Sometimes I think scary things in the shower—
How it would feel to really hit someone,
or what if I dropped out of school?
You died and now I am forgetting
your voice.

Sometimes I don’t think
anything—I just stand,
letting water slide across my shoulders
course down my arms,
pool at the tips of my fingers
and fall.

I used to sing in the shower,
but one day I quit
and now my voice sounds foreign
so I keep it hushed.

I start to sway,
catching myself with a ****.
Swiftly consciousness comes
dripping back down my wet face.
My hands are wrinkled—
I’ve never hit anyone,
or stolen grandma’s ring.
I can’t get any cleaner.

Bargaining with yourself
lungs beating back and forth
like wary eyes
scared someone might see
and know you've lost it
gone so subtly that
not even you knew
(until this moment).
Not even you noticed
your anchor's been dragging for miles
But still, a bargain.
Self, I will act as though I'm sane
and in exchange
please illuminate me as to
what the hell has happened.
We'll shake on it.

(I am afraid neither side
will stay its promise)

I've seen so much extravagance thus far,
The extraordinary paintings and frescoes
start to blur.

But in this place, I like the feeling
more so than the bible stories
outlined
on the carefully arched ceiling

It's calm with cooled air,
Giving me sanctuary
From all my headaches.

I could fall asleep now
and not care that I never woke.

This is not a religious conversion,
This is a feeling
Caused by centuries of humans being comforted.

My chest was forged for your head to rest on
Made by a blacksmith with the best intentions
Your head seems light, made so by affection
Which grows each time I catch your faults

I want to melt into your chest
to be closer to your heart,
sit right beside the beating chamber where your blood runs hot,
so I can hear the steady pulse that makes you breath,
and think of things to say to me
and think of things to say to me

You, my dear, are a work of art -
you are both the poison and the cure
for my easy heart
And no rain will come for my burning soul,
I'll burn until my heart is dust.
Alas, how I wish to hold your soft hair
and be the last whisper in your ear
as you drift afar into your dreams
my dearest dearest darling

I think about your hands -
or what they'd look like, still, in a painting -
Do you still talk to me in your head?

We don't talk now,
our once tattered line has crumbled into silence.
And I miss how I could have missed you,
and I long to have longed for you -
I dream of all the daydreams
I could have wasted on your eyes.

All of this -
and now you are just silence
at the end
of a thought.

I love you now
I think.
Though sometimes
when I kiss you
my thoughts are far away,
squirming out of your embrace.

But when you're gone
I can feel your lip
pulling mine.
Your face, rough
on my neck.

And so I do conclude
I must love you in some truth,
because I miss your sound
and your faintest touch.

I love you now,
I am sure,
and for that moment
when in doubts digressed,
I felt the weight of those seconds
pressed.

But in my pause
it lifted free,
and I felt only you
and me.

If skin were just another dream
we'd spend our lives holding insides in -
lungs and veins and vital things,
keeping our eyes safe from the wind.
We'd speak with tongues not covered by lips,
and in the midst of  love, our minds would touch
making the softest sound...
And everyday I'd endanger my heart,
dangling from my hands like fruit
And everyone would see it race
beating twice for you

I didn't know I loved you then.
Having pushed the idea from my head,
I was startled the other night
As I muttered the words

Not to anyone in particular
just a statement, stumbling from my lips
I didn't know, how I do now--

How you feel closer
Each time I hold your hand on my heart
Feeling your breath follow mine

And though the time I will love you will be short,
You leaving,
It is nice.
Knowing that I loved you
Knowing that you loved me

Make every word count
I waste     space    with   every  bad    sentence I  write  
every nonsensical, unfruitful thought
I must think now that I am just
no good at introspection despite
calling myself "artist"
(a self-given title I suppose)
But, perhaps with some work I could
improve? - learn more, wonder more, conclude more
than emotional blubberment, which is of course
entirely dim and disgustingly consuming
I want to challenge it
step over it to a place where I
understand, where I hold
the spark in my hand and
marvel at its beauty and Know
how things are

On nights before a storm
I can hear the sky
A quiet rumble
Rising from the earth,
Ancient in its echoing

As I lie next to you,
Wondering if you’re wondering
The same thing,
How the sky seems so unending
And yet is not,
I watch your eyelids close,
And think how we are not unlike
This sky

Sometimes raining
And others pure,
But we’ll climb too high
To breathe the atmosphere
And we’ll descend
Into the echoes
Of what we could have been

Looking down on clouds above
The atmosphere,
I let my eyes close and
Hear you whisper to me
From a dream of a night we spent
Kissing and passed loving and
Holding tight.
I told you
I was yours to keep
And you said you'd hold on to me.

Now I glance up: in the aisle
Waiting eyes for watered down
Coffee and a pleasant smile;
I oblige.

           Out the window

Pillow clouds, cotton white
And blue below my eyes,
Below my thoughts of you
Soft by deception, not the truth.
Though part of me would like to be fooled.

When you left my head
to reckon on its own,
it parted from this world to be alone.
Nothing laughed and all I saw was grey,
all the things I loved seemed to float away.
I was moving around,
but not seeing a thing,
Kept my head empty to keep from thinking of you.
And so I walked with a vacant smile,       took far too long to reconcile.
Everything has a time - hearts will stop and people cry.
But clocks will tick away until the good comes around again...
Living, waiting.

How strong I can recall
Summer’s cut grass
Damp from the thick
Southern air
We danced with plastic castles
In our arms
Dodging sprinklers
In neighbors’ yards
A child’s bliss
Ignoring calls
Of supper and setting suns
We ran on

Wet concrete
Beneath my feet
Felt like sand
And salt marsh breeze
Wandered gentle
Through my hair
Not quite a beach
But nearly there

Then quietly
The whirr of mowers
Disappeared
Summer’s white noise
Cut from my ears

We ambled home
Tired in and out
Called back by good request
Of stomach’s pleading
And light’s arrest

When I look at the moon, I feel someone looking back.  
He, something, knows how lonely I am.
I turn around; I cannot shake the sense
That standing
Just to my back
Was someone watching me watch the moon,
Helping me to hold you
In my heart.

How do streams decide
where to go?
I guess they just
follow the mountain down
until the down
is going up.

And when this is true,
you cannot call it stream,
for it no longer moves.
It is still and calm,
and ripe for swimming.

So let's disrobe and
celebrate the death
of stream,
now turned placid,
forgetting it's dream
of meeting the ocean
in salted praise.
Is it strange
to pity a lake?