To my friends
who can write
fresh-smelling
bouquets of words
with splendid color,
I offer my envy.
Mine are the blunt, stunted words,
rooted in the cracks
in pavement,
or forcing their way
to light around
overbearing rocks.
Some useful
in their own way,
edible or flavorful,
some with a
pedestrian beauty,
but few that one
would bring home in a bunch
with a box of candy.
More appropriate
in a grimy, young fist
crumpled in love,
destined to be vased
in a water glass
by a doting mother,
or shredded petal by petal
for the sake of soothsaying...
he loves me, he loves me not.

There was a maiden on a hill,
Dressed in white, standing still,

She stood in silence waiting there,
The autumn wind caught up her hair,

She never moved, all night long,
She never spoke, her voice was gone,

She stood there staring out to sea,
Feeling lost...for she was free.

You cannot break the broken, you can't live in the past, throw that memory away, you cannot let it stay, oh I wish I had the power to change every wasted hour, to knock down this growing tower under which I fearfully cower, in my ball of self regret.

             
                    I can remember:

                Tears that I have shed.

                 Lies that I have said.

                 Pain I have inflicted.

              Oh how I feel conflicted.


But know now this, for it is true, for all the things I can't undo, I'd never regret loving you.

I yearn to exist in a space where the stars all but blaze
Where “stars” aren’t celebrities their plaster faces plastered
on magazine covers lining the shopping aisles
But where they bask in the night sky unpolluted
And exist radiantly

Where the culture ceases to revolve around
the newest latest fashion or video
And instead revolves around the ripening of figs
And the blooming of chrysanthemums
And the migrations of the swallows
Where we look like awestruck children
to those unpolluted stars above us
and this great earth around us
to tell the time and pass the seasons,
Living then in harmony with the revolution of the very soil and air
from which our life flows
It’s easy to forget

I crave an environment
that does not depend upon phone screens
Where my peers and myself do not walk through life
in an addicted daze
Unaware of the haze that descends as an effect
of such technological dependence
We are walking around with our eyes unconsciously searching
for the stimulus that society constantly feeds us
We are tripping over ourselves just trying to keep up
These electronic signals flashing upon thin panels of glass
And This is what we call Living

The dopamine flooding our brains
when that text vibration brings our popularity to attention
Capturing our attention holding it captive
We are prisoners of our own purchases
Stepping into voluntary chains
Producing our wrists for shackles
Rusting our humanity away enchained
in a web of unsocial media and notifications
We neglect to make space for our own existence
Disconnecting from our own physical experience
We don't even feel our fingers typing and swiping
Hoarding gluttonous over likes and comments and click bait headlines
Consumed by our own consummation  
We never have any silence

I yearn to exist in a space where our eyes like stars all but blaze
Awake with acute awareness of the present moment
Where we break shackles and push comfort zones
Basking in the raw beauty of an exuberant life we are conscious to experience
I yearn to exist together as radiant as the stars in the vastest galaxy

This inconsistency that rumbles
Churning within the recesses of my ribs
I down a pill of self pity with a swig of pride
And tell the pain to go away
Tell myself it was never there
That I'm fine I'm good smooth it over
Put a baggy shirt on so you can't see
The holes behind the recesses of my ribs

Loving you is easy in theory
And most of the time in reality too
But sometimes when you ask me to do that little task or tell you that little thing
Something within me threatens to snap
Because I perceive that you see the satisfaction of your need to be more important than my current occupation
And I feel unseen
Even though I know you see me best
And I feel victimized even though I know your request is perfectly reasonable

And so the contradiction of awareness
When I see the inconsistency in me blaring crimson red and midnight blue
And I don't know what to do with these colors
I don't know what image to paint or what brush to use
I don't even know who I'd give the painting to
Or if I'd keep it for myself