Am I in utero,
    Or is this purgatory?

Should I be comforted
by this sense of complacency,
reverberating through the sea
where my cortex leisurely floats?
   Or should I be worried?
That I am becoming contented,
that this is dangerous to my existence
and the wholeness of my soul?
                                                                        For I am a wild animal...
Aren’t I?
Sure, my teeth resemble no fang,
my nails have not torn lately torn into flesh,
But I need to drink in air that’s fresh,
I need to move,
I need to see,
I long to run,
I long for freedom, yes,
I must be free.
                                                                           For I am a wild animal.

I hear the words in the primal cry of my mind internal,
And I know,
The truth lies in the latter.

I am suspended in an idle purgatory of my own making
I have tricked myself into a false sense of contentment
Comfort is my only organic enemy.
I must move,
I must see,
I must run,
I must have freedom,
I must be free.

I have been a netted fish,
a caged wolf,
a bear with foot in iron trap.

                                                                                    I am a wild animal;

I will kick and bite and claw,
I will fight relentless until
                                                                                            I am free.

I will probably stand you up on end,
the way hair rises for
electricity
uprighted, sure,
though not exactly how it’s supposed to be
I’ll play the current
and you won’t be what you were,
or at least always have been

And whether that changing
and charging between us
is right or wrong
is up for interpretation.

And speaking of interpretations,
you could wind up trying to read my signs
even though they won’t be signs,
unless I make them signs...
like warning signs,
or danger signs,
or maybe the kind of signs on old road posts,
weathered and worn,
and illegible

or maybe the kind of picket signs
that tells you all the ways
from which you can leisurely choose
on some sun dusted road
with your options spread at your eyes
and your feet
and hopefully, your heart
and you could choose whichever direction
that you think you know you want

And my words will most likely make you strain to hear,
though it may be a song you don’t understand,
like those of birds flying together distantly,
whom no matter how you concentrate,
are still a different species,
singing a foreign tongue,
who make you feel
and make you know
with a sadness or determination or both,
that until a melody is made solely for you,
you will always just be dropping eaves

And speaking of dropping,
I could cause a loosened grasp on things
the things you can touch,
and the things you can’t
and the things I can’t
will all be forgotten,
dwarfed,
at least, seconded
by my growing presence in your mind
you might imagine me as an Alice
oh my poor, shrinking wonderland
you didn’t stand a chance.


And it’s possible those things,
you know,
the ones that you let drop,
will clatter to the ground,
from your forgetful, or, unconcerned fingers,
and when they are grounded,
discarded,
leveled,
lowered to my toes,
that I may see a higher view

But, perhaps, just maybe
you’ll find that,
though they fell,
though you let them fall,
that I didn’t let them b r e a k

perhaps you’ll see I will have made for them a haven,
cushioning, cradling and made up of only the softest matter,
six thousand thread count kind of stuff,
likefeather down,
eyelashed cheeks,
inner cloud,
your words,
and my kisses


And when you finally come down from my initial high,
it’s probable that you’ll be so dazed
and dizzied
that you must look at your feet
to make sure that you are still standing
and that is when you will see
that in the moments when you forgot
the importance of your things, that I
did not
And I could not let them
clatter, shatter, smash
and that though they dropped,
because of me,
they are still intact
because of me

and when you see your things,
ones you loved but forgot you loved,
that they are all
unbroken,
is when you will know you can love me
wholly

i lose myself
i find myself
i throw myself away
i choose myself
then blind myself
and tell myself that it’s okay

i create myself
then love myself
and go on like that for days
then i mistake myself
and shove myself
onto the floor, in my own way

I belong in green forests
I belong in gray seas
The shore’s were I’m surest
Beneath waves I can breath

I belong amidst summits
I belong atop cliffs
Where other hearts plummet
Mine starts to lift

I long for the sea
I long for each tide
I long for the breeze
And the stars at my side

I want leaves in my hair
I want vines on my wrists
I want to breath in blue air
I want earth in my fists

I want salt on my lashes
I want trees at my stern
As each season passes
Another I’ll earn

I’ll watch for each solstice
I’ll encompass the night
The moons where my soul sits
But I’ll be back for first light

With each passing phase
My soul will eclipse
Life swells and fades
As the winds brush my lips

I belong far from doors
I belong far from walls
I’ll take the earth as my floor
Or I’ll take nothing at all

My eyes make me promises I cannot keep.
Though I can see that you believe them,
In how you’re looking back at me.

Your own eyes are daring to meet me,
Now there’s a smile playing at your lips
Even still I can see the hurt
In how you’re tracing lines with your fingertips.
You're thinking I must be a breath of cold, fresh air,
That somehow I’m the only one
Who can take you away from there.

I already know where it’s all going,
And Lord knows how bad that I can be
Because I’ll probably play along,
Smiling back when you’re smiling at me.

How long this could go on,
It’s impossible for anyone to see
Until you decide that you want more,
That you want all of me.

It might even happen in the same haunt, the very room were we first sat
But this time it’ll be my fault because I’m just no **** good at that.

What is it about stairways?
An image of promise,
Or is that mystery?
Cascading in slanted light,
Tempting us forward,
Upward
Delivering us to romanticized paradise
Or ornamented haven.

To sanctuary disguised as a sun dusted bedroom,
Where doubtless, is a hidden love
Of the sort that once uncovered,
Will ever follow us.

Or maybe to dark wooded rooms,
Glowing with strings of frosted light.
Indigo ceilings and charcoaled walls,
Lit up

Or a creaking hallway that will usher us
To chipping french doors with a glassy view,
Where we will glimpse a new and equally hopeful vista.

