He looked at me with lamenting eyes
which said everything he hadn’t with
his own tongue and that was how
disappointed he was with me.

He caressed my legs which were draped
across his own but stayed quiet as I
supped hungrily on water which became the
only thing I could stomach after all the
drinks I’d happily given into

But if only he knew why —if only he
knew how terrible a place my mind is.
If only he knew how blissfully deadened
my racing thoughts were when I ******
on the sweet, stinging nectar.

Perhaps we should look to the
natural sweetness of wildflowers.
They’re beautiful without reason,
blooming each summer, for no one,
yet, their beauty is a truth that has
stood the test of time.

No rest for the wicked,
and no rest for the weary.
My eyes become slickened,
dreaming of the dreary.

You’re an  idol, dearest lover,
promising tranquility.
Love in thee, I have discovered,
is paired with fragility.

Close my eyes to clear away
the noxious thoughts clouding my mind,
Though I would wish that I could stay,
I fear, I must leave thee behind.

Overwhelmed by serenity,
My sleepless nights, they come no more.
In the lack of your terrenity,
harmonious dreams, then are restored.

Sometimes I sit seaside
and think about you.
I think about the warm,
sun-kissed sand clinging to
my skin, and how much
warmer I’d be if it was you
instead of the sand.

Sometimes I sit seaside
and I think about you.
I think about the cool
breeze and how it tangles
my hair, slightly, and how
I’d rather it be you
leaving knots there
instead of my
heart.

Sometimes I sit seaside,
and I think about you.
I think about the smell
of the beach and it always
smells like you, saltwater
and sunscreen, and how
I’d give anything
to keep that scent in
a jar, in a candle,
just so I can be
reminded of you
even when I’m not
seaside.

Love me as an artist loves to create.
Love me as the pianist loves the feeling of his hands across the keys
Love me as the sun loves the day and the moon the night.
Love me as I love you, or not at all.

Spacetime
underneath a veil of perfect midnight
velvet, you kissed me,
had me thinking I’d lost my mind
growing dizzier, dizzier, even dizzier,
I felt myself spinning out somewhere
lost in spacetime

When he asked me why I loved
the rain,
the ocean,
    and the river so,
the only answer I had for him was that
even after all I’d been through, I was
never afraid to get back in the water.

Listening to those new songs brought
back old memories and future thoughts.
I remember slow dancing with you on
prom night and again at each banquet.
It felt like it was just you and there,
The rest of the world fell away- the music,
the lights, the rest of the room fell away
And it was just you and I.
There’s no need for thinking
and overthinking now.
The answer is crystal clear, even though
you have yet to ask.
Yes.

I want to feel like it’s just you and I forever.
I want to slow dance with you forever.

Listen to your eyes.
Take note where they linger
and where they don't.

Take note at whom you catch
yourself starting and whom
you couldn't bear to watch.

Take note of those whom
you can't bring yourself
to turn away from, like
a driver, passing by,
an onlooker at a car crash,
a sight you can't peel your
eyes from, if your life
depended on it.

Two lovers tied
by invisible thread,
black, white ropes
like snakes tangling.

Their depressive
nature, a Gemini feed,
a cosmic cauldron,
stirring them to fall
apart together.


Found poem in Banks' song "Gemini Feed."

He threw back her silence like liquor but it stung him all the same.
He didn't regret his words — he'd meant them with everything in his bones.
He regretted that she didn't feel the same.

Bruises color your face
and the split lip he
gave you is enough
to warrant it,

but gin on ice
is never enough to cut
the sting of the morning,
after,

the pain on
the inside won’t just
go away with the cool rush of
juniper berries that
tastes like jet engine fuel.

Between sips of espresso and difficult late-night conversation,
I realized I like my coffee with milk and that Cancer hurts.
It hurts those who have it and those who have those who have it.

When I explained how frightened I was that my friend
had been diagnosed with Cancer, he diminished my feelings
by saying, “I had a friend with Cancer. She died of it.”

Between difficult late-night conversations and espresso,
I realized; I like my relationships with milk as well.

Found Poem from *** and The City, Season 6, Episode, 16

He is forests and mountains and oceans
He is cliffs and caverns
He is tongue and truth and religion

I want nothing more than to explore every single inch

Dying young isn't tragic because she never reached her dreams or found her full potential.

Dying young is tragic because she never knew love.

Love doesn’t come easy
It is a dogfight through and through

But once you find it,
you will remain changed always.

He’s been there through the milk, but will he stick around in the meat?

The smaller bumps in the road come easier than the potholes and sharp turns.

When things get tough, will he be around?

