The magic inside of him is too powerful for her eyes to witness
Naked and innocent as they are.
There's a way his soul grinds and chafes against thoughts as they lay unprepared
That gets tested by question without answers and people without petitions.
There is no one path.
There is a single door locked fourteen times leading to a narrow, dry valley.
Deeper than the sea, lined with dust and maggots
He once crouched hysterically digging and clawing at the earth
In search of a power to great for a single body of flesh to inhabit.
Comfortably.

An old man knocked on my door and gave me flowers
He said "darling keep these forever" and he walked away.
So I sat and wondered about the death of these flowers I was told to keep forever
And I put them in a vase and slept.
When I awoke I was an old woman with a house made entirely out of roses
With the old man sitting next to me.
"I see you got the roses.
The ones I always meant to give you when I first saw you."
I could see in his eyes that I'd always loved him.
And that we were young.

Black coffee, closed book, no mystery.
She is defined.
A word in the dictionary with one line.
One tense.
One meaning.
She is the word you must look up to understand
But once you do.
You know her.
Like the north star you know her.
Why she shines, where she is.
Why she cries and who she smiles for.
Perhaps one day
Someone will look her up.
And make an honest woman out of her.
But until then she is nothing but black coffee, closed books.
And mystery.

It's 6 pm and I'm drunk off of cheap red wine
Poured to the brim of a plastic glass writing
About how lonely I am.
But I'm not lonely, I have cheap red wine
And every 6 pm for the rest of my life.

For one night they loved the way only strangers know how to love
The way only she knew how to love, a fire in her heart kindled by the softness of his touch.
She refused to love, he refused to love, and yet they were
Twirling in an ever-ending, music-less, whirlwind of tenderness and sweetness.
She called him honey. Panicking. Said he wasn't alone.
He said stop.
She turned over and wept.
He left.
Strangers. The way it was always meant to be, but the way it never should have been.
With a secret.
They loved, the way only young people can love each other.
Never ending and unforgiving love.

I saw him in the candlelight
With his elbows resting on his legs
His head facing the ground
And his eyes closed. Tightly.
So tightly they refused to be opened
To acknowledge that mine were there
Looking straight at his face
For the very first time.
It was as if he'd found something
More powerful than even him
To sit in reverence of.
And the candlelight tricked me
Into believing that too.
I could see light dance off of every inch of his face.
No smile.
No expression.
Just his mouth moving with every whisper
And his eyes shut tight.
I looked away but stayed focused
On the corner of my eye where I could see his back
Move up and down
With every
Single
Breath.
And I thought to myself how incredible
To fall in love with the man
That only God and I had the privilege to see.

It's not stealing.
More like glorified borrowing
Of things that glitter
Like stars in the fresh
Alcoholic
Night sky.
Or better yet.
Merciful adoption
Of the abandoned
Reaching out
to my
More than willing fingers.
I was antiquing in the future
For things that decorate
The background
Of nights that represent
Desperation and regret.
It's not stealing.
It's *claiming memories

Let's have an affair over thousands of miles.
I know you through the words you've written down,
Which tell me you are equal parts baffled and fascinated
By the billions of minds that make up this crazy, crazy world we live in.
I'm asking you to take off your work uniform slowly and deliberately
So I can see where you've tattooed all of those nights smoking *** and laughing on your chest.
And I promise not to be intimidated by the black spot next to your heart
Inked in fully with the names of every girl you've brought home
And used as a muse those weeknights you just wanted to love something.
I don't fear your short, crisp lines filled with inside jokes you're dying to share
With anyone who isn't you.
I don't fear a little bit of darkness or loneliness.
I only fear that I'll never be able to feel your breath on my neck as we sway back and forth
Cloaked in smoke laying on a bed of aluminum and grease-stained shirts.
Or I'll never be able to run my hand along your chest as your lungs fill up with the sweet smell of rain.
I don't know you, but I like to imagine that you're a cliche ocean of depth and passion
That wants to do right by anyone who will do right by him.
So let's do this, let's have a cross country love affair of the senses
And feel each other like we're just learning what it means to touch.

Her name was Margot and she was followed by a band of faceless nothings.
Only bodies with heads and mouths that sang dreamy, sad songs into a can on a string.
Wandering the earth hoping to hear back that nothing is lost
Nothing is lost.
Go back to sleep darlings nothing is lost.

