I'm leaving you softly
behind the photographs
next to the dark room of my past

I'll find you roughly
in every surface I touch
next to the mausoleum

I'd miss you fondly
if I could understand
that you have left

I'll call god quickly
just to ask him
how you have been

The sky is gods canvas
We are all college students
Studying his perfect history
Paint splattered Auroras
Delicately placed stars
A throw up of millions of galaxies
Flawlessly intricate
Laying on our backs
Wanting nothing more than for gravity
To keep us there a little longer

May monday lessen its grip on your sorrows

Today a new page in an old book

Turned over for new eyes to read

Pasted into New york times

Reminding us today is not a tragedy

Today is a miracle

Put me on your wall
To catch everything unwanted
Bad thoughts of consuming darkness
Emptiness feeling complete
Doubts of tomorrow arriving

I want to hold onto all of these
Memorize their architecture
Rehearse the words in the sky
Tattoo them on my skin
To finally become, a part of your dreams

Our bodies traveled slowly through the field that evening
Sun falling somewhere between rest and arrival
I bent down and picked up a dandelion
You told me that as a girl wishes came true
When you believed in something deep enough
That nature would blow the truth over our lives

Then we became adults

So I wandered through the same field years later
Finding a dandelion that without a doubt
Had your name inscribed in the stem
I looked closer and found the wishes
Engraved in each seed
Spring loaded for my breathe to take them away

Montana will never be complete as a full state. The west side of the state has always left the map lopsided with mountains and beautiful lakes. While the east side is an overly unattractive sheet of black white paper. plain.

I grew up in kalispell. A whirlwind mixture natural with casinos talking to the trees. I was 8. Tommy was my best friend. He was a rolling fire ball full of oxygen waiting to breathe molecules dripping of rebellion.

We made this pact. Now I can't tell you the name of it. Well because I don't go back on that ****. We climbed trees with t-rex watches wanting to jump years ahead with springs for ribs that expand as our imaginations launched backflips through dusty alley ways.

We never once lost a game of cops and robbers. A grown up now. By age. I found a place. It was hidden in that tree in Montana. Lost in translation between the waves and the shores. Fallen somewhere after the suns rays and the way plants will always gravitate towards warmth.

I burrowed into my own synapses to find something more than right here right now. A place of altered reality sliced into a 7 piece pie. Slice one.

The scent of this place alone is enough to leave me undone and ready to fall.

Two. Penguins.

Three. It's an underwater cave. Hidden in your chest holding out reasons to let everything go and work right.

Four and five are somewhere dropped down a water fall trough the canopy of the napali coastline.

Six was in my legs as I ran through dusty pages of libraries full of knowledge I can't wait to learn. Drenching my veins in liquid inquiries.

And 7 is a place I call home. It ends up being wherever I am. Home with a marching band heart and quarters lost in couches.

Her heart reminds me of a classroom

Full of words
Dripping eager
The warmth of a fire

I want to step inside and learn

Everyday
From beginning to end
From the sole of your heart

Teach me the way you love

The hardest part is believe more in yourself than the weight of failure on your tongue.
The lump of give up stuck in your throat.
Broken fingertips that want to surrender.
I pull myself up by my lungs. Rearrange my insides well enough to hide my weakness.
And believe. For one second. That I can do this.

Love, well love is like a good cup of coffee

We all want to drink it without getting burnt

The moment God folded us into flesh
He wrote about perfection in his journal
Put our picture on his refrigerator
Day dreamed about selflessness
Spoke of passion
Wrote a book on love
As the dust settled on that day
God rested for he knew
We were fully broken
Ready to be made right

Place your words across my body
Like a crossword

1 down
your hair on my shoulder when I sleep

7 across
The curve in your clavicle

14 across
Answers to prayers we have not made yet

2 down
Forgive my jaw for hitting the floor

11 down
Love

11 down
Unknown

11 down
Promise

11 down
My vision is blurry

Dancing.

She tipped toed through my veins. Watching my ballet recital heart bleed for an encore. Stepping into this and forgetting all else.