I’ll never forget
the night we had
on the rosewood floor,
the way you looked,
the way you smelled
the way you felt
on my skin.
I’d have the floor taken
up and I’d cover my walls
with it to evoke the
memory of you every single day,
more clearly.
I’d build my casket out of it and
bury myself alive, if that is
what it takes to get
you to see that
I am dying without you.

The scratch
of your beard is like wool on my skin,
welcomed and
warming to the touch.
As itchy as it is, I never want to be
without it.

she was never nice
to me

even so, with or
without heaping coals,
I'll continue to show her
love and patience

she's one who needs
it the most

I remember when we first got together.
When it started with fireworks and butterflies and hope.
When every touch and every kiss felt like a revelation.
When love was our religion and worship our preferred pastime.

But now, it feels different; it’s all work, and money, and politics.
I shy away from your kisses and pray your hands stay above the belt.
And maybe it’s blasphemy to say this, but I feel like the magic is gone,
like I’ve fallen out of love with you.

I’m wondering if I’m having a change of faith or just now realizing
the sacrifice isn’t worth the settling, after all these years.

And I can’t tell which sin is worse —telling you or keeping it to myself,
because either way, someone’s heart will be broken.

You complain of pits and
wrinkles and dark marks
and shadows of old age.
You say that the shadows
of your life in the world
will haunt you for your
remaining days.
You are wrong.
You, my friend, are a Tonka bean.
Your outer skin is wrinkled
and darkened, but that’s just part
of the growth, part of the journey.
Inside, you’re a rich, chocolatey
brown, with flavors that remind me
of vanilla, cinnamon,
saffron, almond and cloves.
You are so sweet and full-bodied
and well-rounded and all I am trying
to say is that You’re so much more
that the skin on the outside of your body.
You have so much experience
and wisdom to offer the
world.

Silver rings upon your fingers
fingers trace my collarbone
silver’s soft, but gold lingers.
It reminds me of our home.

Where fleeting moonlight filters in,
through old windows veiled in lace,
over sheets, and over skin,
softly caressing your face.

Then, gold pours in once the sun
awakes form dreaming far beneath
a cloudless, moonlit horizon,
and falls like feathers on your cheeks.

An endless dance of day and night,
like hostages, inside we stay,
‘neath rays of gold and silver bright,
with you shall I forever lay.

If riches, beauty, calm, humility,
compersion, contentedness, and
inspiration are all secrets that
are tucked between the pages of
one book or another,
why have you not yet read it?
You struggle with your sins, yet you do
nothing to combat them.
I know it isn’t because of your lack
of desire to read, if it were, I would
find the most luxurious vellum,
richest ink, and I would write a book
just for you if that is what it takes
to get you to understand that
these things you do, are not only
darkening your soul,
but they’re costing you your friends.
I know that without the darkness,
stars could not be seen, but
I would rather lose you to my mouth
than to the dark.

I'm searching for myself in a world where we're the average
of the five people we spend the time with, but have millions
of people to connect with, get to know, emulate.
Where we're constantly comparing ourselves
to one another and struggling to find our identity when it
very well could be any singular one or combination of those people.

I know all of them, all of you.
I just want to know me.

-Found poem in Jim Rohn’s quote “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

I close my eyes again and again, but even so
I cannot get the thought of you lying naked
beneath the moonlight out of my head.
I can’t extinguish the flames burning between my
legs and the desire in my heart.
I can’t part ways with the thought of you giving yourself
wholly and completely to me last night.
You surrendered your soul to me in the darkness
and again, I am hungering for you.
My love, tell me once more, that you are mine and
mine alone, just as I am hopelessly and wonderfully yours.

Velvet moon
rays cascading down
caressing so softly, your skin,
I could scream.

Dressed in nothing
but the moonlight,
wrapped in folds of silk and sin,
there, you dream.

You know, that lingering
feeling of waves pulling
and pushing you
in and out of the sea
as you lay in bed after a
long day at the beach, that
is what it feels like after a day
with you.
Except with the waves,
if you forget about them for just
a moment, the sensation passes.
I couldn’t forget you, not even for a second,
and even if I did, I couldn’t shake the feeling of you.

There are two things that drive us -fear and desire
My deepest fear is never reaching my full potential
and likewise never realizing my greatest desire.
My greatest desire is reach my dreams and finding
true, passionate, unadulterated love.
The kind of love and connection that makes you feel
stimulated, satisfied, and fullfilled emotionally, mentally, and sexually.
But somehow my greatest desire is also to never realize my deepest fear.
You see, the two are interconnected, joined at the proverbial hip.
One cannot hope to reach their greatest desire without facing their deepest fears.