She fell in love with words on a page written down like a cry for help.
Because she felt them move inside of her and stop her very heart from beating.
She could feel them hammer into her veins and tiptoe through her brain
As they nested ideas and thoughts into her mind about the man who wrote them.
Like he was sitting somewhere in the dark etching his feelings into the air with his own sweat
She could feel him.
Using only the words he wrote down with the ink he barely had left on the last page of the journal he carries
To and from his days as a student or a business-man, or a drifter. A loner.
Who whispers sweet nothings into the air like a spider's egg explodes into infinity with children
And the wind carries them gracefully to her eyes somehow.
She dreams about the words flowing through her fingertips onto the last page of her journal
That she carries to and from her days as a student, business-woman, drifter. A loner.
She hasn't let one single laugh escape from her lips, or a smile appear on her face.
Not while the words she needs to breathe cling to some forsaken wind across the country
Looking for her in the moonlight, written with an unknown desire to be with her.

He said "I'm moving to Ohio.
Won't be long now.
It's a thousand degrees inside of this train and all I got
Is this coffee you gave me.
See you're from this land
With an office, and air conditioning.
And a job.
But all I got is this cup of coffee you gave me."
I said "what's in Ohio?"
He said "nothing. But here I lost $4,000 for smoking some ****.
Just a itty-bitty joint"
Then he motioned with his fingers. No more than the scar on my elbow.
"and that DUI." He adds
Under his breath.
"Yes ma'am. I'm moving to Ohio.
One day I'll see you on the news and I'll say
'I know that girl. She gave me a free cup of coffee, iced.'
And I'll be so proud of you.
I'll say 'I met that girl in a thousand degree train'.
Sure, Ohio ain't no L.A.,
But neither is this place."

There was a loud pop,
Then there was chaos
Like the very word "silence" had ceased its existence
For no other reason
But to be lusted after.
And the man with blood flowing from his head
Lying face down on the pavement
Saw not his own life in a flash
But that of a daughter he never knew
Lived out a full 90 year lifetime.
Whom he was able to love with a love
That could only stem from absolute
Deafening
Chaos.

Seeking a gentleman who gets lost in thoughts
Feels everything and holds onto nothing.
Bachelor must tolerate banjos, books, and bare-feet.
A writer is preferred, but not exclusively.
I'm seeking a companion who loves tea and coffee in the afternoons
Must be willing to gamble with the suggested shows on netflix
And suggested artists on pandora.
Bonus points if music moves him in directions he didn't know existed.
Seeking a gentleman whose heart is made entirely of love and passion
With a reasonable head
And an unapologetic twinkle in his eyes.
I warn you that I love sunburns and tank-tops
Rain makes me sad, and I own a blue Snuggie named Ralf.
I laugh too loud at lame jokes about muffins and bars
Cry desperately in movies
And am driven to push boundaries.
***** makes me loose
I'm terrified of fourteen-year-old girls and spiders.
And I consider 90 degrees to be jacket weather.
I'm seeking a gentleman with an empty hand and a full heart
That I can love with all that I have
Laugh with, cry with, dream with.
You can find me in the words on this page.
I'll be waiting.

I went to goodwill and took off my tights
Just to wear someone else's pants in a closet.
The shoes I bought were perfect but petite,
they didn't match my outfit anyway.
So I walked through the fire in heels and a dress
I got runs in my tights and blisters on my feet.
My chest littered with bug-bites from sleeping on the sidewalk.
Then we drank coffee and tea until 11,
getting phone calls from rehab and holding each other
Laughing because it was finally nighttime in hell
And our straws, and the stars, were all glowing.

There is one American word
To describe the relationship
Between a mother and a daughter
A pair of lovers
A young boy and his puppy
A CEO and his paycheck
The sun and the moon
Me and these words.
It's an American fallacy to believe
That what can be bonded by blood
Can be consummated in the bedroom
Or born of thought
What can die in a moment
Is immortal, infinite generations old.
There is no one word with shoulders powerful enough for that kind of weight.