We walked. Like trees in the Forest. Rooted. Loving the earth for loving trees while loving the water that gives us another chance to love tomorrow. Let's love like a seed that doesn't understand what growth is. Love like we believe we can be something more. Love with perseverance that sees so much further than the footsteps we have erased from yesterday. Why not love with a withered unending presence of god. A god that is fluent in forgiveness but also speaks in the dialect of love in every language. We are not forgotten emergencies. We are a moment away from being rescued. Into nowhere else but right here and right now.

So dance with me. Spread your toes, bend your knees, and leap out of your skin. Plunge in to this. Without a moment to spare, we will love, like dancers. Fluent and gorgeous.

Today is more than yesterday

Falling short of tomorrow

Right where it needs to be

Presently perched

On the high wire

Of being present

The closest I have come to suicide are the moments my pencil tip was close enough to my wrists to rewrite my history.

To find my blood line and dictionary write out the way of human life. A few fleeting moments from giving my words wings and falling into the growing sky.

Suicide is ever present in these poems. I have chosen to bleed suicide into a mass of dictionary definitions, instead of falling victim to another story ended too soon.

When I was 3 years old my father was taken from me. He was never given back. A toy I didn't get the chance to experience. A memory locked in a bottle floating at sea. My father. He is still alive. He is having an affair with drugs and sleeps with alcohol. The same people who took my father have now accepted him as one of their own.

I have wanted him back in my life since before the day he left. Listening to the footsteps that echo in ever doorway I pass through. I would do anything to have my father back. So I have begun deconstructing myself. While giving him back every part of me he never had. Building a body for a man with no backbone. A fortress to protect his tattered veins. Something to plead for a path back into my life.

My hands. I will first shake your hand. Giving you the moment to feel the strength I gained from your absence. Then I will dislocate my mechanical joints from the elbow and surrender. Maybe then you will feel the soft parts of my palm. The parts full of love and forgiveness. A path to the right side of the bed. Explore my forearms. The same ones who have build classrooms without you. But I still have a spot on my wall for a our picture. I keep it dusted and shiny.

My shoulders. A sign of cooperation. Using them to cope with the weight of regret in your bear trap chest. Without both of them you are left weak. A team that has carried the weight of the moon on it's nights the sky turns out the light. God and the devil have convinced me of difference edges of the world and met me in the middle. Use these shoulders to pack up and leave your past. Then you will find your present, tucked silently under the crust of earth at your feet.

My legs. I will never walk a day in your shoes sir. For this, I can't grasp the pain you hold upon your bone marrow. But let me lend you mind. They are full of miles. Miles to find a better tomorrow. A way to get off our worries without feeling sorry. Your blood will adjust to my feet. When this happens, our DNA will draw stories all over the map. Give us a chance to take a walk. And walk out of the glass in your captivated steps. Travel back to your family. We are broken statues, arms open patiently paused awaiting you to complete  our family once more.

My spine. I will melt into this earth and pray to my slumped body that you will stand up straight. I promise it worked last time I used it. While you borrow this could you look me in the eye. Just this once. I want to see the empty hotel canvas of a shell you run. You have been begging for vacancy for years. Here is your ticket. In the present. Not a moment behind.

My ribcage. I am keeping. This is my only defense. My body is simply a vessel of your genetics. I will easily give you back what is yours. But these ribs, they held me every night you were not there. Reading me stories of a better you. Myths about a father who loved how children deeply yet did not have the proper body, soul, or mind to do so.

My forgiveness. Dad, take these words. Digest them. Eat them in your meals at night. Watch them carved on your ceiling at first dawn. Feel them crawling through your bones. Then take this body. A offering of forgiveness. Something to give you safe travels back home. I'll be waiting. With the light on and a beer in the fridge.