I had never thought I would
so greatly enjoy the mundane –
sitting and doing nothing,
no more than a good conversation
existing in the presence of good
company, but it has been revealed
to me, that I do in fact, take great
pleasure in time spent with loved
ones, doing nothing in particular,
but breathing,
existing.

Darling dreamer,
close your eyes and sleep.
See the rain and the streets and the
silver buildings that jut
like silent watching giants into
the clouds.
See the coffee shops and the window seats
and the libraries and the guardian moon.
See the glittering city lights in the
evening and the dew-slicked streets in the
morning.
See the black and the silver.
See us.

My dear, this life is as sweet as
warm, honeyed tea.
Why be so bitter, when all you
need is to bring your
lips to the rim and sip.

Nowadays it's all ***, drugs and rock n' roll,
**** *******, get money, and
stack on stacks on stacks, but
what happened to love?
What happened to getting so completely lost and
wrapped up in someone else instead of getting high?
I long for the days when I'll be in someone's arms
for the right reasons and not just the pretty
little thing on their laps.

I have never been one to  fantasize about the unlikely, but you’ve got me in my head day in, day out, daydreaming about the day I finally come face to face with you once again, love.

My dear, you are so wonderfully lovely, and I want nothing more than to write you eloquent poems, and sculpt you from the ground up.

I want nothing more than to paint you in a million different colors and sing songs of your beauty.

But I’m no artist, my dear, and all I’ve got is “I love you.”

We’ve come together physically,
we’ve connected emotionally,
we’re on the same wavelength, mentally,
and all that’s left is a spiritual bond.

We’ve barely scraped the edge of it before,
but we have yet to hoist ourselves up over
that ledge and experience what it truly means
to be bound.

I never thought I had an addiction.
But I’ve tried to quit drinking coffee nine
times and yet again, I stand in line at the
shop, waiting for that consoling dark brew.

I know later, I’ll come down from
that high and when I crash, I’ll
feel lead-***** and dead inside,
like a car running low on fuel.

But if you told me right now, it
would mean the entire would to you
for me to give it up, I’d dump this
out on the pavement, and quit
cold turkey.

If you wanted it, I’d quit.
If it were cigarettes and you asked
me with earnest blue eyes,
to put them down, I would.

Not out of self-preservation, but
because you mean more.
You always have and always will.
I could never give you up, though.

Rock n’ roll music, Folger’s, and paint-smeared hands.
Dresser drawers filled to the brim with undeveloped camera film.
Blue bonnets and overgrown grass, pecans and crunching fall leaves.
Dirt roads and river-rocks, typewriters, polaroid cameras, and feather-quill pens.
Those hand-me-down blue eyes and brown ones that are “sometimes hazel.”
Crystal clusters and Lord of the Rings.
Countless mosquito bites and play-pretend games in the clubhouse.
Early-birds and night-owls.
Trudy; and Randy Hayes.
“Don’t touch everything you see,” and “If you say you’re bored, I’ll find work for you to do.”
Sweet tea and okra and southern dishes blackened and drenched in cheese or gravy.
Grandma always burned everything to make sure it was fully cooked, and to her, it was never burned, just “well-done.”
Cigarettes and carpentry and cookbooks. Wild blackberries and birthday parties at the lake.
Sleeping in all day and staying up all night and procrastination.  
Shepherd's Pie, potatoes, and four-leaf clovers.
“Nil Desperandum. Never Despairing.”  
I’m from a whole house that eats eggs for breakfast, and I’m allergic to eggs.
And trees as tall as buildings and buildings as tall as trees.
“You should never take the lord’s name in vain,” and “Jesus loves you, so you should love others.”
Day-dreams and stargazing and thunderstorms.
“All or nothing,” and “There is no try, only do.”
Old family pictures in dust-glittered frames.
We are crystals. We have facets, each one makes us who we are.
With only one window of our lives to express, we’d merely be glass.
I am a part of each of these things just as much as they are each a part of me.

The sun filtered through the trees and fell on your face in such a way,
it made me almost jealous that it could touch you so freely and I couldn’t.
I looked to the sky and wondered why you weren't mine already.
I'd been by your side for years, through the good and the bad.
I'd stuck around and listened and experienced and I knew you like no other.
So, I can't help but wonder how we got stuck here.
Maybe, I should start tossing my coins into wishing wells instead of rain buckets.
I never really believed in wishing wells, but if it would make you mine, then I'd do it.  
Maybe, it's because there's another you have your heart set on?
Maybe, it’s because you don't want to ruin us.
I don't think you could if you tried.

I will not take the blame for
any atrocities
my curiosities
may commit against you.

