I escape often to a place I’ve created;
It’s a small stage in, what is it?
A bar? I think so.
But I’m there singing
Which is funny, really, because I can’t sing.
But there’s a man with a guitar there, who really can play guitar,
and I sing.
And we make a great team, he and I,
With lots of knowing in our voices.
And the whole place feels it, all the people there, drinking whatever is it they’re drinking.

Knowing what?
Whatever I’m learning. Whatever I’m feeling.
Sadness usually, I know a lot of sadness.
And maybe love— lost or found,
timely or not, whatever it may be.
But yes I know some about love also.

What I don’t know is if I want this place to be real;
Do I want to sing of sadness?
I think I’m afraid that maybe I do.
I think maybe I take every opportunity to come to that place and sing.
But I don’t care much for bars and
I can’t sing, really,

a
funny
fluttering
feeling
in
my
                heart
beats
skipping
and
dancing
and
jumping
                around
I look
and
wonder
where
you've
been
               all my life

There was a silence.
                 Oh, if he would only be hers entirely;
       not by poor surreptitious evasion but in fulness and in fact.
He had understood her pause.
                "I'm good."  she said with apparent carelessness.
She found it difficult to keep her voice just on the casual note she wanted.
he thought to himself: she's different from me, she's romantic.
                "You just don't trust yourself with me around." he said.
                "It seems a bit funny, we both always knew, but honest I hadn't realized you were beautiful."
                "You're a great kidder."
Oh God, she asked herself, have I handled this right?
leaning on the door jam his body in perfect chiaroscuro
and an omniscient grin
And the rest is history.
...

Dear T,

You always used to tell me you were the devil, that you were heartless,
And I’d always chuckle, say “No you’re not!” And kiss your cheek.
And the truth is I really didn’t believe you, and I never saw you like that.
I think I truly did see all of you, but I focused on the good, and I thought you appreciated, and maybe even loved, that about me.
But maybe I was wrong because, hah, well I broke up with you, I thought amicably enough.
I had closure, I recognized that maybe we just weren’t right or good for each other.
But for whatever reason you felt the need to start **** up again. You knew exactly what to say, what to do, how to act, and I was yours yet again. For some reason you were my achilles heal, and I’ll be ****** if you didn’t know it. I loved you so ******* much. And I truly wanted to believe the best, I fought everyone off, including myself, who thought your intentions were questionable. You knew I would. You knew.
And I hate that you were right. I hate that I said yes when you asked to paint, I hate that when you asked me over I came, I hate that when you said  you needed me I believed you. Maybe you did need me, but you certainly don’t care enough to love me the way I loved you.

I hate it all. And though I’m trying not to, I hate you. I just don’t understand WHY you wouldn’t just stay the **** away from me. Why did you have to tell me all the things you did, made me feel like the most important person in the world, and then toss me away when I was inconvenient for you.
If you were lonely, why not find someone else?
If you didn’t know what you wanted with me, why didn’t you just wait till you did know?
Why did you have to drag me along when you KNEW I would hold on?
Other than the fact that you’re a selfish *****.

I understand you were leaving, that you couldn’t make any promises, maybe that you were confused. But you are the kind of person who can see 4 steps ahead and predict outcomes, so you can’t say that you didn’t know how I would act.
You’ve called me predictable so you can’t say you didn’t know. So all I can wonder is why. What good reason could you possibly have had to yank me around like that, and take advantage of how much I cared about you?
Do you just hate me so much that you didn’t care what would happen if you hurt me?
Was it just simple apathy?
Were you bored?
You can’t say you didn’t think because we both know that’s impossible for you. You always have a move, a goal.
So what was it?

I guess thats all I have to say.
I hate you, I’m trying not to, but right now I do.
And I truly do not understand why you came back. I don’t understand your goal.
Maybe you truly were just bored and are, in fact, heartless. Maybe everything you said about caring about me was a lie, maybe you just wanted to mess around with someone and have decent memories. But why the **** did it have to be me?
*******.

