sometimes i write lies
but mostly i write about you
and sometimes
i don't know the difference

i fear i feel
too strongly
too much

i fear i overwork
my emotions
and heart

i fear i won't
be able to stop
these emotions
drenching my
crooked soul

i can hear the wind blow;
tonight i'll stay up late just to watch
the sky glow with bright orange

there are people in this world
that i'd like to know, but
i'd never meet, i'd never see
somehow that really saddens me

my mind is clouded with thoughts
that stream on and on and on and on,
sometimes i don't know what to do at all
other than turn up the volume of the radio
to play a terrible pop song

these are the days that must happen to you,
a wise man once said

i just wish, sometimes,
i had someone special to experience it with.

what does a poet write about when the skies are blue?
when the war is over, the storm has passed,
the water sits as still as a painting on a gallery wall?

what does a poet write about when sticky summers
turn into crisp, cool autumns?
when garish winters make way for the flowers of spring?

what does a poet write about when the holes in her soul
have been delicately stitched by a steady hand?
when a gentle heartbeat beneath her ear
closes her eyes at night and opens them in the morning?

of course the poet writes on.
day after day the words still find their way onto blank pages,
the urge still fills her chest to bursting,
desire still guides her pen across the lined paper.

only when the poem comes to its close does she notice that
'love' changed from past tense into present
somewhere in the cursive loops and dotted i's.

if you are the sun,
i am the moon.

you are spring afternoons
wrapped in sunshine and birdsong.

i am crisp autumn evenings
cinnamon scented and starlit.

you are a swimming pool
on the hottest day of the year
that appears cool at first glance
but smothers with its heat.

i am crinkled red, orange, and brown;
drifting with the breeze.
i am melting ice with tiny air bubbles trapped inside
releasing frigid air in tiny bursts.

i thought that if i did everything i could,
you would no longer occupy a corner
in the garden of my heart,
but now i see that it’s not my decision.

love is a two-way highway,
and you keep emerging like forget-me-nots
in the spring.

i tried digging my fingers into the soil
and ripping you out by your roots,
but all i accomplished was
dirtying my hands
and making even more of a mess
of myself.

this love is programmed to be perennial,
but trust me when i say
that i don’t need you or any other flower
to make my life more beautiful.

i still listen to every song you
introduced me to and lately
i haven't been quite so sad
when i do.