There is a peaceful movement
In the roll of a car
A sense of slight anticipation
That can't be found any other way
Its that knowing that everyone
Everywhere
Is searching for someone
A someone who could be you
It comes with a glance to the sky
When you smile
And you feel the stars pull far
But the moon swings near
With a turn of the wheel
You think its all so unlikely
Its all so far from what will be
All the same
Just for the moment it'll be alright
If you never make it out of here
As long as you've got this moment
And the hope of a moment more
You just might be happy
Anyway

Silence, Oh Silence
Why is it that solitude graces the night?
Each of us curled in our own little worlds,
Wrapped in contentment, memory, and sometimes pain.
Is Death so different; than the lack of the rising sun?
To be without light; without warmth,
Shadows become solid and objects lose sound
Darkness heightens mind, frees the heart
All five eyes going nearly blind force us to see
Perfection in ecstasy
But a harsh Satan shows us
A thicker realityof a life not brely begun
So here I wait for lovilier fantasies
No one knows when the light will dim; when it will go out
Yet I feel it coming closer everyday
I'll smile, at sunset, you'll see.
And show them all I'll be happy when night comes.
For me.

Why is it on the edge
of sleep that I most
feel the currents pull?

All my worries are grown
and strong when the last
peaceful moment comes along.

My bones worn rough with
sand often shake and my
heart made all the more raw.

Where are the gentle tides
when my soul wants to take
to the depths and fly?

Somewhere a boat must be
pulling into the harbor for
a girl singing a sailor's song.

For now my beach is just
the sand the water and me
watching storms cross the sea.

How is it so easy for the fickle
ocean to draw wishes and woes
only to throw them back?

Puzzle pieces he used to fit
A lock and key that once were
As perfect for him as he for them

In the growing parts of her soul
She knows they’re no longer
All the things they used to be

Nothing left but days of old
Some days are peace and so past
Are those once pleasant circumstances

In each of their deepening hearts
There are mounting thoughts in the soul
Hoping and embracing the change
                                                        of tune

I haven't got
Anything in line
Let alone my soul
It's all somehow mine
The half-hearted schemes
My dreams of creeping insanity
And the bitter scars I have in mind
I have yet to earn my callous stripes
And I'm hoping to get my heart caught
Only to bruise my love of the already weary

I caught the bouquet
Petals and all
When I was only ten

But you kissed me
And I let it fall
I was still thirteen

You promised to be
My every need
Sixteen, I didn't believe

I sip my rosewater tea
A much better use
Of my thorny nineteen

Long since dawn I have longed only to love
                                                     --A fiery sun
Freedom came but ashen light would not fade
I've gone without taking the settled score
You are the fog I chose to keep at bay
Often have I seen; you find memory in him
Muted misery taking light to gracelessly bear
Enveloping me might not have led to waste
He's quieter now than you ever were
All the same I can't really say how
His is the mist of morn' run dry by the sun
In  his smallest uncurlings all of you drifts in
All except the promise of soft light
She doesn't see it; she's never seen you
I cannot warn her away when I too
                                                     --Sometimes
Dream of cool cloudy days

I'm only in love when you're not

You're unhappy when I'm content to be apart

Your dreams often ride on my wings

When I choose to fly not nearly that high

My happiness if often shattered

When you choose to let go of my heart

I think perhaps if love can't reconcile

Its best if we both move on

But in that moment perhaps

                             We'd be in love again

An acid trip and the sink still drips
I found cover of night
after nightingales left my
shifting sight
but I've got little to say
that you haven't heard and I
miss the soil between
my toes when the heat
burns my sunlit cheeks
the sink still drips and my dreams
don't stand a chance
against the sound of wasted
water in the night
I'm longing to make a change
when I realize I already
have but all the
same I'd like to make it
again if it would
mend the memory of
nightingale wings pushing on
through the snow
soaked skies and still
the sink drips on and I'm
left reminding myself
the roots beneath
me have changed but one
day soon I'll have to
scream to call it all back to me
any other day
I'd disagree but just now
I think an acid trip
will be about as mundane
as the drip of the sink
if I can't manage to let it last
to let it change
the ways I choose to see
this old frame
desperately fighting against
every warped
memory I've made
and every sheltering night that
made me.

Is having . . .
                 A thousand sorrows
                                  A thousand troubles
                                                   And a heart that is free.

If

                                                            Its

                                                    Still

                                       There

                           When

                  You

          Get

Back

I need a place
of color
like wind-whipped prayer flags
and I need
someone
who will think of me
when the skies
turn
grey. I've known familial
love and I've felt needed --at least
for what they call
my empathetic ability. Now I'm just left
thinking
what's the use
of being the spoke needed to make the wheel
turn
if I never really needed
the wheel
to get where I wanted to go.
The only thing
something round as I
needs
is a little breeze but I've been
left watching the wheel
turn
without me. I've been left
watching
breezes carry feathers
far --and much too high
to even nudge me.


                                                           ­                                       I asked
                                                           ­                                       to be a kite but
                                                             ­                                     even kites
                                                                                                  need

                                                      ­                                            the fickle breeze

My mind is clear
finally
for the first time
in a long time
and I see the light
break on the rim
of the crystalline
glass I mistakenly
thought I had to keep
sheltered
to keep my happiness
unbroken.

I
Vengeance never made much sense to me. Then again neither did apathy but both have managed to find me from time to time. I've felt my skin peel and molt when I least expected it to and I've heard the sound of resounding wolves calling from the days I often swore to leave behind.

So long I've fought to be anything but the crumbling ruins I've admired from afar. I'm asking. Begging. Now. For you to let me be the dust storm I've become.

