She said people were seasons,
and when I first met her, I couldn't agree more.  
After getting to know her, I wished that I didn't.
Her ex-lovers were Winter, and her eyes were a shade of Spring.
I could see the vulnerability of a car crash
swimming in each fountain trapped behind her emeralds.
She was beautiful in the way that could cause suicides,
and fix spider-webbed windshields after each collision of,
“Are you okay,” and, “I’m fine; I promise.”

Every story was Winter, and she was always left alone in the snow.
Mauve lips mouthed words that silently whispered,
"When is this too much? When are you going to leave?"

People are patterns,
and all she knew was the tessellation of temporary love and permanent loss.
Her hands trembled as she looked down.
She was in transit; moving after each hope of home fell apart.
And I wanted to kiss her like the world was falling apart.

I have the muse
I have the words
I have the need
I have the force
yet when I try, I come up dry
and end up, for the worse

But once you saw her in the middle of the night with messy hair, tired eyes, and tears

d
   a
      n
         c
            i
              n
                 g
across her cheeks onto her mouth you wanted nothing more but to kiss them away..

Here is the city—
its worn-down mountains,
its grass and iron,
its smoky coast
seen from the high roads
on the Wicklow side.

From Dalkey Island
to the North Wall,
to the blue distance seizing its perimeter,
its old divisions are deep within it.

And in me also.
And always will be.

Out of my mouth they come:
The spurred and booted garrisons.
The men and women
they dispossessed.

What is a colony
if not the brutal truth
that when we speak
the graves open.

And the dead walk?

The literature is in the leaves.
In my reading there are red spots
regardless of the page I choose.

Those with paint
of other colors
ripped me or are broken.

Look at them down the river,
made boats that do not float.

But I trust.
I trust in that child
that will find my Santa María.

And the day that I see him
being the captain and author
who scores down the chronicles of what will happen.

it's raining and i can't help but
think about how funny it is that
even rain starts and stops and darling
last night i spent hours burning matches
that flickered and faded and left little
marks on my skin and everything
seems to come and go and believe me
i'm okay with that but you were the one
thing i was hoping would stay

poetry should flow freely from the ravine of your soul.

not to be kept by the guardian of your conscience.

true thoughts and innocence are muddled by a large vocabulary and overworked mind.

sit back and relax. allow your inner child to pick up the pen and write what you've felt all along.

I love the way your smile just sits there
Comfortably
Beneath the mischief in your eyes.
You have that look
like you know what you've got going on
but without the arrogance to match.

We talk about life
Yours, mine
It makes me wish we had an "ours"

I wish I could shake this feeling of betrayal
this hatred of my feelings as they bloom
I promised to never love another...

though I find myself wondering how your hair smells
how your sighs sound
how your silhouette would fill the dark with light..

how foolish to fall in love through words
but the more the words fall
the more I find myself falling with them
helpless against the flow
my rudder trashed
my course set
by your compass
pulling me to my true North
as I fight to hold on to my ghosts.