Trying to think
in phrases as beautiful as lace;
words that roll off the tongue
like thunder
bringing rain to break
the heat

that marked the end
of an era.

Trying to go back
to that open field
where I was vulnerable,
where the pressures of reality
were as far and as fleeting
as the star we watched fall
across the sky,

where grass between bare toes
and fingers intertwined,
and the future was ours to chase.

Hair flying,
hearts pounding,
not knowing

once we reached the edge
of the field, and found
the road, and found
the paths,

and realized
that ours went
in different directions.

When sad is an understatement,
Everything falls
numbly into the wrong place
and you say all the wrong things
and even balloons remind you
that you're just drifting
away from everything
you'd wanted.

You thought you were holding on
tightly to the string,
but you realize:
It's been slipping
for months now.

Later,
all you're left with
is a picture,
seared into your memory,
of that joy-
full balloon
disappearing.

I taught him English words,
taught him "gamble" and "****."
I taught him "lullaby," and he taught me
his favorite French pick-up line:
something about thieves.

My clumsy tongue and chapped lips,
my Southern twang
made him laugh.

We went to a show together
-  a punk band with a ****** name –
and he left early,
left me with a wink.
I fought for my life in that concrete room,
gasping for air,
swinging arms wildly.
The next morning he kissed all my bruises.

His gap-toothed smile is a poem I wish I had written.

Spinning like a ghost

on the bottom of a

top,

I'm haunted by all

the space that I

will live without

you.

into the fringe and through the fray
he quietly crept
painstakingly he inched closer
to his unassuming victims
who, drowned in their own stupor
drunkenly slept
patients...hold on to the patience
he itched, he ached
so hungry, so desperate
no sudden movements, no hesitation
but in his frantic lust
in his all consuming need
he lost sight of the thing of importance
and instead, he saw his own reflection
begin to bleed

these are nice thoughts
the things they say -
but how about some reality,
does it ever really play out that way?

those words are nice
and sound real pretty
but in a sea of inaction
words lose all their meaning.

but here is a hypocrite
speaking this wisdom
when all my words and apologies
couldn't change our destruction.

belie the notion that one is complete
uncompromised, unmodified,
in thought and in motion.
as we reenact and memoralialize
ourselves with our past and
our wholesomeness of ego
we walk towards a chasm
of chaotic disruption
put there by our inner consciousness
as we progress we are
filled with trepidation,
avoidance and reticence
our thoughts
sidling around the task at hand
procrastination taking its cold grasp
upon our reasoning
our forward compelling movements
appear unnatural and stilted
as we slowly progress
our inner bearing pretentious
all thought and motion merged into
a lifetime of physical mental torture
a prison of our own making
so who in this blinding darkness
dares to step forward into
the unknown future that we have
woven for ourselves with the strips
of blue and crimson flesh we have flayed from
our own portals entwined
into the tapestry that depicts the epic battle
that we have fought and won over time immeasurable
who will take the double edged sword from
the lady in the lake and strike it once again
into the backbone of our mother
where we will lay cradled against her bosum
till she weans us from her suptle breast
and sends us once again to do her bidding
without our capacity for love
our understanding and compassion are
tools we still have yet to master