"when my body was mine"
a line read recently

did i let my body slip out of my own skin
before i noticed
was i so oblivious as it dripped between their fingers
so far from my skin

when i was told i was old enough to need to shave,
my hair wasn't mine anymore.
when my rough and wild behavior
was no longer considered ladylike enough,
and i had to tame my wild skin
to sit and dance in proper ways,
my posture wasn't mine anymore.
when my toes were deemed to callous for society
my innocent beautiful little toes
were strapped into shoes
and forgot their freedom for a time,
my feet were no longer mine.
when they called out at my body
when it possessively dripped between their fingers
i realized that i had let my body belong to other people

and so i let my hair grow thick
everywhere
and i carry myself with the joy i feel
and i sit and dance from the inside out
trying to forget how much i may stand out
vulnerability is strength
vulnerability is strength
i tell myself
as i dance barefoot with hairy underarms
in out-of-style clothes and an unpainted face
come dance, please come dance,
so we may taste the flavor of life together

the loneliness of a pair of eyes
deep and serene as a vast field of wildflowers
nestled between great mountains

they see your beauty and feel your allure
your bight colors make them feel alive
your novelty makes them feel worthy

the lonely people come and pick of your abundance
they take you home and display your essence in a vase
a memory of vitality

until the flowers choke and fade away from their Source
so the lonely people return
day after day they pick a small bouquet

because the field is endless
so it seems
what’s a few flowers to a whole field?

they picked the field to scraps of color barely vibrant
the field has grown thistles and thorns around its edge
with a riddle guarding a single entrance

“What are You that I Am?“
(to know you must
become the field)

This inconsistency that rumbles
Churning within the recesses of my ribs
I down a pill of self pity with a swig of pride
And tell the pain to go away
Tell myself it was never there
That I'm fine I'm good smooth it over
Put a baggy shirt on so you can't see
The holes behind the recesses of my ribs

Loving you is easy in theory
And most of the time in reality too
But sometimes when you ask me to do that little task or tell you that little thing
Something within me threatens to snap
Because I perceive that you see the satisfaction of your need to be more important than my current occupation
And I feel unseen
Even though I know you see me best
And I feel victimized even though I know your request is perfectly reasonable

And so the contradiction of awareness
When I see the inconsistency in me blaring crimson red and midnight blue
And I don't know what to do with these colors
I don't know what image to paint or what brush to use
I don't even know who I'd give the painting to
Or if I'd keep it for myself

I trod the liminal
But the walk is never long enough
Between is where time and space collide
I the liminal walker
The world resolute
in stagnant unsympathetic response
But for my walking feet
Resolution flits and flees
And leaves empty spaces
Gaping holes in my narrative
I walk over and through them
the metaphors becoming tangible
I trod the liminal
and run the same word
over around my tongue
liminal
liminal
lim
i
mal
lim     I      nal
where am I in it all?

I yearn to exist in a space where the stars all but blaze
Where stars aren't celebrities
Where they bask in the night sky unpolluted
And just exist
I crave truly being in an environment that does not depend upon phone screens
Where my peers and myself do not walk through life in an addicted daze
Unaware of the haze that descends as an effect of such technological dependence
We are walking around with our eyes unconsciously searching for the stimulus that society constantly feeds us
These electronic signals flashing upon thin panels of glass
And This is what we call Living
The dopamine flooding our brain when that text vibration brings our popularity to attention
Capturing our attention holding it captive
We are prisoners of our own purchases
Rusting our humanity away enchained
In a web of unsocial media and notifications
We never have any silence

When was the last time you just sat silent doing nothing

When was the last time you allowed your mind even a sliver of space to just exist

We spin through magnetic nights
Falling in love with each others
Laughs and quirks
As we sail down streets
On wheels of joy
And bounce grey pebbles
Off copper train tracks
And feel cold wind play with out hair
As the train shoots past our deeply alive eyes
Spinning through magnetic nights

hum and feel the resonance
the pulsing movement of life
animating force of being
emanating from somewhere deep,
the parallel to the core of the everything  
the pulsing, the expansion and contraction
the vivid breath that so fills
these cavernous hungry lungs
concentric circles of vitality
cycles of comfort and risk
we vacillate in and out of vulnerability
witnesses to wonder incarnate

