My skin dries out in winter
My nail-beds crack and bleed
So I reach for the lotion that
My fingers really need

But if lotion soothed each part of me
That was no longer whole
I'd squeeze it all out in my hands
And rub it on my soul

dad left
for his second tour of duty
on my third birthday

mom kept
a jar full of jelly beans
on the living room coffee table

every night
she gave me one to eat, saying
"when these jelly beans
are all eaten up,
dad will come back home"

sometimes
i would sneak another,
to help dad come home sooner

one night
the phone rang
and i watched mom
wipe away a tear
as she filled
the jar
back
up

I’d kiss those gypsy lips
Let my fingers linger
And slide down the side
Of your comic book curvy hips

I’d stare into your infinite eyes
To peek at the perfect pool of pictures
Piercing nature’s lifelike reflections
Deeper and deeper into your being

I’d listen to the harmony of your voice
That silky soft folksy tone
From tenor to baritone
Full of emotion’s tremors

I’d inhale your intoxicating scent
Like lonely rose petals
Floating away in separate directions
Your body dripping droplets of a sweet sweaty smell

I’d feel your breath
Heated and gasping
Passion elapsing and reforming
Hours to minutes and sometimes only seconds

I would take you in with every sense I had
Wishing for more senses to love you with
All the pressure building from within
Blinding me and coming through you my inspiration

"I love you so much"
is scrawled in the dust of my TV.
Every time I roll over and see the
motivation, my lip curves-
I feel you in what was a tent, now a house,
constructed in me.

A full house to clean,
I can't even keep the dust off my TV.
Your lips press onto me
and I swear I can feel every
glass window shatter in rooms of my knees.

I'd pick up the glass with my bare hands
just so you
could see the daylight through the pieces
in the morning.

Sometimes I let the storms tear down my walls,
allow visitors to leave the stove on a little too long-
and I push myself to the weeping willow to vanish.
You notice the lights are off and I am thrown in the wagon,
pulled back home to safety.
I don't mean to be so selfish,
thinking that I matter out there when graced
under the vines of Mother nature.

You are my comfort zone,
my bed on a sick day,
and I love you more than any of these words.

Head down, hopes high, this wasteland dark, wicked and twisted

Arriving "home" only to discover purple flesh canvas splatters from the figure he calls father

Repetition is at hand, the heart now torn between the crease where it had once been sown together

Compromising to this world, living for the world but the worlds not living for him

Contemplating death because there is zero life within this skeleton

Lead, gunpowder and pressure are alive while the power of powers overpowers all

Tears full of sorrow glisten down his cheek but there is a hand that wipes away tears

The oppressed are suppressed for the kingdom is here and will reign

Happiness instilled in the once torn heart now guarded by the one who guards
now filled with wine of the thirsty

Once a lost soul but never a lost cause
Son of the king walking into the light
Once fatherless but now selfless

Rises to wake
                         gathers ingredients to his recipe
Bakes
           the darkness away

Feeling good until his ingredients run to none

Convexed heart
Perplexed start

Puzzled by the puzzle

Mapped by the maker

It all crashing
Skies were clashing

Splattered with triumph
                    filled with wine
Destined for bloodshed
Wood transformed to crimson red

Feeling once  alive
                                now abandoned  
with every word they said it all meant nothing
Vital organs now frozen
         pulse now abnormal
                   beating the beat of a broken metronome

Every breath now breathes poison
           a gas we now call "reality"