Perhaps enchantment
In the form of rolling, dark green gardens,
With another Stairway that is their own, but is
Descending,

And which, at its very sight, we can feel tugging at our hand;
Breeze itself, defined and determined
It will be an alluring yet familiar pull.
Luminescence between our fingertips.

The sight a vow that will pull us down those steps
Cool stone alive with mossy cracks, that curve, disappearing from view
Laying us down to wonder,
Only in a moment to reemerge in the clearer eyes of our mind.
Where surely, round the corner, we will just be able to make out that the steps are met
With an unclouded, rosy woodland.

The aspen encompassment of a measured and ghostly chemistry;
Flourescent tree line and rocky hem,
Savage and most lovely,
If we only have the courage to climb or to descend them, a perceptual promise awaits,
An ended hunt.
The perfect tincture of Wilderness and Refuge,
That will make us feel the scope of our existence,
without ever having to doubt whether we are safe.

Sometimes I'll let the wind in with me
Swirling surroundings, steady breeze.
Meet embraces with graced arms,
Wrists and fingers all adorned
White smiles
Silver cans
Red wine in decorated hands.

I’m aware of the hold before our eyes even meet.
My movements,
Engraving orbit for your gaze with nearly bare feet.

Ankles decorated, wrapped in strings that fell
Tattered and brace, loosely wrapping bones
are how I’ve made footsteps into ringing bells,
Tangible, as the hair falling to back you’ve well shown
Can catch your gaze, when I so wish, so well.

You’ll listen to clock hands as I take my time to swathe white bones
In a harvest of purples, reds and blue.
Each red lip sip will color my aura more mulberry and violet tones,
Round the wall of stone and brick
and out of sight,
where I won’t wait for you.

You’ll be wondering whether I’m still here,
your eyes will be searching for the gray of mine.
Mercifully, I’ll touch your arm,
A hello whispered in your ear
Bestowing only a smile more
then you'll lose me to the more open air
of airy pines.

Now begins your true hunger
for my eyes to be on only you, just as they have been before
and it is only a matter of time,
I know it’s true
til your feet, as well follow my path, outside this door.

Maybe you’ll watch me
out window’s glass, uneven, old and grasp
a dark figure stair-top perched,
all golden light and silver stars
Maybe my head will be turned
as you gather me up to your arms so fast
and, just like i knew, it will be,
all there we were's and here we ares.

I’ll turn to face you and you’ll exhale, you're at once relieved our gaze again has met,
and I’ll be thinking only of how good it would have been if you'd caught me with a cigarette.

Amidst the redwoods finite upward stretch,
streams of light grace darkened ground
where golden beams and deepened greens together catch
the promise of new sapling can be found.

Between these giants’ towering cast
that sovereign sunlights aid,
mighty limbs direct where any rain might pass,
and whether light gives way to shade.

His feeble roots take what they may,
with time enough to grasp only shallow sheet of earth.
And though by slightest breeze he’ll fro and sway,
he takes protection by his elders timely girth.

And, if looked upon by eyes with mind that couldn't know,
it may seem these ancient elder trees never had to, like the sapling grow.
For the way they stand against wind and gale it might serve as a surprise,
that they hadn’t always stood that way, that they like sapling, had to rise.

It was by passing years their rugged hide is earned and just.
And while saplings' leafy shade may be a lighter green,
and though his tawny bark be invisible to their upward eyes as of thus,
against the elders' ever richer jade, lest by my gaze, he can be seen.

Moons pass while sapling takes only what his patriarchs bestow,
It’s with patience he waits for the dusky day that he too shall finally grow.

Then all at once- he reaches and, with casted shadow of his own,
no more is he cloaked by his elders grander silhouette.
Alas, his quiet presence is timely to them shown,
they will see this sapling yet!

We met deep in the desert,
Our love was water cupped in your hands.
Fresh and cool you held it
But it slipped into the sands.

It trickled through your fingers,
And fell in droplets from your wrists.
The cool then only lingered,
as you tried to clench it in your fists.

The arid ground then drank our fallen water up with greed,
Your hands open in surrender left the remaining moisture freed.
And so I was left to stand alone, my throat parched and aching dry,
Hot air began to fill my lungs and sands stung at my eyes.

For a moment I blinked away the grains enough to see,
And that was when I realized that you were still standing next to me.
So I let my eyes fill again with sand, and then the tears began to fall.
Because you’d been by my side all along, but weren’t ever there at all.

So I said the words to make you leave, though they were all untrue
And you knew they were but you still left and I won’t chase after you.
And so I cried for you and us and those tears, like our love, fell cool and wet.
They came and stayed and watered all the ground where we first met.
One day they stopped falling, and I wondered if perhaps they should still be there
But they’ve evaporated, like our love had done, into the deserts' air.

You are carlights through white window shades,
You’re moonlight on the shore.
You are sun before rain had a chance to fade,
You’re bare feet at ocean’s floor.

Your voice echos atop the hollow waves
that we sleep to every night.
Your laugh is your heavy heart being saved,
all silver shadows fighting golden candles’ light.

I am grays and blues and evergreens,
I’m early sunlight reflected in clear eyes.
I am ever changing and ever seen,
I am pastels trapped inside thick black smoky ties.

We are a single whispered chord, retuned and redefined,
We are coastal byways and yellow dotted swerving lines.
We are deep navy skies inhaled by wintry crystal night,
We are watercolors cooled by the sea then cast in firelight.

I want to see your wholeness
I want to feel your width
I want you to encompass me
I want us to exist

You'll show them who I am
We'll show them our own true
You don't have to be alone
While I show them a better you

You'll be swift and you'll be free
I can make you want to run
I’ll tug the stars ‘til you can reach them
I’ll make the whole sky come undone

I want to breathe you in
Then I want to drink you down
I want the moon to wake us
I don’t want to be found