I want to believe
Maybe
Can I persuade you
Perhaps
Someday

a better blue Sky will hold our love

I yearn to exist in a space where the stars all but blaze
Where “stars” aren’t celebrities their plaster faces plastered
on magazine covers lining the shopping aisles
But where they bask in the night sky unpolluted
And exist radiantly

Where the culture ceases to revolve around
the newest latest fashion or video
And instead revolves around the ripening of figs
And the blooming of chrysanthemums
And the migrations of the swallows
Where we look like awestruck children
to those unpolluted stars above us
and this great earth around us
to tell the time and pass the seasons,
Living then in harmony with the revolution of the very soil and air
from which our life flows
It’s easy to forget

I crave an environment
that does not depend upon phone screens
Where my peers and myself do not walk through life
in an addicted daze
Unaware of the haze that descends as an effect
of such technological dependence
We are walking around with our eyes unconsciously searching
for the stimulus that society constantly feeds us
We are tripping over ourselves just trying to keep up
These electronic signals flashing upon thin panels of glass
And This is what we call Living

The dopamine flooding our brains
when that text vibration brings our popularity to attention
Capturing our attention holding it captive
We are prisoners of our own purchases
Stepping into voluntary chains
Producing our wrists for shackles
Rusting our humanity away enchained
in a web of unsocial media and notifications
We neglect to make space for our own existence
Disconnecting from our own physical experience
We don't even feel our fingers typing and swiping
Hoarding gluttonous over likes and comments and click bait headlines
Consumed by our own consummation  
We never have any silence

I yearn to exist in a space where our eyes like stars all but blaze
Awake with acute awareness of the present moment
Where we break shackles and push comfort zones
Basking in the raw beauty of an exuberant life we are conscious to experience
I yearn to exist together as radiant as the stars in the vastest galaxy

Mmmm connection
warmth flows through sound waves and tunnels in my ears.
the lightweight presence of fondness settles between my ribs
distance for once is relieved that it did not separate but rather brought together

Mmmm perfection
kind sensations of affection my heart hears
a dedicated time spent deliberately
distance for once not resented but honored as a tether

She stands—
every few minutes turning abruptly to no object.
Hips pushing forward, shoulders sliding back,
red soled sneakers and plaid flannel slacks
beneath a dramatic black trench coat,
in the grey shadow of a gothic church.

She smokes the grey and blows white,
and scrolls through the neon screen
with her one ungloved hand,
a bun perched stiffly on her scalp, unheeded,
an afterthought, if there was one before.

Her backdrop—the heavy iron fence of a graveyard,
and centuries old glorious stones watch
as she spends her minutes
engrossed
in the luminous green of infinity.

it would feel normal if it was a bus stop,
a grocery line,
a hospital waiting room,
even a lonely bench.

But she stands,
and periodically pivots,
meanders two steps and stands,
and jolts three steps back,
glitching through slow time,
anxious and unresolved—
yet so engrossed.

Finally now she is following the fence out of view, slowly,
and I hope she finds rest.
I feel grateful as the sidewalk carries her now
away from my puzzled gaze

The great stones and I exchange long glances,
and perhaps they are more compassionate than I,
for they seem not phased.

Oh stones, teach me patience, teach me rest.
For you are glorious in endless rest,
and I am still anxious and unresolved.

You are everything I crave  
But you won't even meet my gaze
Your eyes are filled blue with fear
I see it glisten in the corners of your eyes when you don't think I see you
You're so afraid of letting yourself be seen
You recede into your blue nature
And I'm desperate to pry you away
from your safety net of seclusion
But I'm frightened that you'd crumble into dust without such security
So That will be the way that we remain
Me, in velvet love with the idea of you
And you, too consumed in fear
to cure my disillusion.

the loving is folded inside the aching.
the rich and deep is the sandy beaches reflecting in a million directions —
the light blinding and the earth burning, it is everything
at once.
the splendor of magnitude contained in a moment,
the moment is bursting at the seams now.
the thread unravels as the sheets unveil the
limitlessness of time - the error of its conception,
the paradox of infinite finitude, of finite infinity—
we are living life in the spaces between certainties.
we find our rhythm to the music of experience
and we fall into ourselves, and find home between our ribs,
nestling into the cavity of being, we trip into each other,
fall in embrace, and rise in ecstasy of laughter.
we are copper rays of light, exuberant !
flitting between the maple leaves
we dance with the tails of grass
we hum in synchrony till the moon reflects our lily cheeks.
and we taste the stars and see the galaxies behind our eyes,
the construct of days fade away and it is only space
between certainties of light and dark
and we inhabit it with a bold stomp and a wild laugh.