•••

All these new parts of ourselves and each other that we’re discovering
Trying and failing and loving
Shared newness is so sweet
in the cold beginnings of spring where the sun is warm and you start to feel alive again
opening up again with the other living things of the earth
Together we breathe in —
this cold warm old new beautiful beginning
The excitement of beginnings as nature shares that feeling with us
spring in love

•••

I saw a young man working in a Kroger a few a-little-while's ago.
He was putting bananas in the designated banana display,
and as I passed he smiled to me,
In such a kind, purely, beautifully,
human
manner. And I smiled back,
as one does,
matching his sincerity I hoped, or what I perceived as sincerity
and anyway he spoke.
Saying hello and inquiring if I was well and I responded that I was and returned the question.
To which he looks around at his current state; being surrounded by a staggering amount of bananas and shrugs and says "having a blast". Which I find humorous,
as one does.
I laugh and he laughs and I continue shopping. I weave through the isles leisurely because it's past 11pm in a small town Kroger and I wasn't quite ready to leave for whatever reason.
And
I see the pleasant blonde banana Kroger worker get up and proceed to dance to 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot" in a tall uncoordinated jig, singing into a banana which sounds too story-book to be true but alas.
And
I remember tilting my head involuntarily as a look of curious fondness swept my face.
And
and I love human moments like this because they're still and unchangingly pleasant, full of what if scenarios for late night can't-sleep thinking.
I left.

Well around Easter time,
or
well actually precisely on Easter, in the afternoon time I stand checking out my groceries in the self-scanner
as one does
and I see this fascinating young man
yet again,
this time clad in a bunny ears headband, which I find endearing. And I stare a little longer than I probably should have, more than likely wearing a complexly fond expression
yet again.
He meets my dreamy gaze and
surprisingly hold the eye contact for a moment longer than I would normally grant strangers. As we were on our way out he said goodbye to my group.
And, once again, I left.
Left wondering what would have happened if I went up to bunny banana boy and exchanged pleasantries and names
Left wondering if the goodbye was directed to me or everyone
Left wondering if I should shop at Kroger more.

imagine:

sitting on A stool on a stage
Small and creaky
aroma of coffee and maybe a cigar and sweet casualty in the air
imagine singing your mother’s favorite song to remember her softly
then Coming off stage
(greeted by your love poking your side so laughably irritating)
to sip a now tepid coffee, made by someone who knows your name
as you watch a neighbor go sit on the same stool
singing a song Of funny nostalgia that tickles the sides of your heart
reminding the room of our collective Age
with a chuckle and a smirk exchanged
and recounting the beautiful memories of lives lived in adjacency to one another
that makes up such a quaint Story

imagine that.

He loves me
a love deeper than anything
a love I can't fully reciprocate
which is a strange feeling
because I'm used to
loving more
loving deeper
loving with everything
and to think
that He
loves me more than I can comprehend?
that is a strange feeling.
to be loved like that

•••

I’ve had a vision:
Of me, a mother
Shedding my naive brand of womanhood
To take on the new role
Shedding childishness to bequeath it
Into the tiny hands that trust mine
And O Lord,
may my own hands be the gentlest,
the softest, let them always be open
And high up to You, O Lord, and
may my arms be warm and May my smile be wide and funny— May it make this child laugh and O Lord—
Make me this woman you’ve chosen me to be as mother.
Most of all minimize me to clear the way
For You— and Your ways
And for this growing, new, special, unique, never-known-to-the-world person.
I now know how you view us, your children. There is no other than that which I’ve created, held, loved, and brought into the world.
What a sweet vision.

•••

•••
Scribble furiously to trap the feeling just as it exists
I never knew the feeling of having a feeling so furious as to have it scribbled out of me furiously
I never had the time to
But now that my time is free Im free also to feel and my feelings complex enough to be trapped by the confines of a simple expression
No longer simple— no longer numb
Rather, perhaps curious
Those scribbled feelings furious

•••

I'm not one for Valentine's Day.
Love wrapped up and packaged into superficial nothingness
The meaning, the weight and beauty of love, made less,
stripped away and replaced with balloons and chocolates.
No
If you love someone you tell them
every
day.
Tell them with the way you look at them,
with the way you touch them,
buy her flowers because its Tuesday
dress up for him because you wanna take his breath away
all
over
again
falling in love is a whirlwind of involuntary passion
staying in love is an action
showing love is a responsibility, a choice
don't dull the song of love's voice because it shouldn't be loudest but one day a year
No
interlock your fingers and breathe each other in
not for a holiday, do it for the grin, that blooms on her face more lovely than any roses in a vase OH dear
No.
Love is not just once a year.