Quiet in my controlled passions. Many have asked passion of me when I knew better than to give it freely and I owe that to my own resolve and all the things you taught me unintentionally.

I've let you believe, and let you live so long, thinking I was much less than I've long since learned to be but its getting hard to watch the sky change when I know I've loved the sunset much more than I've regretted missing the dawn.

I can't tell you all the things that shaped me, all the minor heartbreaks that brought me to, because so many have and would have broken you too.



II**
The hardest part of loving the children you knew is admitting they've become so much more than you. I'm asking now, I know no other, no easier, way to show you that you're missing so much of me by asking me to remain free of easy disappointment. I am not perfect but I have tried and am still and I am far smarter than you'd likely admit and I've overcome some things you still find struggle in.

I have been cursed with an unrelenting empathy that's built in me a patient wisdom that is more often than not beyond my recollection. But more than that I wish this could be enough for you. But I know change breeds disappointment and before I can see the sun you'll have ripped it from the sky and put it farther beyond my reach.

Left to my own devices I've made the right choices and I've rarely faltered when I had the right and opportunity to fall. Tears breed misery and I've never shed anything the winds of my storm couldn't gather back to me.

All the same I'm asking now, for the first time, for you to let me be. Without condescension. Without disapproval or dismay. I'm begging you. Now. To finally let me be the person you're afraid of.

The person you should be proud of.

The candid truth
is I'm not looking for answers
I'm much more interested
in asking the same age old questions
a million new ways
but I've got too much in mind these days
when I say I don't mind
don't listen to me when I claim I have
nothing to say
I've got stories worth telling and a voice
worth hearing
and the only thing I'm searching for
is a pair of ears
who is willing to do more than let me fill
the space between them
with truths I've learned while learning to live
listening to answers
given far too quick to answer anything at all.

There are so many things you don't know
And I wish I could tell them to you
Every one is just as heartbreakingly true
But I know if I do you'd see
What I want from you
So many hearts hang in the balance
So many hearts I can't bear to break
I wonder if it's worth wanting at all
I wish I could tell you
But more than that
I wish you'd believe me when I say:
You are absolutely perfect
So please don't break.

Paper hearts and plastic schemes
I'm dreaming of the moments in between
Can't see my face or touch my hand
I know I am alive I just can't say when
And all the glitter in the world can't mask
The pain of losing hopes when dreams
Stay dreams

She's got her hand out the window
as cars speed by and she's
moving too while
her fingers are going
numb out in the air but it's better
than only twinning them
with the warmth of her own hand
she knows it's safer to keep
her palms at ten and two
but she's still
caught trying
to decide if she'd rather
cut the air
while her delicate fingers dance
or if she likes the challenge of
fighting the breeze
and making her own path
with the sort of
strength
she always had in hand.

I love the way these things echo off the walls around me
But I haven't seen many floors that weren't scuffed tile or linoleum
He's got no concept of freedom or how to spend his time when he's gone away
I'm looking too forward to counting on the warmth of the rising sun
It's taken this long but I'm finally done wondering if you really understand
Caught in a cage without windows or walls I can be my own light
I didn't want him touching my toes because something about my veins tells me
My feet are the beginning and end of the rest of my everything
Glass and porcelain chatter like a China cabinet tipped on it's side
The only thing that matters now to me is that I can dance like something wild was born in me
I kept my secrets, thin as they are, like promises made myself when he gave me none
Leaving now, the way I did when flurries fell and caught his eyelashes and mine
A paint-peeled patch in this cinderblock wall mocks my sentimentality
The warmth of the sun and the cut of the breeze gave me wings as much as anything
Falling porcelain and the glass of water I didn't drink find a little less of my sanity
I haven't got much that wasn't once given me but somehow I know
Hiding in the hand-me-down pieces is something I was always meant to call my own
To trade this linoleum for tile is no trade I have much choice in making
I'm not lying when I say I don't mind the crash of spinning plates I can't always carry
If it means I can keep the echoes of these walls made whole by my time-earned bruises
I'll keep my arms turning and let the melody shatter my sharpest corners
But now that my long lost summer sun is up I'm already missing the home I didn't expect
Now that I'm going back to smog-kissed sunsets where I can't hear the emptiness of change
I must hold tight like nothing else I could imagine and after all this crash and crumble
My last pleading hope is that I'll be left with more than the same lonely tingle in my toes

And I do think of you
Even when I know I shouldn't
And sometimes I think
I see you wishing she was me
And maybe its a little late
But we never would've been
          Any more than we were
                         Yesterday

The cry of the wounded
Brings me to tears
When my heart yearns
To howl with the wolves
Why must one suffer
For another's elation?

Tell me a lie
And I will frown
For it is not true.

Tell me a truth
And I will smile
Though it isn't what I want to hear.

Tell me a story
And I will listen.
          I will believe.

What a horrible thought
That I am alone
And you are not

My mind doesn't go dark anymore
Thoughts don't turn to you and lost faith
Watching the sky I don't see the horizon
I am hills contentedly lost in starry space
The farther I reach the longer my arms
This is the end of living with a callous hate
I've found the last loose bit of string
This time I promise to tie it off and not scream
And with all I think I finally have, I haven't got
One kindred, star-shaped thing
Soft-crested stone they call mountains
I've seen deeper valleys than my newfound
Desert can dream, the stars say I'm losing
Fingertips beyond my reach
I haven't decided yet if it really does
Mean everything to me

To every
          small gain
To every
          choice made
To every
          hasty negative
To every
          love chased
To every
          life lived