I sometimes write
Of stories and fantasies
And these words spill from my fingers
Frighteningly effortlessly as they tell
Of passionate romances and crushing heart shatters and death of innocence
But I've never felt these things and
I feel fraudulent and cruel
Claiming feelings to which I have no right
And I wonder where these words come from that
Spill so easily from my finger tips
Because they aren't from experience
And they aren't true
Rereading them only embarrasses and confuses me
So should I validate them at all?
Mom peers at me worriedly as I try to convince her that I only used first person for form purposes
As I try to prove to her that this was (some bizarre) imagination and not some reality she wasn't aware of

I don't know how a kiss would feel on my lips.
Love and infatuation are strangers to my heart and mind.
I don't know how it hurts to be truly rejected or hated by someone I love.
To be so enraptured in someone else that the lines between us fade: a foreign and unfamiliar concept to my soul.
I don't know how hard it is to make mistakes in romances.
I've never come home giddy and unable to stop smiling because of a boy.
I don't know.
There's so very much I do not know.
And the absence of that knowledge feels like an object I don't have a place for inside my home of a mind.
Awkward and in the way and too obvious
But I don't know if I want to get rid of it yet.
It's oddity has become a part of me,
And it's absence would mean grieving a change
I'm not prepared for.

so willing to spill
their truths
their unreciprocated stories soar
echoing aimless into the
empty air

let me walk you home,
love,
your eyes soften and
bind to mine
and we set on
wordless
but filled with meaning
mutually understood

Her mind was a swirling city
With streets and buildings and stop lights
Woven together as tight as they dared
Bustling people, ideas, swarmed the streets and sidewalks
Pushing to their destinations
None stopped to talk
I was so insignificant
So trivial
A tourist they had been trained to ignore
I sat and watched.
For hours I did nothing but watch
The marvel that is her mind
How it ticked ever on at dizzying speed
A spider web of sprawling streets

We walked through Tennessee snow
In cheap shoes and
Paper socks
We skipped down the slush path
With coffee mud and silver pebbles
Swinging our held hands
between the three of us
We saw life differently that day
The simplest things had a golden sheen
A mysterious bliss
A gentle joy
A cappuccino a latte and a hot chocolate
Ordered and drank in cozy contentment
And we talked in the freezing parking lot
But the longer we conversed
The warmer I felt
Our conversations warming my soul
And we got into our cars with freezing toes and full hearts
And drove away with images of each other
Echoing behind our eyes.

We smelled of the cheap heat
That blasted through the 1997 Volvo
To defrost our delusional minds
And our hands swept through
the passing wind
With elegance and vitality
Akin to living truly
And the music fluttered through air
And the lyrics came to rest
Settling like leaves in the end of autumn
On the grassy floor of our innocent minds

some kind of hole not felt before
a new absence an unfamiliar gape
a desire for someone
on whom i could shower fondness
like spring rain and
pour passion on
like a summer storm
and float affection on
like a winter snow
someone to mindfully walk through the seasons with
knowing that their current state will pass
but present in their ephemeral beauty
and trusting in their nature to come again

I met you in early in the fall
When the winter wind hid
Biding it's time
On the stale summer air
Then the cold overcame
And I saw the bitter wind
Tumble and whip your hair
And I watched as the leaves pushed the
Last bits of color through their stems
Before they gave up
And drifted away in the consuming wind
The months grew long as
The wood supply dwindled
And tempers grew short
Friends snapped like the twigs underfoot
Hope cracked like the leaves
And time froze like the icicles
And you didn't want
To go on
What made you go on?
While I was a twig cracked on the ground
I did not notice how suddenly
Spring had sprung
The twigs and leaves decomposed and
The icicles melted
And all to fuel the flowers
The wonderful flowers that now covered
The ground radiating from you in circles
Racing in ripples to touch everything
With their joy and resilience
It's a mystery to me
How such beauty came out of such
Loss
But it is a beautiful mystery none the
Less  