I can tell you that the caged bird sings
Slow, sad songs about her wings.
Notes, like tears her crying brings
As through the air her sorrow rings.
Caged birds are told they cannot fly
No matter how much they wish or try
They're told to kiss their dreams goodbye
And are left to sing and wonder why.
This caged bird escapes to a ray of sun
Just her, a moment, if only one
She sits until her crying's done
And sings and flies for her, for none.
I don't know why the caged bird sings
Of flight and freedom and other things.
She's forever doomed, her heart stings
For the hope to which her singing clings.

We're not soulmates
I'm pretty sure.
Not meant to be
Not meant to hold
Not meant to love each other.
But that can't stop me from dreaming
Of dancing with you
To Ray Lamontagne songs in the moonlight
And growing old with your hand in mind.
We're not soulmates,
I'm pretty sure,
But that won't stop me from loving you
With everything I am.

I looked into her eyes and knew
She was looking at an angel
And reaching for the hand
of a soldier none of us could see.
Sometimes all that's left to do
Is close your eyes and wait
In memories and selfish tears
For mortality to softly return.
And while we sit around a hospital bed
sipping coffee out of plastic cups, waiting.
She's resting on the ***** of forever
Feasting at the table of the almighty.

His heart does not belong to you. He is a poet.
Don't you know they only love words?
Love, yes love, he lives and breathes and writes love letters
About your brown hair around your neck, and the gold he found in your eyes.
Maybe the way you smile more with one side
Or other things, perhaps, about you he believes he loves.
But it's not you he loves, and you must realize this now.
He only loves words. He is a poet. He only loves words.
He's not looking for any heaven he can spend with you
Because he's already found it in that cup of tea he sipped
At the coffee shop around the block
Where he sat, and listened, and watched, and thought
Of the words he loves more than you.

A small child once swam up to me
While I was drowning and gasping for breath
And asked.
Kindly.
Be my friend?
Without responding I looked at her,
And ignored her
To continue with my flailing in the shallow water.
And it took me until now,
And until later
To realize the deepness of the water was in my mind.
That she had not swam to me but walked
With water around her ankles
Her ankles alone.
So now I'm standing
In shallow water
With a friend, who has waited
And waited
For me to realize there was never any water at all.
None at all.

He used to walk with his head down,
Eyes on the ground sheltered by black lenses
Brick walls covering the window to his soul.
He barely even walked,
trudged really.
Like he was making his way through a swamp of ***** things
Things he wanted nothing to do with.
He deafened himself with his music
So he couldn't even hear the filthy creatures that taunted him.
Tennis shoes or moccasins, didn't really matter,
He moved them one at a time, step-by-step,
Carefully choosing the route that would leave him most alone,
So he could wonder to himself why no one loved him.
I've never seen his eyes, but I've looked into his soul
And though he's never spoken a word to me
I understand his heart.
He's let it be so, that people can see,
That he maims himself out of love
And though he is still blinded by walls,
And deafened by music
He now walks with his arms open, his head up,
His heart vulnerable.
He is a book you have to take from the shelf and open for yourself.
No cover art, no summary on the back,
But the greatest book you will ever read
Nonetheless

All I know for certain is that I lost you.
Somewhere between "hello" and the goodbye that stopped my heart,
My smile didn't matter to you any longer,
And my hand became a world too heavy for you to burden.
Somewhere between "hello" and never seeing your face again
Watching the moon rise over the lake turned into a complete and utter memory
Of a moon that waited on the other side of the parking garage roof,
And love turned from a campfire
To wood too damp to kindle a flame.
I don't know where my accomplishments began affecting you
More than the spring in my step,
Or my tears became tangible evidence of discovering reality
But there was a specific point where it turned.
After so many months, years have passed, the point has left me.
My heart beats again
I smile, and write, and dance,
But for fear of finding the turning point once more
I do not love.

