There are some

Words you’ll always remember

Words you’ll try and try to forget

Words that made your lips tremble

Words you hope he’ll regret.

The only memories I can recollect seem to be the most painful ones
It's difficult to keep the thought of you in a cage I hand built and lock it with a rusty key that's sharp edges dance on my fingertips until they draw blood
Hospital rooms are as familiar as the outline of your lips
Sometimes I wear your shirt to bed but my tears have long washed away the smell of your skin
I don't know what to do without your hand intertwined with mine so I keep it balled into a fist instead
I'm sorry I couldn't fill you when I am empty myself

What is the time between dust and dust?

Is there more than to follow one of us?

Can there be timing or moments of strain

That lead us to some greater gain?

Tell me, oh wise one, what is the purpose

Of the breath of air between dust and dust?

jerry's voice weaves a net
to catch my drunken skin,
sagging and dancing against
his cherry pie voice
warm and sweet in the dark of
the 7:17 dawn,
sun still sleeping behind a tall mountain range.

it makes me ache for open hearted
companions
barefeet wet from dew and black from distance
fearless,
unapologetic as they scream their throats out
raw splattering on the gasping earth from
the heaven high rooftops.

flowers poked through the pores
of ocean flavored skin,
peeling from laying too long
in the morning-faced
sun.

i wonder why people feel
so ancient, when their skin is still so young.
we've built this generation in the
imprisonment of fear,
the shrill avoidance of beauty,
we've forgotten what it feels to be living
free and loving
true,
and that's why you see so many young bones
crumble when their lives have just
begun.

That man, he's got eyes that shine,
Like the ocean in the morning time.
He comes and goes
Just like the waves,
And as he goes
He calls my name.
That man, He's deeper than the sea
And from the depths he calls to me.
He's got highs and lows
Just like the tide,
Yet through his lows
He won't say goodbye.
That man, he leaves a wake behind,
And like the sea he churns and grinds.
He's both the calm and the storm.
Always changing,
He's cold and warm
But his cold, never estranging.

The first time I saw somebody die,
explode in half,
it was traumatic,

After that,
unfortunately,
it became second-nature.

I will never get over the killing,
pulling triggers & lobbing grenades.
I am haunted by it still.