I guess now I see
That even in
the darkest winter
Flower seeds are there
waiting for the right time
To bloom

I guess now I see
That you need the
Broken twigs and
Cracked leaves and
Frozen icicles
To feed the flowers

I guess now I see
That maybe the season
Wasn't your choice
That maybe seasons just
Happen
And that is okay

My mind spins in tandem with the wheels
Under the running engine beneath my feet
With each mile thoughts form
And ideas connect
And my mind is spinning spinning spinning

I watch the game
With amusement but sadness and pity too
Because they both love each other
But neither can commit
To the potential heartbreak
That could ensue from honesty
So they stay
And poke little references
Or clues or leads
But weak ones
That slip out sideways and seep
Into the floor before
They can be collected
Half hearted efforts
For an achingly full hearted two
Hesitation
Restraint
Fear

theres a woman
at least i think a woman
who shuffles feet close to the floor
one boot crunched
her heel isn't where it should be in her shoe
but she doesn't seem to notice or care
horizontal striped shirt and loose blue jeans
spiked blond hair
her eyes sag opposite her hair
exaggerating the effect

theres a man in a wheelchair
i've never seen thinner shins under thick body
he looks smaller than he is
perhaps an optical illusion
he has glasses thin framed and his belly a perfect sphere
mounted on his lap.
he calls to the attendant
all he needs is to be pushed out to the parking lot
his ride is here but he can't move his own body

there's an old woman named patty
she leans on a pink and purple cane
the pattern rubbed down to the metal where
her hand always clutches the curve
she has high blood sugar
she didnt want to come
but the attendants at the nursing home made her
and she had just been bragging about how long it had been
since her last ER visit.
She had to call her son roland to drive her here

theres a son named roland
we made eye contact as soon as he came in and he is kind
he holds eye contact in that way that people do when
they feel responsible for a situation
and need to connect with another human.
he got his mother water with ice,
and she said she didnt need ice-
-like it was a luxury, not an inconvenience

There was a woman crying
i think her loved one was burned somehow
2nd degree, did i hear? on the face?
her family comes and she cries and hugs
and her father tries to tell her she should go home
she's not going home
theres no way that woman is going home
she calls people and coordinates with family and friends
and you can feel the panic radiating from her

there are two teen girls who sit in the low chairs
i've never seen two people look more tired or
drained
eyes red and heavy
sweat pants and socks in sandals
messy ponytail and bun
and they don't speak to each other
they just sit
and stare at the ground
seemingly endlessly.



i bet they are all still there except the man with the spherical belly and the thin shins.
i suppose none of us make it out of this life alive
its just that sometimes i forget
how many talk with death before they meet him
sometimes i forget how their families weep
for that conversation
i forget that emergency rooms even exist.

You hand me a Piece of dotted paper and a pen
And you tell me
To connect the little black dots
But as I look at the paper it expands
It grows and stretches till it is an ocean
Massive expansive and the dots drift farther apart on the waves
And I lose them among the ocean spray
So when you hand me the paper and a pen
And expect me to connect the dots
Sometimes I'm being tossed in a storm
And sometimes connectivity is not a possibility
Sometimes I can't do what you ask me to
Because to me the dots are an ocean apart
And I've no clue how to sail.

The line between you and I
Once hard and fast
Steel grey and black
Now fades and simmers away
To silvery white
Cloudy mist
And you are seeping into me
And I am seeping in to you
Our divisions are mumbled
Woven and interconnected
I have lost track
Of where you end and I begin
And I'm dizzy with it all.

We watched moments float by like snowy cotton in the spring
Quietly passing sweetly sifting through the winds of time to settle on the floors of our souls
On that soul floor we began to ***** structures--
Buildings of belief and behavior and style and security
Only to watch them shake then tumble
from hurricanes and tsunamis of life and circumstance
I think many of us struggled alone for a while against the weather of time,
afraid to expose how little we knew


But Eventually we began to speak to one another
We began to poke little timid invitations to conversations and relationships
and we began to discover
That everyone's structures were tumbling in different ways

We came to know each other
in the shared vulnerability of the unknown

Those were the days when
instead of tirelessly piling on bricks we knew would fall
We gathered around a bonfire on that lovely soul floor
and we found community and connection
And we left what was heavy behind