Sometimes I feel like a participation trophy.
Congrats, you did it.
Here's to commemorate your dedication
Now goodbye, go do something better with your time
Earn something you're not afraid to show off
That's worth more than this five cents of plastic
Unless, of course, you're not good at anything
In which case look, everyone, at my trophy.
I participated in something
That took more effort than eating food or breathing
I showed up sometimes
And did some stuff
And I got this trophy I can put on my top shelf
So everyone can see it's a trophy,
But no one knows I barely earned it.
Not that anyone cares anyway

He is made up entirely of perfection
The boy who without any flaws, they called him.
With as much heart as soul, as much soul as mind, and as much mind as strength.
The way he carried himself was perfection.
Steady, step-by-step, looking neither down at his feet or up at the sky
Nor straight ahead
But perfectly in front of him with attentive eyes that didn't search the crowd.
He sat when he needed to, stood when he needed to,
And knelt down only to God.
Each word he used on paper or in voice was riddled with kindness and honesty, and deliberation
As if he had dedicated his whole life to finding that word, to use it in such a way
As to share it with you in that moment.
Truly he spent his time thinking about words and meanings,
So that each word he spoke and thought had meaning
Nobody knew that he was lonely, and the words were to him more than words
But a way to describe, but a code, but a message in a bottle
With limited time to speak and ears to hear,
Words chosen perfectly for each occasion to introduce himself
To perhaps his soul mate.
But he was made of perfection, whose soul-mate didn't exist
Whose soul-mate was too imperfect to tell him she heard him when he said
In his backwards code
That he was in love with the sky and the sun, the moon and the stars
And wanted nothing more than someone to walk with at night.

Coffee shop boy sitting at a wooden table with headphones tucked gently into his ears
Sipping espresso or tea from a paper cup that says "Caution: Hot Contents"
Which makes him think desperately of her clothes, and the wind-kissed skin she wears underneath
Wishing he could be the air and wrap his soul around her with each of her steps.
He takes a sip of his latte or black coffee, and feels the burn as it travels down his throat
While it warms his heart he looks out at the night sky framed by the coffee shop window
He glances at the moon and all of the stars and prays they light her path and keep her safe
In envy he realizes the stars look upon her every night, when she wears the moonlight around her face
With her head resting against a pillow, eyes closed and dreaming things the day can't contaminate.
And he wishes beyond hope he could be there to write them down like a to-do list kept secret from her
Until completed he presents them to her, with a check mark on his own heart to show that it, too, is hers.
But since he cannot do these things he picks up his Americano or Cocomo and takes another sip
And he lets the banging of the drums and deliberate pounding of the guitar put her out of his mind
Until later at night he picks up a pen, half-full with ink, and writes once again about himself
Hoping she'll read each word and fall as in love with him, imperfections, flaws and humanity
As he is with her beauty, words, breath, heart, soul and spirit.

Sometimes late at night when I can't sleep, which is more often than I can, I daydream about princes and flowers, shiny things and comfort. I over complicate things that have simple explanations, and brush off things that need my utmost attention. I think about rain and snow that I never see, and dream about dust blowing at my face and the feeling of concrete sun burning my feet at noon. I think about all the moments of the day I forget about, like walking to class and shading my eyes from the sky, and I remember how beautiful it is. And I wonder why I lay awake in my bed thinking about princes and flowers and shiny things when I have the sun at my back, the grass between my toes and the world at my fingertips.

Once said that he was baffled
Yes, flabbergasted,
that in the 6000 years of human existence
In the 6000 years of exorcisms
Crucifixions
******
Bombings
Shootings
Lying
Stealing
K­indness
Love
Mercy
Forgiveness
No one ever prayed for the one
Who needed prayers to most.

Pass the bottle over to me
I'll show you how to have fun
And live like tomorrow doesn't exist
Like heaven is waiting beyond the stars.
Pass me the bottle
So we can make a toast to love
We find at the bottom of Jack Daniels
Or at the top of the world.
It's the same thing really.
Like a Ferris Wheel with a sweetheart
A swim in the moonlight
Drunk off of the smell of flowers and candy in the air
We can take over the world with just one bottle
Maybe two if we're lucky
Pass me the bottle
And I'll drink away the real poison
Drink after you the antidote
To a dull existence
Pass the bottle over to me
And we'll touch the moon and set the sun on fire.

I loved the scars on his hands
From when he baptized himself in a pile of dirt on a playground.
Reaching before knowing, like he always did.
Once grabbing hold of me
And I loved him.
His eyes may not have been beautiful, but his soul was.
Like that same boy who dove headfirst into the dirt his spirit shone through his crooked smile
And lanky gait.
It was love because I could see his heart,
It hurt because he stole mine.
Out of my hands rough and calloused from testing before reaching
And my chest fresh from being freezer-packed for years.
It was love because it tested boundaries that didn't exist until we found them
I know it was love.
I hope it was love.