This heart communicates through airwaves and satellites

Spreading thin on  paper skylines

Looking fully complete there in its worthless

The wind dilutes the potency of me

These words are tumbleweeds on a lonely highway

Waiting to be picked up and taken on a ride

The heart will follow

As I am swallowed

Into a new culture

Of alone

A place of far away

Unsure if I can stay

Confort my inners

with something more

Than surgical knives

And let me impact lives

Teach me to teach

I want to hand out and reach

For my dream of

Being more than myself

Sit down and give your attention
I need all of it, now
I am not asking for a lot here...
But I need your everything

Give up on the tremendous mountains in your sternum
Let go of the abuse
Clear your octopus ink mind
Get better grade on the district assessment

They are watching me bleed for you
I have given up on state expectations
Built a castle for these students of mine
Clearing a safe environment in the moment

Preparing you with the proper armor to fight for yourself someday
Take this sword imprinted with my words
Protect yourself
Fight for something worth it

She got drunk on Monday I know son
I just need you to do better
She hit me on Tuesday, I know son
Please just finish your assignment

I can't
I don't know how
I have not eaten in 2 days
You have no idea

Teachers are white blood cells
Expected to fight bacteria and show victorious statistics
With none of the time and less of the understanding
Maybe the bacteria looks different than we really thought

Our own immune system is causing fires
Putting unrealistic expectations upon our jobs
Too many students not enough teachers
Too many tests not enough love

We working organs in a bodies coma
Working without the recognition
Hoping to keep the system alive
Creating chances for our students to change the future someday

When you played my heart like a symphony.
Leaving me oblivious to the feeling of mediocre.
The strings sounded so good as your breathe entering the room.
Glowing like a gem through the clear blue waves.
I want to swim in your veins. Just so I can experience complete.
Your delicacy is a floating feather landing on my hand.
Fresh touch of unknown layers of skin.

My life illuminated like a stolen bike when you said you would stay.
Giving me the endless urge to speak butterflies out of love and entanglement. There was a nightlight in the way your eyes obliterated darkness. Giving content a different meaning.
I'll never forget the moment my heart opened. Caught like a grasshopper. But I didn't **** on your hand.

That feeling, you know the one you get when you hear the ice cream truck. Glorious allurement of the belated time it takes for sound to travel. A surplus of magnified feelings. Up me of the moment and return again. I forgot my money at home. Home is where you are.

Let me down again into the season. Lower me softly into existence. The unknown of tomorrow lays down. Now is the it. Leave it with me. It will ring forever. You are forever.

I dremt her to be perfect

A person filled with every expectation I want her to fit.

She did. I kept dreaming.

Because perfect doesn't live here.

We live in broken.

It is welcome and praised around these parts.

We are real. We are complete. We are together.

Let me be better
Than the monster you made me into

Let the monster in me
Love you more than I wish to

Let both of us fail
At seeing the beauty in this

Pressed between book ends and whiskey bottles
Our drunken breathe baited for affection
Wanting love to find ourselves
The unabridged version

We search glossary definitions looking for a respite of tainted
Cursively speaking alcoholic cacophonies
We rode the light energy of 5 in the morning
Leaving behind the pages of insecurities

That night we confessed the unthinkable
Begging for our names to written in the manifest of history
Wanting nothing more than to be each others sunrise
Slurring our last names into one, till death do us part

The best I have felt in the past 74 days are the days I didn't at all. The ones where I allowed the arctic freeze to clench my veins. My Days took a leap year. Leaving us solidly broken. A times table of rejected latitudes.

We stood at the edge of the world. And By we I mean I.. And I was not standing I was crouched. Feeling out the curve of the earth. Acknowledging that we are all too similar.

We have both been walked on too many times now. Our trenches are deep and less than 5 percent of them have actually been discovered. These mountain tops of ours are hard to reach, but it can be done.

Both of us, holding enough water to give life to those around us. Enough solid for others to feel supported. Air to split atoms and remind others, that maybe this life is worth living. And gravity that keeps us both grounded.

We are one in the same. Spinning madly in empty space too big for us to understand. Feeling small in the presence of giants. Victim to our surrounds. And heated at the core.

Alone. Surrounded by nothing and everything at the same time. I spin. Becoming dizzy. Pondering the impact of actions on my crust. Waiting for someone to treat me better.