Grounded in our view of the fiery stars above us
and the coolness of the earth below
We danced together through uncontrollable laughter
And we let our eyes drift out of focus
to see the beauty in the shape of things
As night drew on we huddled close against the fear and cold
of the coming season unknown
And then at dawn we watched the sun rise with meditative minds
And when it rained we donned bare feet
and splashed the puddles
and then we tangled our fingertips in the rainbows and
Tasted the droplets on our tongues and sleeves

Through this time we learned to question the very ground beneath our feet
And the air in which we breath
We began to learn how to surrender the moments
to the ever shifting winds of time
We asked hard questions
Ones we didn't know the answers to
And still don't
And maybe never will

These are more than experiences and memories
They are our identity now
They watered the soul ground on which
Instead of building structures again we began to plant gardens

I go into this next season with my soul garden
in which each of you planted a seed
Thank you. endlessly.

Kind is the path that wanders
in tandem with my spirit
It unfolds through arcs and mounds
as if my slow careful steps
somehow through their quiet voice
invite the trail to dance
a gentle careless waltz
through the meandering sunlight
that sifts through the blushing leaves
and lands in quilted patches
on the breathing ground.

These arches have spanned the country
The architecture of my bare feet has adorned the city streets
And spanned the rushing rivers.
These arches have framed national monuments  
And soared over blanket clouded skies
These arches have leapt and danced and ached and blistered
These arches have traveled well and far
And yet have farther still to go

He said he's the prince of apathy
He claims he's the devils advocate
He hides behind his jokes and innuendos
But I see the way he sees things
The way his mind spirals in tie dye patterns
And how his mouth can't keep up

But he loves
Somehow he loves
He loves the way things work and they way they come to be
He loves the little tidbits of knowledge
He teaches well and when he cares about something you can hear the change in his voice
A change in his tone

And he hides behind his apathy and crude jokes
But there's something living in him
There's a side that's different
A side that's true

Relentless pounding
Ceaseless pressure
Crest deep heave shove
Collapse spread recede
Repeat
Gather grow peak collapse spread recede repeat
Constant irregular weighty dive
Tumble harshly continue fall

His mind was a factory
A bustling grey and charcoal factory
With machines to create thoughts
But all so systematically
All so perfect precise concise
Not a mistake not a slip was made
The sounds of smooth clicks
And echoes under foot vibrations
All was smooth
All was purposeful
Until she asked for a tour
She asked with innocence and naivety
And he let her in tentatively
She marveled at his systemic mind  
And questioned and awed.
But no one had ever
Entered his mind like this before
And she distracted him
They heard a crash
as a machine malfunctioned
And a thought toppled and shattered
The pieces exploding like a firecracker
Against the grey charcoal floor
He panicked and tried to pick up the pieces
But echoes of a breaking mind tore at his ears
As more thoughts shattered.
He was loosing control
And all because of her
This girl was making him lose his mind
He went to a corner and tried to regain himself
Closed eyes and shaking heart
He sat and stayed,
Oblivious
Emerging he stared
Stared at the prices of his shattered mind
That she arranged
Into an intricate mosaic
And somehow in that moment
He saw a beauty in the brokenness
Something he had never seen before

The air hums with static
Electric and sharp
Palpable in between our
Magnetic laughs

She throws punches with words
He dodges but they land anyway
Sinking knuckles into his mouth and gut

With glances and sighs
He flips out pocket knives
And with a sharp tongue he slits her ears and eyes

Slashing empathy and demeaning humanity
They belittle each other and lose
The commonality they once enjoyed together

I watch as they open up wounds long infected
And attempt to stitch the gaping holes in their skin
But their hands are still shaking with emotion
And the wound still festers under sloppy thread

They need a doctor I know I can't be
But I feel each punch and slice
Reverberating through my core
They need a doctor I know I can't be

My skin
It's cold
It's brittle silver frosted
Stretched too thin
Cracking in the creases
Of skinny wrists

It's stretched too thin
Over my pulsing blood
The Crimson blood gushing
With electric heat
Pounding too hard against
My brittle silver frosted skin

Dust like stars in the galaxy of this singular space
swirl and dance in the streak of window filtered light
this soupy universe swims with grace
and with effortless poise, reaches across vastness to
bring me into the womb of immediacy
where the red velvet moment is called home
like a mother calling the child in from neighborhood play
when the sun dips down beneath the cottonwood tree.
Ah, the cottonwood tree,
whose tufts would swirl and dance through wind
like summer snow
like a mothers knowing arms welcoming home
the grassy-kneed, mosquito-bit, bright-eyed child

This body is my palace of water and dust.
It is my earth,
my whole,
my entire empire.
Contained within my skin is a world
of complex systems and relationships
too immaculate to comprehend.