Breathe…
Oh my friend, stick on that word for a while.
Do you feel it float under your ribs?
Do you feel the warmth of your skin?
Do you feel the room expand?
Do you feel your chest loosen?
Yes.
Breathe…
Get a little lost in the word for a while.

"True love"
like True North
points you in the right direction

Bursting at the seams
with want to paint the exact of my scene
and words so full of my very being but
Oh, knowing the audience all too aptly
Is enough to hesitate me

classical pianist,
she's starry-eyed like Starry Night
she's got the aura of oil paints
hands like brushwork
swirling and swishing
eyebrows that twitch with every note
the room lowers by the decibels as she breathes
her heart in perfect pentameter with song
like silk running up along a staircase
sound floating thick and rich
daydreaming
the sounds of purgatory between sleep and awareness
no attention to time or reality
she slips away
oh, that classical pianist.

-LMN

quiet down now, 'cloud whisperer',
don't you know these fits fade fast
don't you know these delusions of power simply will not last?
the sky does as she pleases
the sun shines as he may
all the pleading,
all the crying,
won't matter anyway.

sorry to say, 'cloud whisperer',
you know your magic isn't real
you know that all that's come and gone will do so as it feels.
the here and now will slip away,
and tomorrow's coming quick
all the wishing,
all the whining,
won't change all life's fun twists.

so quit your rain dance,
put down your spells,
and stop your silly chants.
take a breath and feel the drops,
learn to love this cruel romance.

Daisy
was a curious
     mind,




                     She     imagined
                           years of delightful excitement
                                       unexpected carelessness
        she was a creature of surprising energy

I like the days when the sun sings and the trees sway to the song
I like the days when the clouds laugh and the wind carries the sound
I like the days when the rain is crisp and makes you feel alive
I like the days when the storms come down and we laugh anyway
I like the days when the lightning makes porch lights seem small
I like the days when life falls away
and falls in place
even just for a moment
and the only thoughts thought
were of the days
that I like

Do you think he'll ever see me?
Do you think he reads my poetry?

We share every "good morning" and every "good night"
He calls me beautiful and kisses me at midnight,

But do you think he knows that I want sometimes
to sing in small bars with dim lights in a red dress
or that I wish to spend much of my time looking at the ocean?
With the salty wind in my hair or through an airplane window.
Does he know? That I want to speak Italian in its country and
laugh while playing cards after dinner that i cooked with friends
I want to take so many deep, soul-touching breaths in so many different places and learn so many names

Does he know that I love to dance?
Or that I sometimes am good at it?
Does he see that I think in melodic lines punctuated with love?
Does he know well,
that I want to do all of this with him,
to adventure, step all around the world, make love, laugh?

Do you think he wants that too?

Electric hands on my waist and hips
From behind me you rest your chin on my shoulder and I wish you’d stay there, every piece of you, in perfect shape and scene.
Closing my eyes as if it'd actually freeze time,
but alas the world turned
and that movement of earth which I most never feel
this time ****** me so harshly
out of this painted picture I found myself in

By your presence I am bound.
“I’m an open book” sounds a lot like “I’m a blank slate” to some people
Who don’t like what’s written in the pages.

flickers and flashes
my memory of this year
this tiny little lifetime.

forever lives in those flickers and flashes
so long have i known you in this time so brief

we've walked and we've danced and fallen
you and i and our tiny little lifetime
and many more to come

i love you.

A little tipsy in the folds of Firenze, Italy
My lover weeps a tear or two
We whisper quietly
The dark of our room and the heaviness of our hearts
The fear of a love that’s lived loved and lost
Of a life flickering out like a too-short wick
We wish to be something of stories and
He wished to be the stuff of legends and
I wish that very much too
Now I shed a tear or two
how I wish he would hold my hand
And tell me how this is how things go when
You’re building a life together
Two in one
Two by two
Brick by brick
Line by line
We write this little poem or story or rhyme
And so it goes on
God, may this all be for your glory
And maybe, just a little bit for ours too?