You told me you required
a potion, or a few
an elixir, or two,  
here's what I've brought for you.

This first red potion will do
it will heal your damage,
even if you’re ravaged.
With magic, it’s imbued.

The second, a blue mixture
a mix that makes you sleep,
a slumber that's so deep,
You'll be out until noon.  

Next is a strange elixir:
green and made of venom,
keep it clear of vellum,
it will eat it clear through.

And the next I have with me
is a dark purple flask
don't dump it in the cask
lest' you'll turn the wine blue.

And next, I’ve got a rare gem
a glowing white tonic,
to heal you of chronic
pain with a swallow or two.

Here is a real concoction.
This one is a deep black.
Don't store it in your sack,
or it will surely spew.

Next, I have this yellow one,
a decanter of wine,
used to make scales shine
like a sheen of fresh dew.  

And here is a fine mixture.
It's a sparkling pink
drink that makes you think,
clearer than you're used to.

At last we meet the end of
this long alchemist's list.
Brews from the willow witch,
hand-crafted just for you.  

There's one for every color
in the rainbows above.
For everyone you love,
I'll be sure to send two.

I know we’ve known each other for a while, as friends,
but there is something you must know.
I see the way you read and the way you play the piano and
the way you quote Shakespeare, and there is an aching in my
bones to be the thing that steals your time and focus the way
the simplest of hobbies do.
I want you to read me the way you hungrily read books
cover to cover, scanning every word of the story, knowing it in and out,
the way one only could through careful scrutiny.
I want you to touch me the way you play the piano, striking
the keys with such emotion at times and hardly grazing them at others.
I want you to make me sing the way you make the piano sing for you, love,
songs that no one else knows the words to.
I want you to speak to me in such a way that my heart melts
between your words, sentences so eloquent and intimate,
made only for my ears, sentences so carefully wrought and woven,
sentences so softly strung together that the slightest breath might blow them away,
sentences that Shakespearean sonnets couldn’t dare hold a candle to.
I want to be the one not only who takes your time, but also the one who
consumes you completely,
just as you’ve consumed me.

“Hey, how’s it goin’?” you said, calling me up on your cigarette break.

Good to know how you think of me between puffs of smoke.

I’d like to think of myself as more than just another one of your
addictions, but you know how vices often go hand in hand.

I’ve collected many, many
trinkets over years and
decades and I’m probably
dating myself by saying,

I’ve got more than Ariel
and more than my mom,
more than father too,
but you know whose
collection takes the cake?

Grandma Betty’s.
Why?
Because not only is it a
massive hodge podge of
things she’s loved, and things
she loves, but it’s also a
collection of things
that remind her of those
she loves and those
that love her.

So yes, I have trinkets.
Gadgets and gizmos, galore.
But mine is nothing compared
to her collection of things I adore.

How often is it that I hear you calling
yourself a good-for-nothing, useless,
unwanted, ugly, and a nuisance?
Don’t be a ****.
Be a vetiver.
Grow stems that are tall and leaves
that are thin with lovely
brown-purple flowers adorning them.
Be versatile, stabilize the ground
around you, and with your rigid stems keep
those crawlers out.
Provide for the animals and protect the fields
against those that are weeds.
Let your oils heal and renew, replenish.
Be strong and durable, yet flexible like the rope
made from vetiver.
Be a vetiver, child for if you are a ****,
you will be culled and thrown out, but
those that have grown themselves a place
within the world will thrive.

You look lovely in
spring colors, chrysanthemum,
drop dead beautiful.

Red, purple, and pink
are toxic to me, I think
poisonous nectar.

Yellow and white shades
steeped in boiling water
become amber tea.

Haikus made around
chrysanthemums in the ground
have a pleasing sound.

I don’t know if it
was love at first sight.
When you looked into
my eyes, I just knew.

You were my twin flame.
In all our past lives,
in a parallel universe
it has always been us.

Be it time,
be it space,
no matter the distance,
I will wait for you.

Sometimes, I can’t help but dream of you in colors.
I wish only to be able to describe them to you, my love.
But the fact of the matter is this: there isn’t a single hue that would do your beauty justice.

He said,

“I need a love like hot air balloons, with passion and fire, rising through the sky, higher & higher.”

I told him,

“I don’t know much about fire-flying-basket-balloons, but I know love, and this is it. Love chokes you up the same way a bird’s eye view does, when by nature, you’re ground-bound."

Like the veiled midnight moon,
shrouded in the clouds, I,
covered in your gossamer sheets,
still shine brighter night.
When it is only us three,
I feel most at ease, most at home.
In your arms, beneath
the gentle gaze of the moon.