I lay myself bare continually.
Exposed vulnerable and strong, I embrace the wind.
Flexible and malleable, I bend and shift but hold my
center--
somehow my center holds.

I contain every natural phenomenon,
and each of them contain me completely.
I see my reflection in the water and I am the water,
I see the bark on a tree and my skin empathizes,
I smile and my soul takes on the wings of the butterflies
and flirts with the leaping wind.

And you come in and you dump your **** in my rivers,
oil and chemicals polluting my veins.
You mine my depths for the gold and discard the soil,
you exploit my purity.
You ignore my warnings and pleads as if you don't understand my language.
You are the ones who don't believe in climate change,
as if facts were fiction.
You don't believe in your impact on my existence.
You carry on as if i am worthy of nothing but disposal
and exploitation,
as if i am not as intrinsically valuable as you are.

Do you not see yourself in me?
Do you not see your own reflection in the waters of my eyes?
Do you not recognize the similarity in our skin?
Our commonality in the blood that pounds like torrential floods
on the windows of our souls
reminding us that we live?

Do you not see the web of life that binds us
so intrinsically together?
We are as inseparable as inhale and exhale.
We need each other--
we are the same process,
the same breath.

We've got fire on our tongues
But we're suffocating
Suffocating cause we can't speak

Words turn to ashes in our mouths
And their dust exhales in our breath

There's no sound
To voice these thoughts
So they echo in our minds
Tumbling circling in our heads

And we are lost inside ourselves.

echo and bend to break silence and sift radiance from mismatched oddity as streams of undercurrents waft through city streets to open windows of kind homes with vivid breath of cosmic immediacy wrapped in mundane happenings we are all just simmering in our unkempt souls finding cavities between our ribs and forging safety between boulders of fear we ache to feel the sensations of the perfection we taste on the first wind of spring and yet the fingerprints of trauma press firm into our bellies and yet somatic we cannot ignore our human legacy as our bodies protect the very seeds of mystery.

tired. weary.
of having my red flags always ready
of being on alert for every cue
every subtle hint
from any one of you

i've grown scared of small smiles and long glances
even though that's most of what i do
i'm afraid of seeing it back
because i am always afraid of what complications
your attentions would entail

am i expected to curb my fondness
my friendship
my curiosity
my joy
to keep from leading you on

should i protect your feelings
and in doing so push down my own
do i owe it to you not to
really look in your eyes like i love to
or to not laugh too loudly when i find you funny

do i owe you my reservation my restriction
do i owe it to you to domesticate my affections
so i don't hurt you
when i tell you that:
no, i will not go to dinner with you
even though i would love to
if it didn't mean leading you on

or no, i cannot be that for you,
even though i would love to spend time with you alone
if it didn't mean leading you on

because i love you dearly already
and i want to explore every crevice
of your vibrating soul
but purely platonically

no one else seems to think this way
and i am confused
and sad
i'm tired. i'm weary.
of these ever waving red flags.
i hate the color red. it demands so much.

The three of us stood
In drizzling rain
With pouring minds

We tore our sleeves
And unraveled our thread
And felt each others fabric

And I didn't know his was purple, I could've sworn it looked green
And I didn't know his was red, I could've sworn it was blue

But we saw the colors of each others sleeves that night
In the tangled thread that spilled from our wrists
The shells shattered and the walls toppled

Because there was fear masked in immaturity
And there was kindness masked in teases
But we saw each others colors that night

I: the logs bitter cold and crude
Lumped together in careless toss
Brittle blue and grey

You: the fire passionate full and bold
Wrapping me in consuming embrace
smothering smooth and fierce