Maybe it's over for me
Because the silence is finally deafening.
The tea is cold, the hands are empty
My solitude forever is ending.
Maybe I know who I am now
That's why I'm no longer searching
The Angel on my shoulder once pondered
Now he's stuck skulking and lurching.
Maybe it's time to reach out
For a hand to partner with mine
And even if I come back empty
I've been there before, I'll be fine.
Maybe I'm done being lonely
I'm not as good company anymore
It's perhaps time to lock the window
And walk out the now opened door.

Touch my skin you ***** rascal
Touch mine and leave your mark.
Cook me with your radiance, let me feel your hands
As they run all over my exposed shoulders, waist, knees, and flip-flops.
Sunspots and freckles.
Burns and chapped lips.
Sunglasses and fenced pools
In the desert.
The cactus, the scorpion, the sun.
The dust in the air is better than oxygen.
And I sit for hours with nothing but love in my heart
For the heat that burned away the hate in my soul.
Sunspots and freckles like kisses from the sunshine
Drying me off in 2 minutes flat.
Hydrating the desert in my soul.

This is a story set in stone taken apart like pebbles and thrown into the sea
About a young girl who didn't know that she'd grow up one day to be me.
And every one she's ever known who doesn't understand
How much hate and love has been cause by her two average sized hands.
It's like her heart was always aching, like her chest was calling out.
And her fingers always itched to write to find what it was about.
A boy would come, a boy would go, a man may come and stay.
But life, it seemed, was against her, and would put obstacles in her way.
Space and time, her heart's bane, reminded her each hour
that minutes, seconds, days, and months will **** each precious flower.
With no water, sun, soil or love her heart would beat out dry
Would stop it's needy stretch, would stop trying to touch the sky.
This is a tale about a girl who didn't know that she would take
The weight of all her heart's wishes and its aches.
Upon her sturdy shoulders and she trudged through space and time
So that farther in her journey she could jump instead of climb.

How do you know
What is meant for you?
In prayer and meditation you often find your wants.
Less often you find your desires
And rarely your heart tells you what it needs.
I need
What I can't have.
What isn't mine to take.
What has been offered and rejected.
What makes my heart grow.
I need what she needs more than me.
And what she has worked harder for than I.
I need what she wants so desperately she has staked claim to.
Before it has settled into her life.
I need, I want, I desire.
She deserves.

Unpack your bags filled with hate and selfish thoughts.
Don't think because you've carried it thus far it will be bought.
You alone are the owner of the sin you hold so dear
And the desperate, hungry monster that you have brought with you here.

Don't think for one small second I will entertain your game.
You should know that from this party will only come more shame.
Satisfaction will never find you when you ask and never give.
Selfless is perfection, the only perfect way to live.

My burdens are my own, just as yours belong to you
You brought this disease along the way and to the end you have to do
What you meant to do along the way, to carry it in your pack.
To feed off what you do not have, to feed off what you lack.

But your hate has no place in my life, and still no place in my heart.
Of nurturing this selfishness I will not have a part.
I love you with a love so deep it's only fair to say
I will not help you feed your hate along our two lives ways.

At midnight I am not responsible
To fulfill your need for attention
Over and over again you tell me
I cry when I’m alone.
I feel sad
Everyone, no one, these are the people I have.
Your love is a selfish love.
You love to get love in return.
There is no self-sacrifice,
No inspiration from the truest of love
For the love you dish out.
I can tell you I love you,
But I can’t be your ring-tone.
Each time someone does not call to say
“I love you, you’re perfect, don’t worry”
I love because you’re amazing in your own spirit.
Hate, the likes of which, I have never known.
But I will not support,
I will not condone
Your selfish, needy, desperate love.

Words do not come from the mind
Nor do they come from the heart.
They don’t rhyme because their sounds fit together.
Words don’t come from the mouth
The tongue or shape of the teeth.
Words are not music, or sounds, or even letters.
There is no science behind words.
There is no science behind what isn't tangible.
Words, the beauty of which are felt,
Come from the itching of fingertips.
It’s when you cannot speak that words become precious.
When you cannot rhyme that words have meaning,
And when you cannot feel that words hurt the most.
The power of words is the power of fists.
The softness of which is a mothers touch to her newborn child.
The beauty of freshly painted fingernails
Decorated with rings meaning love, forever, spirit.
The fingers.
The fingertips.
Flowing from the wrists and arms
The power source less
Only the itching to write what can’t be said.
What deserves to be preserved
Infinitely.

