I feel lonesome hands approaching mine
to walk me through the desert.
I tense my arms against the open night sky
which cannot be pushed away.

I want you to love my grey skies,
my pensivity that rolls across mountain ranges -
the same to me as sunshine igniting streams.
Just a different lens
through which my creature plays with light.
She is elemental
and sloughs skin off the earth like lava flowing
into the ocean to close its eyes.
I'll eat my own tail
to discover what I already know.

It’s silly to me now
The time I spent training myself
To adorn in ways they asked of me, ways
That seemed inarguable and sacrosanct, yet
The voice rose from no lone nor supreme source.
It is partly my wrong to have placed those
Fashionable tones in such an order
On my plate and to have eaten them,
Wholeheartedly expectant of nourishment.

Those infectious suggestions of
Curled strands and trimmed outlines,
Distilled traits and clothing bait,
Burned skin kept thin and a curtain
To cover what is truly mine, tucked behind
A clear line in dim light –

These witless insistings
Were never uttered from my bones.
My flesh came forth without a list
Of how I could best fit it, only drove
Life into limbs I was
Already fitted in.
Those demands never sparked
A fire inside my furnace, only
Stole from that which keeps me burning
For true things and tiny, unknown springs.

From inside, I hear more beautiful voices
That sigh and sing forms into being from
Places of unabashed inspiration –

They are the humming variety of
The sound that takes place in me
Which wells and swells and tells me
Stories of all it finds peaceful and lovely
Without and within me.

Now in this season
It smells like sweet honey nectar,
Thick, warm pollen that heavies the air, that
Overarching succulent sweetness I can
Never find. I'm nearly
Dreaming in the midst of day,
Lack of sleep sharpens this
Feeling of loss that doesn't coincide with
The growth around me - My mind
Is falling back a quarter year, another,
Chilled over somehow in direct sunlight -

                    My hunger could be assayed with
                    Those honeyed towers somewhere blooming, but
                    I've not been told where to find them -

Stumbling along with aching limbs and
Exhausted heart, forced anxious smile,
Can't seem to find these supposed fruits
That hang down at reach, give way to new days -
Just quiet, vacant preludes
Along all these miles of solitude.

It's pitiful
What needs we feel that cannot
Be answered to -
A distance must be kept
Just paces short of entanglement -

Flower behind glass panes,
I can only experience it by
The stretches of my vicarious imagination,
Never actually
Feeling its soft yellow petals
Warm from the sun - though, how could I know
It would be even that much?

I can sit nearby you, sharing thoughts
But arm's length apart is
All I could manage -

In the dark I can't see you, I can't
Fear your spines, I just
Hear your voice clearly, your
Sweet laughter -
What I'd give to share your warmth;
I only could by
Discarding my defenses, trusting
You will yours set down,
Meet me bare on the forest floor and
Find some other way to protect ourselves
Without the disparity -

I'd love to
Break glass panes with you
And laugh at how little it hurt
For what it was worth.

Should I mourn for you?
If you're not really gone, that is.
I give thoughts of you enough of me as it is, it takes
A lot of energy to remember you like this, it
Takes a lot of my time away, frankly.
I could be weightless -
Lifted by flowers, yes, that light,
That unburdened, I could
Make no noise at all walking
Over dried leaves and branches, yes,
I could be that relieved.
I feel that this staying power the winter has is
My fault, my doing from these
Recurring cold thoughts, I make it
Snow in my own garden,
Having to dust off all my plants and fruits and
Regrow and regrow after my own
Bad weather disrupts things.
I could be barefoot looking for shells and glass to
Use to build my nest, could be
Learning the quiet language of snails, to know
Why they leave their trails, could be
Getting golden from the sun -
Knots come undone,
Letting you go in increments of weight -
Can't all at once or I'll float away,
Just slow enough to learn to walk again.

I see myself as dead.
When I scroll through all the pictures,
I see myself as though I've passed on -
A eulogy for every smiling image,
A remembrance for missing moments.
When I see myself, I am frozen in a sweet story
And it's as though it is lost forever
And I mourn each passing memory, maybe
Because those moments are surely gone, or
I am simply not a positive person, still
I know I must
Let go of happy memories and
Appreciate present glories...
Though,
I feel that I lose myself throughout time
As I create new entities
That dance most well with given moments, then
Let them dance away,
For they are only suited for one another -
A version of myself and a single moment unmatched,
Not meant for anywhere else or any other time.