Crater deep dimples filling hearts with mirthful spinning pinwheels. The sun rays illuminating the iris full of expectations, stories, lustrous joy, life. The energy shared in space made weak knees crumble. Silhouette causing brainwaves running rampant. The architecture of your shape is staggering. Staggered right through thoughts. Elated fingertips never found a better home. Hair blessing the wind with its presence. Giving flow to nature around. Flow through my life. The orbit already taken place. As simple as the circle I see in your glance. Smile again. Memorizing forms, unique, pictures, keeping them stored in a treasure chest behind my bones.  Completed. Play your algebra once more.  Lets get acquainted. Equal to the wonders of our body. Like the landmarks spread upon your skin like a treasure map. Let me discover you. The entrapment you caused upon my ability to speak is stammering. When did Things become so simple. Beauty slammed through ideas of broken bodies. It's an archive. Your body. Sun kissed and blessed by the noon. The way you illuminate under the vast open everything. I find my eyes fixed upon yours. Lost in the translation of their movements. Closing my eyes to imagine the holographic wonders taking place behind your reality. The turbulence in your chest is ever clear. Beauty isn't a word that I can make sense of. Not when I am presented with you.

Maybe we are in love with emptiness
Which explains why we feel it so deeply

I wish to give you this skin
The one encompassing
My everything

I give it to you
As an offering
An apology

For ever expectiation
Of yours
That I did not meet

She held me like an etch and sketch
Caressing my edges unit we forgot my past
Cranking tomorrows fortune into figures and shapes
Believing in my ability to live openly
That now, is ever-changing

That now, is a masterpiece

Cedar armored walls.
Defined by addition.
These 4 walls are only limitations.
Multiplied by distance .
To equal a
Freedom cut down.
Chipped at with a dull ax.
Bring the house down.
Glory and drink in hand.
This carpet captures secrets.
The spills of wine and tears.
Stains on character.
This chair stands strong.
Faultered? Not today.
Antique like your bones.
Fragile pressure of air.
Pressing on your pores.
You light this room.
Presence of fireflies.
Light my will to the door.
Step into the world.
Through this lanterned heart.
Use your butterfly eyelashes.
Flick the snowflake.
Guide your melting steps.
Snow disapates into forever.
Your an angel through purity.
Lungs flushed of ability.
Stutter stepped stupid.
Beauty of freedom.
Nature flexing possession.
Captivated.

It's as if a storm blew in, torrential rains, metal bending winds and standing in the eye was you.
Waves crashing. People locked up for days, hours, as time danced around -- the clocked stopped ticking.
A foolish venture to see the cause of such array. To see. To touch. To feel. Your sight penetrating through the clouds, ripping apart my seams. You watch as I came undone; undone by the velvet in your eyes, the bend in your smile. I twirl as I am stripped clean in your eyes. You see every scrape, scar, bruise and every moment I have tried to sew back together. Your touch burns my flesh. Sear into me a moment I cannot forget, a moment I grasp for in the darkness when I am all alone.
It's as if I can feel your fingerprint on my heart with every beat. As I stumble towards you, exposed and raw --- you absorb me. Absorb my pain, struggles, my darkness. You hold me so tightly it's as if when you breathe, I breathe the same breath.
Your embrace calms the storm. Calms the rush of thoughts, fears, worries and emotions. As I look up into your eyes, you see my future. My happiness. My vision of happily ever after -- holding hands in the sunset, in the rain, in the snow. As the winds die down, as the rain lets up, as the oceans settle -- I see you clearly. I feel your heartbeat. I know I am right where I should be. The eye of you.

Her smile is my favorite geometrical anomaly

Mathematicians have yet to discovered a name for it

Expressing sunshine

Solving the issue of yesterdays broken equations

The corners of her lips are the product of perfection

The trees clapped their hands on our backs
Raised their delicate roots into our homes
Shivering the leaves above our hearts
Carved SOS into their trunks

An attempt to get our attention
The forest is screaming
We are tuned out
Ignoring the fallen trees sound

Our hearts.
They match in our chest.
4 runways.
Palpitations.

Our minds.
Found behind those beautiful eyes.
A reason to think.
About you.

Our mouths.
Speaking love.
Across too many miles apart.
Loosing sound.

Our hands.
Filled with nerves.
Numb to the wind,
of tomorrow.

Our hearts.
Ripped out of our chest.
Dripping with forgiveness.
Wash over me.

You were like a waterfall for my eyes only

Falling all over yourself and absolutely gorgeous

I fell in love with simplicity that day

It was as if you dropped a toaster in my water

I was electrified from the moment I stumbled upon you.