She always looked so tired
Like her green eyes hated to stay open
And her neck couldn't hold her head up;
Not with all of her thoughts going like racehorses down a track.
I loved the way she trudged this way and that
And how every breath she breathed was deliberate and thoughtful,
She planned each step and blink as if it was her last
That's the way it seemed.
Except when she felt the words moving through her
In a song
Or a poem
Or a story
And her neck would strain to feel it like a cool breeze on a hot day
Her eyes would open and refuse to close
Hoping it was the last sight they ever saw.
Her tired, trudging breath and feet turned into springs and she swayed
With the music of the words she felt inside of her.
And I loved her for it.
And for everything else.

I once stumbled upon a great beast of a tree
And I thought how like it is a man in this world.
From a seed this great tree grew from the ground
And his arms stretched where they once timidly curled.
I thought to myself how man is strong when storms blow his way
But, without nourishment, would shrivel to no more.
Like this great beast Man stands strong, protects and shades
Even when Man knows not what for.
Man's roots, his core, rely on the soil from which he grew
And to these things Man clings for life
A good man finds love in his mother and father
Or, if he's lucky, in the woman he calls wife.
A man is like a tree in the way that he stands tall
Even when everything around him slowly dies one-by-one
The might of a man can bring some to their knees
To some, he shines brighter than the summer sun.
A man is like a tree in the way that he is strong when he needs to be
Yet he knows when life is trying to make him drown
But often, though he stands and withers away
A man will not fall down.

A woman seeks guidance, but never direction
Because in matters of importance she knows
That though she loves with the innocence of a child
She will never forget her scars and her woes.
And her soft hands that you hold onto for dear life
Are covered with blisters and stories you will never hear.
You don't want to know that you need her soft hands
To drive away everything you secretly fear.
A woman dances ballet in each step she takes
And she never speaks, but each word she only sings.
Because a woman knows you need her sweetness
And rely on the peace her song brings.
Beneath her dress she wears armor
She knows her heart would be safer gathering dust.
Yet she gives freely her love, smiles and laughter
And, too often, her precious trust.
She is a dangerous warrior
With a spirit timid and fee.
A woman's love is a treasure
Much rarer than it seems to be.

Sometimes after it storms the days are dark and cold
And the nights are endless.
These days the sun wants nothing more than to shine
But he’s so frozen with fear that once he does
It will rain again.
Because maybe next time the rain will destroy him once and for all
Maybe he’ll never get to shine again
And he’ll be lost like a piece of driftwood in the sea.
But in the darkness he doesn't look forward
Doesn't read the signs in front of him that say
It will all be alright.
Because even a piece of driftwood lost in a sea of storms and troubles
A simple piece of broken, soaked, and destroyed driftwood.
A fragment of a once great tree that shaded and grew and provided life
That was torn apart by the same storm the sun fears now.
Can become the reason someone lived another day.
And though he lives in fear, though he does not look ahead and realize these things
The sun shines on.

Breathe.
In and out. In and out.
And let the tide wash over you.
You cannot:
Run away.
Go backwards.
Regret.
Or take back.
You can only breathe
And wait.
Until the tide washes over you.
Until the wind stops blowing.
Until the rain stops pouring.
You can only close your eyes.
You can only breathe.

You want her skin to be like the light from stars shining miles away
In a sky you know nothing of
And her eyes to be gray like storm clouds.
You want her heart to be unexplored
So the map is yours to chart, the land yours to claim, and the life yours to take.
You want her harmony.
You want her voice to be the sounds of a hummingbirds wings,
Sweet like wine on a cool April night
And yet tender like the January wind.
You want the moon.
But the moon is not mine to give away.

