freedom can be bare feet
or naked
or laughter
freedom can be poetry

[A prose poem]

I see a palm reaching out for me, from the pitch black.
     I try to sleep and close my eyes, but I still see this palm, trying to cover my face or scratch the skin it hates– I close my eyes and I still see it.
I know where this palm came from.
     I know it from the time the backdrop was not dark, but a horrid party at a lonesome house where I had too many shots. I know this palm will try to take whatever it wants, and it’ll crook its fingers and slide wherever it pleases, without caring to come back to my face when the tears roll down; it does not care to treat them, it does not care to wipe them. It does not care.
     Its been more than a year now, and still I go to sleep and think of hands. Of the word “no”, and how useless it is, just like trying to get some good sleep now. I close my eyes and try to forgive every one of those fingers.

She opens a window
and hopes for the sky
to fall in from outside
and it's tailwind bring

her the moon and the clouds
lined with silver, a crowd
of the finest of stars
and a spare pair of wings..

One need only look to the four winds
to find four frowns;
eight sad eyes
straining to see
through stained glass tears.
The man said "I die daily" but
he didn't have a constant stream of
status updates
to maintain.
I define myself daily.
Being special has
thus far
not protected me from
the unbearable weight
of today.
All of the analog cigarettes and
old fashioned daydreams
in the world
cannot save me now.
If I'm not seen
am I really here?
Heavy hearts and weary heads
reside respectively in the chests and on the necks
of everyone I encounter.
The gas station attendant
feels empty and
is bereft of a sense of irony.
The world ends
not with bang OR whimper,
but
with a deep and baleful sigh...
with a deep and baleful sigh...
with a deep and baleful...

For Helene.


Ashes on the water, now.
Love's bones like dust downstream.  
At least it got to see itself in our eyes,
Feel itself between hand holding hand

And whispered caresses.
From pillow talk to fists raised at
Concerts, glasses of Portuguese wine
On her balcony to the sound of magpies

We named our neighbours.
We were beautiful.
Began beautifully.
Ended gracefully.

I open hands that held hers and see
Nothing but skin worn by labour,
And air.
Ashes on the water, now.

Embers without a chance against rivers  
Cold with melted mountain snow and
Unyielding differences.
Some loves drown with lungs too full

To cry; others float like a funeral-pyre-
Longboat into the night, ablaze.
King and queen, hand upon hand.
Crowns tied from fresh flowers,

We were beautiful.
Began beautifully.
Slid apart the way a glacier parts from
The hills; slowly, but with the force

Of its thousands of tons.
Ashes on the water,
Where the ghost of our union rests
Underneath the surface of our memories.

I will remember you.
Until the stars burn out, raining the
Dust of themselves like snow upon
These waters that always are moving.