youre my photographer
and im your hepburn(or at some point in a brief glimpse to me we were these) but my face is a little funnier
and neither of us can waltz and
really we aren't even in love like them but
i do however love the sun and the rain in her (hepburn's") old Hollywood voice!
her voice was so picture perfect in that way
and I kind of want to be in love with you (minus the river and that drift wood dancing cause neither of us can dance much less to your ****** gangster rap and definitely not on driftwood) but I also think that being in love with you would be a surprising amount like waltzing to rap music on driftwood on a river
but if there's a world where hepburn has a 'funny face' then who knows maybe we could find a rhythm
or maybe we'd just get very soaked in river water

a wish
a whisper
the breath of a kiss
the way the word alone
slips off the lips

whilst the plants during winter wait
they wait for warmth and springtime rain
whilst they do so,
the ground welcomes the quiet snow:
if they, so I.
the snow embraces the ground and trees
singing soft and enamoring melodies
the trees do not fret or cry spitefully,
but instead appreciate the cold beauty:
if they, so I.
there is pain in the wait, but joy as well
a chest for two reasons could easily swell
with anger or laughter and it is a choice,
we the tuners the tone of our voice:
if they, so I.
what does that mean?
why love the snow that hides summer's green?
why must we wait to enjoy the sun?
so I say, the flowers still bloom when their time come:
if they, so I.

fuzzy fretful fantasy fog
Trespassing into my thoughts so loudly
I can hardly hear you say:
“I don’t love you”

most visitors
                   usually imagine her
as a            stranger

       Just the same, she looks. But surely
                                                     Leonardo da Vinci
would have understood her.
                             Leonardo would have relished,
                    

                                     And

                                                  remembered

Seeking and always having sought
For a community
A collective whom who call themselves my home
“That’s one of ours!” They may shout,
Or at least which I’d hope for
But keep your eyes clean
for some of these are counterfeits
The mirage of “mine” are they
But mirages are a mistake of the eye so
Maybe the misunderstanding is mine also?
But undoubtedly I still want an undoubtedly
An “of course! Don’t be silly!”
Not only welcome to belong if I so wish
But to belong is a given
An assumption and simple fact
Yes, that would be nice wouldn’t it.

love, you are
so softly unbelievable.
you are so gently terrifying
and beautifully real
youre a dream in reality's clothing
with smoky eyes
and warm hands that fit mine
love, you are
such sweet silly hysteria.
chain-smoking laughter
and kissing right after
youre a tickle at the ribs
with an inside joke
and the curve of laughing lips
love, you are
porch lights through closed eyes
melodies of jazz and soft sighs
slow dancing in old jeans
making poor decisions,
and neglecting routines.
oh, love,
you are the stuff of dreams.

The
          sometimes
          tremulous
glimpses of surprise,
I think
     what a book it would make.

I hear the late afternoon cheer
         the honest type
somewhere                                                          
                  lurking behind
                                old Sixth Avenue Road.
I suppose
it is not just a phenomenon of nature that goes instinctively on,
not the appalling detail of any large human scheme, eroded by schedules
But I accept it as one of the miracles.
(Which I never see anywhere else)

•••
I don’t even have the words to write to tell you just how deeply complexly fully and most beautiful this art which we have created together with our hearts and our bodies and minds and soft edges and hard curves and deep gazes and silly hurts and lovely little laughters and ugly words and tears of all spectrums and hugs that were and are and always will be where I belong is in your very arms with my hands holding your face and your arms laced around my waist and foreheads touching and noses so gently gracing and kisses that are too good to exist and whispered words that make time stop and happy sweet tears fall that taste like the ocean and sunshine and love and time gone by and I just purely and completely will never be able to write anything even sort of close to those moments where I fall deeper in love with you but.
I will spend my whole life trying to
•••

poems are a bit harder to write
when you dont feel music in your mind

too many tabs open

tv static for feelings

'error 404' for thoughts

poems are a bit harder to create
when you cant keep your sh*t straight

New flash.
Just because you are hurt now
In this moment
Does not mean
you can diminish the meaning or the reality
Of a love
A bond
A heart
A time
That’s shared.
Just because it’s broken now
Does not mean it always was.

History was destroyed and made all at once today.
Notre Dame in bright, brilliant flames.
850 years of history, class trips, memories,
singed and gone.
Everything has it's time, I suppose.
But I had a friend who wanted to meet that building,
who wanted to soak in it's secrets and stories.
And now that dream is ashy and unattainable.
Spectacular spire, it fell.
And with it, our hearts.

I know now why, or maybe,
How, rather, poets write with pens of pain
,and maybe,
Could even call myself finally one of them