It is as though
I am looking at photographs from these past dances
And seeing a life that is no longer
And it's a part of my own.

I sit beneath trees
Because I am treeless
        though I have limbs
        and a soft smile,
        eyes twinkling like shaking leaves
        ahead of afternoon sunlight.

I smell the flowers, push them to my face,
Because I am flowerless
        though I embrace colors
        and shake in a gentle breeze
        and shyly greet visitors
        by opening up sometimes.

I draw in the sunrise
Because I have a familiar light
That wakes within me.

I give time to the countless plants I pass
Because of their grace and oneness
        and selflessness
Because I know these are possible within me,
That pure magic,
Only sweetness.

What have I done to you?
Tell me,
What connection do my conscious movements have to you to
Make your limbs itch to reflex
And smite me with?

        the bubbles that burst with
        my submersed words reveal my  
        vehement purpose;
        you ask me why and then drown me more -

I am not made for you, not
Made to make you content, my
Materials are not plethoric nor easily spent
I don't have the means to
Repeatedly sedate you when you
Knowingly defy the warnings and drain the poison
Again and over, and
Foam at the mouth with both love and anger for me

To open this box...
I'd more than like to know
What monsters it houses, what
Mossy, overgrown flora it grows.
Whether 'not it will
Blast me with fair, cleansing light, like
A sunrise through a painted window, or
Plunge me
Into dark waters
And run my eyes o'er with
Soaking ash and floating filament -

It's my weakness,
It calls me by a fond nickname, like
A too good friend after too long,
It knows me,
Knows I can't displace the
Imprints once they are etched
In my head

I have to uncover the rock the wrong way,
I have to
Lift it up towards me, brashly, impulsively,
And risk
The nervous snake
Right into my chest

That burning feeling,
Crackling in my breastbone,
Sets a flame and
Sends me back yet again
Scurrying into another lush, cool sanctuary
Somewhere in these woods, my temple,
In my center,
In my core.

Nothing burning,
Just a smoke and a
Small, slowing stream of
Used water from its source,
Done its work.
The could-have-been culprit is satisfied -
Then I had been too sentimental and
Wide-eyed,
Hoping things would finally appear to you,
That they would become obvious from afar
Once the distance between was made,
Once you had walked far enough away,
Seen the blue-grey spirited water bank,
Glittering and tapering against the baffled glade that once
Spoke your name.
I holdfast to these things of repose that have found me since,
And I am gentle in looking back at the place
Where you and I were left,
Unaccounted for and sour,
In the scope of our sorry abscess.

Sitting in the dark
I find it
Refreshingly quiet, yet
I know I'm addicted to clouding my mind and I know
I'll soon flood the empty blackness with
Artificial light and cacophony because
One moment too long in this tranquil blankness
And I know
Tonight's thoughts alone will
For weeks postpone
Any ideas I may have had of repose.
I berate myself with distraction to
Save myself facing the
Piles of of withdrawn responsibility that
Shadow the tiers of my
Sparking brain -
My itching imagination runs its knees into the
Unkempt piles, looking for a door to the outside -
I'm often
Sorry that I leave so much for tomorrow -
When I finally wake it is often to
Soft shadows cast across my room
From things I left about
By an early blue light
That reveals what I've avoided with a sly smile
And writes the day for me.

Meditation or medication.
There seems to me to be one track to freedom
        and we're all on it,
But what multitude of obstacles
        we choose to face
Is up to "us."

This clay figure that radiates energy
  
Was scultpted over eons of time by the gentle presses of nature's thumbs

Life is meaning expressing itself,
How we choose to guide it
Is up to us -
Our emotions are but an interpretive language
That pulses with each breath, mingling memory with intellect,
Feelings are filters, like our eyes and skin,
Meant to figure dreams of chemistry
        into being.

Who we are within
Is as formless as a hazy dream,
Only suggested, imagined to be.