More often than you would expect
But far less often than I'd like
I find myself in the company of the hands of time.
Each frequently infrequent encounter he tells me stories that are otherwise uninteresting and uneventful
But with him they are incomparable
And the passing of time goes far too quickly.
He doesn't realize who he is.
And I cannot be the one to tell him
That he controls the months and weeks and days with his voice.
And it's up to him how many seconds have passed since the beginning and until the end.
So I just sit and listen and laugh
and smile and cry
One becomes five, and five becomes four.
And on and on time flies.
Saying nothing, or saying little.
I'm afraid I'll ruin his magic.
Time will not speed up for me, nor will it slow down.
Only for him.
And only in his company.

One day not far in the future
I'll remember how I have grown
Fondly I'll walk through the tragedies
and the heartbreak that have shown
That some people cannot be made good,
Their cuts and scrapes are too deep.
Scars have formed on their hearts
Desperately inching towards sleep.
I'll pray for the brightest smiles.
I'll think of those laughing the most.
They're the ones desperate for love.
They're the ones living as ghosts.
I'll tell my children and grandchildren
That not every smile is warm;
Not every hand is worth holding
Some showers are often a storm.
Steer clear of those with hatred.
Never mistake them for misunderstood.
Grudges spread war and unhappiness.
From them I have learned nothing good.
I'll tell them what my mother told me
And what I've learned over time.
When you're trapped in the valley of shadows
Think nothing other than climb.

Everyone always told him life was beautiful
No one said why, though. Nonetheless he knew it.
They, all of them, all of you, were preaching to the choir.
He could tell you a million and one reasons why life, the earth, everything
Was beautiful.
He knew them now by heart.
He'd start with the sunshine hitting his skin in the summers, and somehow move onto the rain in June on his windshield.
Then to the way the cold flirted with him in December...
Nibbling on his ears and kissing his cheeks whenever and wherever he went.
He'd talk about smiles from strangers on the tram, at the market,
And, his personal favorite, in the library.
There he'd read words from rebellious souls who, like him, understand that life was more beautiful than anything or anyone that came out of Italy, Brazil, or Spain.
They'd say, and he'd read, about how life was beautiful in the way that a child with a gap between her teeth is beautiful.
In the most perfectly flawed way.
Life is beautiful because of the way a clock chimes every 15 minutes, and the way everyone depends on it.
It's beautiful because of the sound a pencil makes as it vandalizes a blank page of a journal.
It's because of the way everyone knows it, and falls madly in love with it.
He knew it, but they didn't. And they never would.
They just told him that life was beautiful.
Over and over and over again until he was sure he didn't deserve to live in that light.
And he ran away from it into the arms of tragedy.
Still beautiful, but all the more flawless and terrifying.
And there he went, and there he stayed.

There comes a beautiful point where you let go.
Words become insignificant and blur together like tongues of fire or grains of sand.
People stop being people. They stand idle and demanding  like traffic signs.
Everyday-- always there-- expecting you to understand their stupendous.
Once you've let go of individuality, and embrace all of this,
You'll rub your calloused hands together, now feeling-less from all those years of hanging on.
You'll wrap your mind around your neck like a plain scarf, ready to walk
Out into the freezing insanity that is apathy.
And it'll all be beautiful again.

Do you even know what I would say
If every word became a flower?
My dear I'd have a rosebush to give to you.
Roses of every color.
Red for the I love yous
Yellow for the jokes, even the ones that were only funny because you said them.
Especially those ones.
Pink for all the honesty we shared:
About our future,
What we wanted,
What we thought.
White, though, for the perfect moments when we lay side-by-side
And told each other things no one else ever knew.
And learned things about ourselves we never imagined were possible.
Every feeling would sit safely in the leaves:
Our hands touched,
Our eyes met,
Our hearts beat together for the first time.
The flowers would be worth the thorns...
The tears.
Their beauty worth the pain.
And I promise our roses will never die.

So many people writing poetry
So many people full of ****.
The readers, who feel and yearn for those feelings on the page,
And skim and search for them day after day
Know nothing of what beauty is.
Poetry is ******* for the heart.
Poets, the stars, are just doing their part.
Images of men at desks, using tears as ink
“This woman makes me feel what I can’t think!
Her beauty, her smile, it’s too much to bear!
Like flowers and rivers and fields of pink
My heart just swells and explodes in her presence!”
A man sits at a table
Thinking of what people think
Imagining what people want to hear
Words on a page, not feeling at all.
Poets are the politicians of the writing community.