Chemistry we have all too much
Our elements attract ferociously
I thought
Thought
Of possible perfection
That your tendrils of light could soothe
My aching cracks
But I forgot
I never fathomed
That fire and wood attract so deeply
Because one consumes the other

I realize I'm burning
Searing heat flows in pulses through
My panicked form
But I'm helpless hapless done
Finished

As I turn to ash and smoke I still admire your flame
Your relentless flame that eats away beautifully at my crumbling frame

i fall in love with people all the time
a laugh here
a pleasant face there
the innocence of a moment caught in a glance
a moment and a half of eye contact and i fall in love with people
all the time
i see their curiosity as they wonder
why i see them
why i take the time to see them
the energy
and its because loving is my lifeblood
and it pulses within me
its the loving that sustains me
that wakes me up and gives me restful sleep
that moves my bare feet across the earth and
runs my eyes deep into the forests we wander together
because it's the loving that constitutes my bones
that holds me up that gives me form
its the loving that moves the muscles that tug upward at the corners of my mouth
its the loving that blows bubbles in my lungs that escape as laughter
its the loving that brings tears when they are raw and needed too

i fall in love with people all the time

He was against the grain
he faced head on what everyone else was scared to see
He embraced and smiled over
Violence explosions and everything grotesque
He filled the gaps between our comfort
He came to embody the uncomfortable
The ugly and sharp the harsh
And just like that classmates shied away
And just like that we assigned him
Traits he maybe deserved and we wrote him off
We wrote him off
Goddamit we wrote him off the script
Because he was uncomfortable
He made us uncomfortable because he loved
He embraces the things we were told not to
He sought the things and experiences in life
We had taught ourselves to fear
We wrote him off the script because he was
An easy character to scratch
It made everyone feel more cozy
Knowing he wouldn't come that day
Because we want to distance ourselves from such
Disarray and destruction
We want to believe that that can't touch us
But the play won't feel right without him there
I'm telling you the story is flat without him
Because we need him.
Write him back in the ****** script
I swear I'm finally writing him in
I will not distance him anymore
I will not shy away
Because we are in the same script, goddamit,
And I'm about to enjoy this play.

It didn't surprise me when
You plunged your knife of words
Through my very heart
Again
What surprised me was the lack of blood
The lack of pain and the lack of hurt I felt
I watched the blade pass through my chest
Absently
My body turned clear in anticipation
Of your deadly diction
And suddenly I was immune
I had learned to cope
Finally after all this time
My body learned
That something had to give  
So I became a ghost each time
And your frustration welled
Because you no longer had power
Over me
I was my own again
Yes I had scars in my ghostly self
But no more sting of a blade,
no more gush of blood
No more cry of tears
I was my own again

Do you think he would slow down if I asked nicely?
do you think that if I snapped in his distracted face he would notice?
do you think that if I bumped shoulders with him he would change his course?
do you think if I threw a tantrum at his feet  he would take pity and pause for a moment?
Do you think if I grabbed his face and forced him to look in my eyes he would see how I needed more of him?
that ****** man: Time.

like a typical distracted teen with his earplugs in listening to some irrelevant tune
walking unaware of his movements their repercussions,
walking so fast--propelling the rest of us forward in front of him
through a relentless pace.
He affects everyone and sees no one.
none

I broke last night
Last night the tears cascaded down the worn wet tracks from my eyes down the valleys of my face to my tucked chin
My body convulsed and shook
And my breath could not find itself
It heaved and hoved and sputtered and shattered
And it could not find itself
My mind pulled away from its head and stretched and snapped in pain
I decided not to care that I felt drips pour from my nostrils over my shaking lips
I stared into the black abyss of grain and spattering absence of closed eyes and clenched lids
My fingers ran miles through my strained strips of hair curled and knotted around my hands
I was a very small ball of angry sadness in a very large world of conflicting beauty and pain and love and ignorance. And I broke to feel it all.

Faces swim before my stationary eyes
Like a school of brainwashed fish
Voices echo through my empty ears
Like chatter of foreign languages
Footsteps pound the surrounding ground
With more force than seems realistic
I'm the only one who's still
The only one not moving
And it's dizzying
How much they move

The world tips
Tilts
Then unwinds

I gaze
But recognize nothing

Wading impenetrable waters of
Inkless impressions