I watched
As the fire burned down their dependency
Melted away their hope
Charred their smiles

He watched
The man looked at me
Talking with the smoke in his lungs
"As long as our teachers are safe"

I watched
The fire inside my chest
Filling my veins with names of the people of this place
Knowing that I am melted where I stand

In a college psychology class my professor told me about flashbacks. How these moments are defined by intense, vivid memories of a dramatic event in our past.
A camera broken face nervous
Shooting out pixels
Attempting to recreate your image
Hospital beds
No
Chemo dripped needles
No
Flat lined arms holding onto anything stable
Why
Now every doctor has the same voice
Each one of them presents themselves in forms of your death
When will the good memories come back?
At what point will my camera work again
The pictures I keep in my head are not the ones I want
This dark room is getting darker
Without producing new pictures
I need exposure
To the laugh you use to have
All I hear is your cough
A rippled wretched cacophony of cancer
Until then,
I choose to see you
In any way I can
To remind myself of your presence

Drifting through my mind, resting, dust particles no one notices sitting on the shelf. Observe life through a fuzzy spectrum. Slam your feathered pillow under my falling brain. Cushion this sky dive with your silk hands. Don't conduct this silent choir. Things work fine without your general commands. Just watch. Watch the leaf fall, dew form, clouds cumulate. It happens so naturally. Us. Natural. Pure. Exemplary. This course is self taught. Traveling at a speed of self worth and Discovery. Fumble down your righteousness. We all have dirt under our fingernails. Lets play in the dirt, sand, snow. Get lost in our time zones. Playing the same notes to find a symphony behind your eyes. Lovely is the way you see this world. Come see it. Float like the boat crossing the canal. Taking days to cross a minute. Storms and coves unknown to any. Your arrival is so important. Come rest in the lions mane. Enter this habitat of slips and tangles. Intertwined in me. Be fierce in your passionate subtleties. Float with grace and comfort. Lets float.

I want to be your forest fire.

I want to burn down all the good in you.

Everyone needs a fresh start at some point.

She pick pocketed all the moments she told me she loved me
Strong arm robbed me of the hope planted in my sternum
Took the few words still stuck on my tongue
And so I forgave her

My heart did not break
The sun still rose today
And the rain reminded me I can still feel
And so I forgave her

I will move slowly forward
Finding new ways to forget her
Plucking her like cotton out of my memory
So I can forgive her

I want to orchestrate a collage of every mistake
Of all the broken bones of my past
The gnarled roots I grew incorrectly
Twisted metal of permanent choices

Music will remind me to stay present
Bones will rattle with a stronger future
My roots will show of perseverance
Metal a foundry of choices I refuse to rebuild

I am told to take out the garbage.

To rid myself of things that are bad for me.

Every time i do this,

I feel nothing but,

Empty inside.

The rain falls, in the form of letters and drenches my life story into the garden soil beneath your feet. Flourishing roots that are not visible to the naked eye. These roots lay in my chest. Filled with dictionaries in languages I have attempted to remember over the years.

The water drizzled into my stem.
A moment I'll never forget. a moment of growth. That I peeled back the curtains of all the soil hiding my best ability to stand tall. My knees straightened up and let the blood come back to the atom bomb I hold my chest.

Spouting my arms open wide. The letters melting off my fingertips and I to this solem piece of paper. Spelling out words of life that started from the root of my being.

Reproducing a cycle of seasons. Seasons of grown and seasons of molting. Each and every year I find myself to have a new skin. One different from the last.

This is how I know I am still growing. When I sprout I refuse to grow into something already present. I will magnify myself into something rare. Never before have I seen it.

I refuse to let the soil of these seasons determine my biology. I will photosynthesize to remember that I need to soak in the moment. That today I will grow and not stand still.

If I die tomorrow and am no longer present
When my life no longer reruns on bad television channels
Please read my words to the ears of your children
To the moments of the future I will not experience
Even if the only words your ever read are
I love you. I love you all so much

Blood dripped through at the tip of my pen

Scribing the words in my veins

Showing the shadows of altruism

Spilling ink across white skies

Shall my tattoos melt off my skin

Sacrificing my own existence

To write poems about you