We are two flumes -
I dread that you will lose altitude with me,
But I can't tell you that.
I can't tell you
That your downward gaze makes my head hurt or
That your sodden tone reminds me
Of how plants must feel after it rains,
Unsure if their spines can lift up through
Layers of loosened topsoil and leaden water.
It's the uncertainty that gets me,
The splinter in the glass, the grey sliver in the sky,
The dread of a future burden that sometimes
Runs in your background or muddles your clear stream or
Shows its shadow even as your words try to astray me.

I like to believe
We are two unshakable blooms
Stretching in tandem and awakening
The same to each surely bright day as
To each overcast and crestfallen.

Struggling to bud, stretching,
The ache reminds me that my inspiration
Has seasons
And dies sometimes.

I eventually start to wonder if it will ever return.
Next I forget I ever had it
And then things appear to me -
Light spectrums stretch,
I notice the weather,
The blue filter removes,
And I'd like to capture it, somehow -
I turn my lens and let blur come to beckoning.
I'd like to record this enlivened state of beauty
Before I shift my gaze in ignorance
And thanklessness.

My words are the flowers and the bugs
I want to catch but leave alone
To not abash their fluidity.
I pet them with my pen
And suppose questions I might ask
If I could bother them for answers.

I need to grow up but I don't know how
When my feet hurt I ask myself
Could that be? At this young age I have already begun to
        dilapidate?
Or is it just my brain weakening,
Panting, airless, reluctant -

I was not made to live this life, nor were you -

My mind says my legs were meant to
Traverse natural fields
And gape without scrutiny at the beauty
        of things around me
So my body tires walking on tiled hallways
Because it knows better than I
As to what this body was cut out to be -
But it's specifications don't fit
        any of these multitudes of molds
So I cram myself into angles and
        depressions unsuited
        because it's for the best
        it's for the betterment of society
        it's so I have a place on this earth -

But I already had a place, we all did,
Now our bent forms are unrecognizable to
Our Mother who wonders
"Why would my child pervert itself
        out of shape from its beautiful form?"

Through what common pair of eyes do we all see and
        at what point did we decide
        our own couldn't show us truth?

This troublesome beauty
Lines the walls of my temple,
Dangles crystals and candlesticks along its mantles.
My thoughts pray at her altar,
They clench their fingers together in pure fascination, yearning
For a couple minutes more
Of that spiraling reality -
The sparks at the edge of my eyes draw
Me to peek behind the curtain of my essence.
I fall like powdered snow and gliding petals off
Their enchanted tower, having been
Plucked from the certainty of their being into
A tonic, gelid air.
My body contains a formless wonder
Made of mellowing spirit -
I unwind and differentiate
Into many limbs of being.

Some changes happen too quickly
To observe with the eye -
Some fractures flex so fast one wonders
    where they came from, suddenly
Water is leaking in,
The mind floods, you didn't intend
To let things get so dismayed.

Some changes happen so slowly
They can only be noticed in retrospect,
Collapsing each frame into immediate adjacency,
Only later appreciating each movement and change,
Trying hard to reckon all the time that has passed,
Suddenly sick with your inability to recollect -
Where did each minute go? What did
    each moment try to say when
    you weren't listening?
They eventually wrote you a note and left -
    no phone number to call, no address to follow -
But it isn't your fault you couldn't see
Each changing thing, each slow tear, every
    wear and stretch,
Most aren't even our doing, most things
We don't expect to break, but everything
    degrades,
Day after day, eventually, in
Reviewing each crease it's obvious
How things have folded and bent
Again and again, but only after
The lines are permanent.

I have found myself beneath
Rocks turned up away from me,
And
I have found myself behind the door
             home alone
And
I have found myself beneath unfolded
Laundry in the basket,
             eyes squinted, keeping warm.

I have found myself in smaller forms -

Between book covers,
A grey dust exhumes at the turn of
             each its leaves,
Just as I have nestled away
             former inspirations -
Now as I
Open them up the
Fine powder fills my eyes, a dreamy
Lense reveals the dark skyward chasm
And its endless fires.

If only I knew how to reach them,
My old flames and I could reminisce
And I could
Close and put away all the stories
I never finished.

