where we met?
Or would an offer of friendship bring up confusion and regret?

You may believe that I'm only enchanted by the path not taken,
But I hope, that like me, you too are a dreamer awakened.

When I broke, it was not her fault

I broke myself upon her, like water on rock

The way a wave breaks itself, eternally at most

Thrashing wildly then crashing blindly, deluging distant coast

Great weight driven by moon, gravity, and tide

Powerless over it's course, fateful in it's dive

Rising restless from it's shifting sleep

Drowning itself dripping upon silent shores feet

Raining it's bulk down on sand and stone

Dragging itself back to dark depths, alone

If I could quit you
If I could resist

If the truth did not ring true
If the pain did not persist

If the sun were to fail to shine
If I didn't live for dreams of rain

If they didn't drip-dry into this heart of mine
If I didn't weave them into and between every refrain

If I lost myself and I couldn't remember why
If I could ignore that you're not here, holding my hand

If I could picture your picture and refuse to cry
If I wasn't on my knees, if I was able to stand

If there was a drug to take to make me forget
If it erased longing, and sorrow, and pain, and regret

If I could simply eat it and you'd disappear
If I could just drink it and drift off, free of fear

If I pretended to want these things to come true
I would only be lying to myself, trying to spare you

She lies

Because I lie

I lie

Because I am insecure

She lies

Because she no longer trusts me

I lie

Because she hurts me

She lies

Because she doesn't want me to see her pain

I lie

Because I fail to understand

She lies

Because she can no longer see the truth of me

I lost her

When I could no longer see the truth of her

_

I tore my hand from hers and I stumbled backwards feeling disgusted.  Feeling disgusting.  

Soiled, oily.

Five bottom-shelf screwdrivers and a pitcher-and-a-half of cheap beer briskly informed me that my stomach was a little too happenin, and they were gonna go ahead and go.  

Like, NOW.

I ran towards the bathroom, elbowing several people out of the way as I went.

Several much larger, and leather-clad Mowhawkians.

Moshers who had been standing in line for at least 15 minutes.

How I didn't get punched I will never know...

I careened into the stall like a methhead pinball and got ready to lose my liquid lunch.  

The watery hi-***** and natty light must have seen the same sight I did, because they decided they didn't really have anywhere to be after all.

I propelled myself away from the nightmare cesspool masquerading as a toilet, mostly by force of horror.

Luckily my legs wanted the **** out of there as badly as the rest of me, and they shakily complied.

Rocking side-to-side like a punch-drunk prize-fighter in Round-9, I bulled past an eight-foot-tall stick-figure goth-person, and it hit me:

I am going to have to tell her....

I was suddenly alone in the club.

...I am going to have to tell the love of my life that another woman kissed me.

The electricity went out.

Not in the seedy South East D.C. nightclub, but inside me.

The room was still, full of the life-like statues of dancers.

Lasers, frozen-fire, suspended in darkness and smoke.

The color had drained, like a rerun on a black & white TV...

I could only watch as my life crumbled in my mind's eye.

In the midst of this noisy, noxious, overcrowded *******.

In deafening, rhythmic silence.

What passed for air was sweaty-*****, and midsummer dank even in winter.

But the air around me became crisp.

Not crisp like the wind in February,

Crisp like the silence in a tomb.

Fitting.

Because I won't survive this.

I didn't know it yet, but this $5 cover open-bar might as well have been my tomb.

Sealed as tightly as my fate.

With a kiss.

_

"Let me go, set me free,

I'll come back if it's meant to be."


A pronouncement, not a choice.

Then she said, with tears in her voice,


"If you ever loved or respected me,

Don't call me anymore, please."


I couldn't argue, it wasn't my place.

Plus, she said, "I'll call you, I just need space."


She didn't believe in destiny or fate,

Or being locked to a future that she didn't make.


I don't believe in fate either, it's a moral vacation.

It's my belief that destiny is simply ones destination.


Was it such an insult that I once believed,

That we were so well matched we were meant to be?


