Driving and thinking
pondering possibilities
five days of silence
seems an eternity

wanting and needing
deliberate delusions
unheeding of reality
some things I can't let be

wondering and wandering
feeling foolish
a familiar aching
my heart won't stop dreaming

sleeping and awake
incandescent illusions
drowning in the imaginary
frozen by what is reality

known and unknown
avoiding asking
it's sometimes better
to let it all go

writing and pleading
withering words
some how elusive
unable to capture deeper meaning

hopes are wishes and dreams
bright balloons that carry
us over oily black
oceans of despair, rivers and streams

islands of light
covered with jungles
made of possibilities and dreams
some things aren't what they seem

in the center there is a spring
it tells us many things
sometimes it gives us proof
if we're brave enough to face the truth

we seek ourselves
in every day things
hide our heads in mysteries
blind to what we've seen

In the end it's hard
to be who we really are
to take the pain, face the truth
how we win, or how we lose

I don't tell the world
about my feelings
or hopes or dreams
what does the world care

I don't tell the stars
my wants and worries
most are dead
before their light gets here

I don't cry my tears into a river
thinking it will make it into the sea
and if I did it wouldn't matter
it wouldn't remember me

Instead I have this bottle
buried deep inside my chest
I stuff it full of pain and anger
push it all away from me

and as this bottle grows in size
I feel a hole in me
I'll find a way to stuff it up
pretend perhaps it isn't there
and like the world I won't care

It's like being thirsty
and so I drink
I drink and drink
Each liquid different than
the one before
Still I drink, I drink
still more
I roll the liquid
over my tongue
and find it's not
it's not the right one
I take a sip
a slurp, a deeper draught
it's all for nothing
it's all for naught
I reach again for
what I yearn
but will I ever
ever learn
I long to taste
taste one more time
the blissful richness
to make it mine
again I know
who am I to kid
I'd go back
again, and again
and still again

Silence is hard when
you want to speak
to fill the void
even if the words
aren't heard
not sounds but text

How I want to explain
since you came into my life
how I feel like it's good to be me
and you open me to possibilities

How I want to understand
your need for silence, and do
but how it's hard to speak
when it's not you to hear

I start to write then stop
I start to dial then stop
my mind keeps writing
my mind keeps dialing

I feel your absence
like a weight
pulling me to the ground
caving in my chest

Like most other things
this is a lesson
to be patient
to find meaning
in a heart beat
in a single breath

I breathe and wait
the clouds will pass
the sun will shine
I'll feel the warmth
upon my face

but you're a writer
she said to me
as if my being able
by dumb luck, or innate ability
to string, like ducks in a row
words that seemed to work
in a line
made me better
better able to describe
the indescribable
It's harder to explain
to describe the things that
are close to you, mean the most
to you
the things that most move you
that make your heart beat
faster, stronger make you want to live
so much longer
make moments into eternities
Oh surely I know that
when so moved, I can
spout and pour from my lips
or finger tips, streams of words
pretty some, perhaps
and even close to the mark, by chance
firing into the dark
it often feels as though
I have failed in my goal
the words that come
the feelings they evoke
like the after image
of a flash bulb
a reflection, of a ghost
of what the words mean
or what you mean to me

I throw my words
into the wind
and wait for them
to return again

I shout my need
into a storm
away from my lips
my words are torn

I whisper my desire
into grey banks of fog
languidly the words escape
and silently again I wait

I sit in silence on a hill
the words I had
have all fled
yet, still they run
through my head