A buzzing through my ear  
The simple tones of stress make me so sleepy.  
The abstract thought of the dark and where am going makes me feel like child again.
There is a sound over and over in my head. Like a song that won't leave.
I look straight ahead it doesn't look too good from where I am standing.
I turn off the alarm and fall back asleep. The day can wait five more minutes.

I once loved a girl from Japan
She told me the two words of her name mean
“Aimed for Balance”

She taught me how to write my name in Katakana letters.
She taught me how to read past sarcasm
And backhanded comments.
I taught her how to read American literature
And how to say “Roller Skates”.
She taught me how to learn with my emotions,
And I taught her how to learn with her body.


I would tell her, “I love you”.
She would laugh, and with those brown eyes of hers,
Look into my own and say , “Are you drunk?”

Her hands, pale and smooth like paper,
Would often find themselves entwined in my own, long and strong,
Like a summer’s warmth embracing a bright day.

She was my moon, and
She always called me her “Shining Sun”
But I had to let her go.

She cried tears that fell like snow,
But I could only feel a rising heat
Behind my cheeks.

I tried to tell her,
“You are too good of a lover
And I am too poor of a man
To give you my soul.”

She told me, with her wintery voice,
“I want to stay with you!
I need your voice, your hair,
Your hands, your eyes!”

She needed my summer
But I would be leaving for a faraway place.

I needed her winter,
But her cool smile has frozen into bitterness
And will grant me no respite.

Now, without her dark, soothing hair against my chest,
I find myself
Aimed for Balance.

I feel the chilled fingers of cold caress my cheek, lying here on my bed.
I’m staring at the warm orange ambience of the street light casting soft illusions of foxes onto the snowy earth.
The strings of the guitar in my hand are humming some distant, nostalgic chord, but I haven’t yet strummed them.
I’m hearing your music again.
I wish I could ignite these dormant embers into the flames they should be.
I can hear your beating heart, though you’re nowhere near me.
Your fire shines through your eyes!
But whenever I come too close
I end up melting.
Now, the only warmth I have is the memory of your fire,
And the heat of the sun shining on my skin.
Now even the moon shines through the heavy lens of cloud cover
And I wish I could have you in my arms, here, sharing your warmth, sharing your heart
Because all I want is to feel the embers of your soul.

I'm all alone, alone, alone to write me,
I'm all alone, alone to invite me,
I'm all alone, alone to send me emails,
I'm all alone,  alone to lend myself ear,

You're ALL together; together in places,
You're ALL together, together you leave traces,
You're ALL together, together you have parties,
You're ALL together, together you are,

I'm all alone, alone in this home,
I'm all alone, alone is MY kingdom,
I'm all alone, alone like my thoughts,
I'm all alone, alone to hear myself talk,

You're ALL together, together you are united,
You're ALL together, together you are invited,
You're ALL together, together you are MADE happy,
You're ALL together, together you sit there laughing,

I'm still alone, alone, and I'm rich,
I'm still alone, alone, and I'm satisfied,
I'm still alone, alone, and I'm delivered,
I'm still alone, alone, and I'm....

Two boys
and girls
unclothed each other
simply at a picnic
flush with wine
alongside
sun-flecked trees.

The girls,
easy as the
forest round,
burned,
delicious,
as the boys
eager and nervous
in unequal measure
partly gave up
concealing
their joys
at forgetting
or remembering
in flickers
their bare bodies.

It went on
over nettles
and half-hours
and clambered
trees and
photos taken
almost formally
(on film,
of course).

And boyish lust,
at first sinuous,
a darting tongue,
began to
soften against,
for instance,
the sheer,
unthinkable
texture
of the two
girls carved
now backward
over the bough
of a storm-felled elm.

And there
in the embers
of evening
they learned
to thrill originally
at the vast,
gorgeous
and astonishing
irrelevance
of what
might happen next.

the hum of the fan, one that refuses to cool any part of the stifling room, is the only sound,
with the constant turn of the blades bearing a likeness to the steady rotation of
words and
sentences and
incomplete thoughts
thrashing about in my skull.

tossing and
turning and
back again.

lying sleepless and increasingly frustrated at the impossibilities I've constructed for myself,
in a fortress,
if you will,
of determined failure.

i've become distracted with false fantasies of adequate replacements.
i've reached for hands to hold to keep mine from interlacing alone.
i've cried out to the walls, to the ceiling, to the emptiness,
but i want to come home.

i miss Your merciful assurance lulling me to sleep.
but i've forgotten the way to You, and i'm terribly lost.

i am
selfish, ungrateful,
and altogether useless,
but i promise to try
if You'll guide me back in.


please.


tossing and
turning and
back again.

I left this world last night,
as I lay asleep in bed.
I drifted out of consciousness,
and sad thoughts filled my head.

I awoke with a shudder,
at just over a quarter past five.
My heart beat was erratic,
and my temperature was quite high.

My mouth was parched and sore,
my eyes were a shade of red.
I was numb from head to toe,
and to this world, undead.

I stepped out of bed,
my legs trembled under weight.
I took a nervous step,
by then it was too late.

My world caved in around me,
buzzing filled the air.
I writhed and turned in confusion,
I thrashed out in despair.

The colors, they grayed out.
I was blind to all you see.
I was deaf unto this world,
save the buzzing surrounding me.

I felt as if I was falling.
My world was spinning fast.
I pushed on in tenaciousness,
as I have done in the past.

A black envelope surrounded me.
My heart rate increased tenfold.
Then the sun lit up,
I saw a figure made of gold.

Something happened that night,
as I lied awake in bed.
I took hold of my life,
and found I was not dead.

The black envelope,
merely my thin bed sheet.
The sharp buzzing noise,
nothing more than the alarm at my feet.

The lack of color,
my eyes, they were closed.
But of that golden figure,
my friend, I do not know.

She came to me in a dream,
on a long and sleepless night.
A vision, it would seem
of a world I had left behind.

And I wonder from time to time,
I wonder how she is.
I wonder if she’s alright,
If she’s happy with the life she lives.

People come and people go,
They walk right in and out of your life.
Some mean more than they’ll ever know.
Some haunt you in your dreams at night.

And I still think of her sly grin,
and that sparkle in her brown eyes.
I miss crossing her path now and then,
and holding her in my arms so tight.

How could one so very small,
so frail, and meek inside…
Be the first that I recall,
such a big part of my life?

And I hold on to times we shared,
and think of that world I left behind.
And never once regret I cared,
for that girl I’m without tonight.

Of all my past, I miss her most.
Yet I stay my tongue, and tell her not.
It’s something that she may never know,
but I hold her still, near in my heart.

My love goes out to that browned eyed girl,
who haunts me in my sleep.
To the one who is no longer in my world,
but means so very much to me.

My heart goes out to her tonight,
wherever she may be.
I may have cut her out of my life…
But she’ll always be with me in my dreams.