Did our destinations just not intersect?

I waited for years, I never thought she'd forget.


Finally I worked up the nerve to leave word with her parents.

She called back, indifferent, but said she'd make an appearance.


Years of silence, now suddenly we're meeting at eight.

Nervous and scared I waited, she was only fashionably late.


We talked and caught up for an hour as we ate,

Though the butterflies only let me pick at my plate.


Just outside, she said she didn't have long,

But come sit in the car, and she'd play me a song.


I sat shaking in the dark van and I listened.

Well, to tell truth I tried, but was so nervous I didn't.


I tried to be cool, but underneath I was a mess.

Somehow I found the guts to blurt, "Can I have your email address?"


I agonized and worried, I tortured myself and fought.

What should I say?!  Bah! Just be honest, I thought.


Heart in throat, I emailed her, I told her I was still stuck.

She replied with an ice bath, "Too bad, get over it, goodbye, best of luck."


I'd love to tell you I was stoic, strong, and poetic.

In reality, I stumbled around like a zombie for years, it was pathetic.


I tried again a decade later, total fiasco of course,

I was lost and emotional and going through a divorce.


She was nice but aloof, she said, "If I'm on your list."

It set me off balance and gave the conversation a dark twist.


I read into her words with my own bitter pain,

And earned the response, "Don't message me again."


Time heals all wounds, after a while, it was OK, am I right?

Sorry, but nightmares still trouble me night after night.


I dunno if it's Covid, or I just know one day I'll be dead...

But I have to try and get this stuff out of my head.


Rip it out of my chest and wrestle it onto the paper.

Maybe, with enough words, I can start to fill in the crater.

_

Young and in love, two kids with a lollipop.

The future is theirs, a sundae with a cherry on top.


Honest and innocent, immature and insecure,

Both happy and scared, both hearts sure.


Nine months spent together, three spent apart;

Missing, Longing, and Waiting:

One year til two broken hearts.


3 days left, 2 heartstrings severed by 1 lie.

"I talked to her!" Said her friend, "Come over, let's have a beer and get high."


"Well?! Why hasn't she called?  She's barely written..."

Jealous and wicked, she lies, "With another she's smitten."


The room spins, the floor falls away, the lights start to flash.

My cigarette just burns, the beer tastes like ash.


I expected to be abandoned, I always knew I'd end up alone.

Fool, I stayed when she said, "You're too drunk to go home."


I didn't deserve a second chance, nor should I have wasted,

But I couldn't speak, twisted, conflicted, and consumed by self-hatred.


I blamed her and her friend, I tried to hide it by running non-stop,

But in the end, it was my hand that broke the lollipop.

_

Each heartbreak eroded my confidence, hope, and health.

The hole yawned ever deeper, strip-mined of its wealth.


Like it was left to scream at the sky,

Empty and silent, lost in time.


Megalithic earth-movers encircled, discarded in dust,

The desire for improvement exhausted and left to rust.


Like memories of lovers long-lost,

Distant, faded, and star-crossed.


Mighty metal arms mock this as weakness and point,

Their massive hydraulic muscles fused at the joint.


Like even their strength could have held us together,

Or glued wings to our backs, feather by feather.


Why do I dwell on colossal contraptions of shame?

Each a construct of missed opportunity and lingering pain.


Like remembering too late, forgotten promises,

Or waking alone from dreams of soft kisses.


Queue the architect, compass, ruler, and pen.

So sure of the design he won't look at the plan.


Like he knew exactly what he had to do,

To make sure this would all fall on me, instead of on you.


Please pardon our dust for just a tick more,

We're still picking the pieces up off of the floor.


Like a half-broken robot, program scrambled,

Assembling a semblance of life from fragments in shambles.

__

When the maelstrom ended, and Earth and Sky grew cool,

The Sky found itself adrift, a wandering fool.


Does the Earth think the Sky vacuous in flight?

Or does she know the wind only flees the cold night?