Sitting such as a sentinel
After countless nights of watch
Upon hardly a throne,
Small garnet spheres finally dive
After some days of thorny signalling
        and uncertainty.
Today, a wreckage of dropped things
I tried half-halfheartedly to juggle, each
Pushed harder on my ****** from the inside, each
Taking up space within me, no room
To let go my clenching muscles and let it all cascade.
Now, worn and mellow,
I finally release the warm inner potion
That must renew itself to hold magic.

In this place I've retreated to,
Away from the noise and light that
Illuminates all of my wrong, all
My guilty feelings are written
Down my back as
Everyone I know looks down, in
On me -
I go into the cave,
I shiver against rough cold walls and
Listen
To my own breath echo.
To be alone here is new to me, like
A fresh house cat beneath the bed -
I don't want to trust.
I don't want to listen.
They're looking for me, I see their
Flashlights and glow sticks and
Emergency packs,
They all want to help me, that's all.
I am
Surrounded by piles
Of scrapped letters and explanations,
Crumpled allegories,
Unfinished symposiums, my
Sweat is all about me and my
Stick of graphite leaves more on my hands than
On any sentence of elaboration as to
How I feel,
What I want.
I've nearly
Used all resources here, I've
Crushed the sharp point of my utensil, I have
Very little ability to amount these thoughts
Into dialogues of truth... I don't mean to lie,
I'm just
Out of time like a mouse in a corner
Feigning death, stalling for
Some better manipulation I can
Replace with my relationships so that
My ambiguity will remain charming and unquestioned.
My candle runs dripped over and small,
But I'll learn to write without light
If I have to, learn to
See without sight if I have to,
Learn to
Demonstrate my highest capacity to
Stubborn my way out of this hole -
When I do,
I wont stop running
Until the water hits me,
Cleans my hands and
Drifts me out
Into the neutral, knowing sea.

Why did I let that song play?
I know somewhere I need to feel it -
To swim knowing of the riptides, sometimes
Allowing oneself to be overcome
                    by soaked wet weight,
                    that heavy longing
I feel you wander around my mind
Like the paths of falling stars across one's eyes
Complete spontaneity, uncontrollable
And voraciously burning
I conceited its existence
                    unknowing of its hunger -
That deep, dark, perceivable pang it has to fill,
                    devours
Fields of grass, textured skies,
Hills that roll away
The sun sets with a sigh -
These feelings settle like dust all over,
Thick enough to seed, I sprout
Tiny dandelion weeds and
Strew fuzzy daydreams all over.

I have bursts of disbelief
        at the beauty of this life
        
        followed by pangs of confusion
        at its paradoxical discord
        which orders itself
        into thousands of noises
        that pummel my ears
        all at once.

Some moments,
        I receive one heavenly tune
        and I am almost saved -

        they come between time's ticking,
        nearly unknown
        like ghosts somehow both
        made and not made of me.

They know my fate
They are not worried
        at the thousand sounds
        I cannot help but hear
        because I am still listening
        for the single tune
        that is mine.

A chilly thing comes over me,
Rolls in like a dense, white fog
As articulate and elusive as a spider's web,
A contraption to transition from one state
       to another
Of my creation.
My little mind fairies pull a blanket to
      my back
And pat it in place -
There, there,
This bleakness of mind is but a transitory season.
This, I know.

My eyelids drop in dejection,
The horizon seems to retreat out of sight -
It, too, needs a rest, is tired of failing
Against the pervasive cold -
It tries,
It fears failure,
And fails sometimes.

I begin to leak liquid from within,
It souses my clothes, filling my shoes,
My posture gives from the familiar weight,
It runs into cloud-shaped puddles
      in wanting likeness
      of their weightlessness
      and place in the sky.

I live with a fear that slowly burns
Of the discord that swells within those I love
Made suppressed until a high tide
Splashes the serene coast. This is denial.
I am so easily disrupted
At the turn of wind from sweet to slapping,
The soft dole of a grey sky cracked by lightning,
Your melted honey-brown eyes snapping to black –
I don’t even know how to ask, just stumble back aghast,
My sweet little receptors blasted –

I wish I were made of more bone
And less pink ****** tissue
That secretes revealing fluids
Of naiveté and woe.