Does the Earth still remember, the Sky so far?

Does she still have a place for him in her heart?


When she sleeps, does she dream of clouds in blue sky?

When she wakes, is she warmed by the suns caring eye?


Would Earth say to Sky, you don't remember,

When Earth and Sky were young and lived as one ember.


Were you dancing in the trees, dazzled by stars?

Were you lost on the ocean, did you travel so far?


Silent Sky stirs, gathering mist and cloud,

And a light rain falls as the Sky thunders aloud:


Dear Earth, You are the reason I am spurred by the sun,

Your distance the very darkness from which I run.


Dear Earth, please know, it is not you that I flee,

I'm all around you, for you are the heart of me.

__

Where once we met,

Passion stirred breezes for winds to form,

And drenched our hearts in it's growing storm.


Like clashing clouds each enveloped the other,

Releasing energies no depression could smother.


A thunderstorm raining lightning bolts,

Shamelessly shedding light in blinding jolts.


Water and Air, spinning, mixing, churning.

The chaos was music, the eye in a hurricane of yearning.


Oblivious, we destroyed, even as we created,

Endangered life as surely as rain sustains it.


The chaos of our perfect storm turned against us,

No music now, only the raging tempest.


Winds of passion calmed, storm-fronts collapsed within,

And the last teardrops of rain fell unforgiven.


Silence stretched, louder than any thunder,

Broken, after so long, by hope barely uttered.


With care hope grows, uplifts, and inspires,

Then sings of life, and love, and of passion like fire.


Testament to life, though unaware,

A butterfly batting its wings, stirring the smallest breath of air.


Now, a field of butterflies rise from dreams and cocoons,

A thousand tiny gusts of hope, born anew.


Innocent, they move the very sky,

Fledgling winds, breezes learning to fly,


Rising high above the meadow where they were born,

Quietly whispering prayers, of becoming a storm.

____

To wallow in and under drown,

To shape a tear, to form a frown.


Exaggerations embracing pain,

They weave a spell to summon rain.


A heart to crush, a mind to flood,

And veins that throb with rivers blood.


Confusion swims where soft truth flies,

A cauldron to mix a concoction of lies.


These fires scar, yet sear no flesh,

While times slow healing turns souls to ash.

_______________

Bewitched by the charming graces of my private hell

Honesty, leave me be, that I should never kiss and tell


Soul to the winds, body to the flames

Salvation is ash, destruction a game


Spirit starving, though gorging be

Whether passion, love, or ecstasy


Only eyes am I

No hands to grasp the things I see


Only prayers am I

Never to reach the powers that be


On bliss' wings I soar upon high

A slobbering slave of darkening sky


Mind for fire, heart for dust

My remains trapped in a body in lust


The master plans the subjects scheme

The circle of life, the cruelest theme


Only eyes am I

No way to catch the tears that fall


Only now am I

Too late to save one from the fate of all


At the end of my rope I dangle and twist

Should I climb for the top or cease to exist?


Reason and sorrow to sweetest wits end,

Ignorance and wisdom dance, twist, and bend.


Grey rains fall and tired eyes swell

Never again to kiss or to tell

It is ever-breaking fragile pain,
Thinly-strung lightning-flames.

It is stressing, tense, and pulsing life.
To force down grief, to strengthen strife.

It is flowing wonders' pouring heart,
A weathered, broken beggars' cart.

It is swimming through the sunlit air
On perfume-scented strands of hair.

It is sprouting springtimes luscious glade,
And lying down in burning shade.

It is a flashing trick of fading shadow,
In summer sunlights only meadow.

It is broken trust and spoken lies,
An angry haze in bleeding eyes.

It is sipping sweetness and pouting lips,
A flag of peace that snags and rips.

Hell threatens no pain,
I have suffered it all.

Death hides no fears,
I have seen them all.

Anger hoards no fury,
I have wasted it all.

Life offers no fire,
I have burned it all.

Longing loses no sorrows,
I am them all.