Revealed, the boots rest in bittersweet calm.
The laces fray and choke a lonely moth
whose wings are sliced and cast into the dust.
The leather decays and its dye fades to
the equal of pigments of ashen flesh.

Nothing stirs.

The boots stand at attention against scratched
records, silent since American Pie.
They bend the picture of that girl from a
dreamer’s days, oh summer of ‘69.
All tarnished, as the ‘Nam dust settles on
failing dreams.

These boots had sat in front of Saigon’s door.
These boots had been stained with the “world of war”:
with the colorful hues of long-gone friends,
with a son who never had the chance to
kiss his mom, his dad, his dog, his simple
life goodbye.

These boots carried a wasted soul, Saigon’s
pesky tricks lasting longer than prayers do.
Wasted time, wasted mind, wasted, wasted -
as the world tries to truly understand
the feelings of a place called Vee-it-Nam.

So it is.

The boots sit on ‘Nam’s thick dust, laying in
a closet of tormented memory.
For a man may walk on without his boots.
But he cannot rub away the imprint
of his feet,
nor the heavy steps that he has taken.

If I love you for a moment,
take up a space in this continuum
with a twinkling of the heart,
let it not be

when I gasp at the brush
of your fingertips slipping beneath
the fabric of my integrity

Let it not be

when your lips skim
the curve of my bones, when you
make my core quiver and release

Let the moment in the continuum -
in the spaces in an expanding nothingness -
Let the moment I love you
be

when your head rests atop mine
on a snowy night in a running car
and your hand presses slightly to my back
with a softly spoken
"Goodnight."

The jukebox of our life,
it's in the corner
of the Waffle house
on Route 59.
It swoons Ray Charles,
blasts that Simple Minds,
aches with Sinatra;
toys with memories.


Ruby rouge, twinkling
with faux glitter spots
and rusty buttons
and rusty records
and a dust-layered
smile of grey chrome.

The jukebox of our life,
it's in the corner
of the Waffle House
on Route 33.
Why don't we meet up
and swoon, blast, ache, dance
to the ruby rouge
again, you sweet boy?

My voice is hoarse with silent shouts,
fists tight and lips tighter;
They can stand smiling but not understand.

They react (or barely act) with
jealousy or suspicion, awe or a wandering eye -
the stories tire of being tossed about
from Apathy's embrace to Ignorance.

I felt more than I ever felt;
I loved stronger, walked longer,
I drank deep and breathed deeper.
I became an unfamiliar familiar same.

I found my Me.

I cannot tell the tale without making it sound
so very hollow,
when there, there was where
I was full of the richness of life,
and here is just the shadow, the hesitance,
the doubt of whether my moments were true.

We were both utterly hopeless,
I thought, when your eyes
glowed when our faces grew close,
when ***** made your cheeks flush,
when your hand was allowed to tickle, to linger, with lips parted
and a smile easing onto your face;
when we sat and studied and sang
and took time and wrapped it up in laughter and whispers;
when you reached out to me, and
I stayed in the darkness so that you would always search
for my helping heart.

Then one night, as I stared at the hillside dotted
with candle lights of lives beginning to sleep,
and we were exploring our world again and I was dreaming,
You walked behind me
your arms slinked around me
your lips searched for mine
you said, "I'd rather have this now than never have it at all."

And there I was, the one utterly hopeless, for I saw
the shackles around my wrists.
But I kissed you anyway.
again and again and again,
As if each kiss could capture back
all the bits of hope I had lost
by placing them in you

Loneliness
is in the motel room
on the outskirts of Manhattan at midnight,
when cars are driving
and I know
you are in none of them.

Loneliness
is in the glimmer
of light upon my phone
so my heart flutters;
but the shadows just play tricks
and I know
you have not thought to send a word.

Loneliness
is in our embrace,
when I cling to you
with the naivety of a child,
while you give
a muttered whisper;
your nonchalant goodbye.

Loneliness is
my Self yearning
to touch the elusive Self of you.

Even with
the slap of your hand
and the slice of your voice,
the shove of your arms,
the apathy of your face;
Even with the injustice of your heart
and the fragile walls upholding your dignity,
I still curl up
against the hardness of your chest
and feel anguish turn to longing.

For in darkness,
you still whisper to me
the sweetness I crave.

Drift in space with me, firefly
and guide me on a sea of stars
to the city limits of the Sun, so that I may feel warm again
and no longer need the light
from your chemical imbalances.

Want to give me tap shoes so I can try to shuffle
alongside you in your infinite show number?
Or maybe a cigarette, so I can spray on the ground
the ashes of my self because you forgot to tell me
you can't just hover by birthday candles
to make a wish come true.

There is a place in my heart. I know it.
I wish it was not in darkness. Distracted. Hazy. Lost in the fog of a morning road in Paris where my steps are labored, cramping pain up legs into the emptiest stomach. Thought of what has been done, said, lost in shadow. Gain every light and torn by innocence.
Why? To be more than the confines of here. That is always how it is and how it will be. The desire to be on every street alone yet embraced. Push and pull as I please.

As I please.
Despite the shreds of what remains.

A breath is a breath. A moan is a moan. Touch, repeat, warmth, shiver down the spine. Hunger, loneliness, emptiness, all so light it becomes dizzying chaos. That is my reality.
I search for truth in the clouds when it is all true vapor seeping between fingers. There is no truth here. There is no enlightenment to be gained, just knowledge of feeling in mud.

Seeping into sand, I move faster.

Why does she not scream? Why does she not grab the rope awaiting her, his outstretched hand? The sand fills her every pore. Nothing is like the sensation of the earth's pressure on such brittle skin. The fight, the challenge, the aspiration to be more than a consecutive motion of day to day nonsense that arrives at nothing more than one smiling face.
Yet.
Of course there is more.

But in that second, sinking sinking collapse of time, **** it all if she does not feel free. Saved.

It can only pass. This will not be. Sorrow will come as essence, it will be stripped from her again. Reminded of every past venture into this safe hollow. But it will finish.
God, will she? Or is there a sunrise she will awaken to?
She will renew her light, I promise you. A stumble, rocks buried in her flesh. The most silent burden, the hidden scar. I promise you. She will return to whatever truth first made your eyes light for hers. Promise. Let her promise love and keep it.
The child within her dreams of nothing more.

Ask one question.
Just one.
So that I  may let this torrent of falling ice melting from distance shores flood its way over the crumbling stone of my crooked confidence and into the only heart I care to see.
Please see.
See one, let just one conjure of those million particles of light strip away from your natural wonder to peer off at the trembling pup who does not know its soothing warmth and playful glow.
Hear one word.
Just one.
From a voice caught in the net and bramble of the infinite pauses, where letters are nothing but dirt on remnants of high-towering mountains that seem to never recapture the glory of its snow-laden peak.
Kiss once. Just once.
So that in the spiraling downfall of Time where the lines become thick and grooved and taught so hand becomes haze, flesh becomes faint, in that torrent of senseless aching demise where our captures of existence shatter to ash caught by flame and wind, within that...
A blossom. Bloom.
Just one.
For my soul cannot be without the nurture of you.

You are no king. You are no glorious mountain range with sunlight melting each peak in a thousand shards of shattered stars over the valley below. You are no master. You are no groveling fool at the feet of Memory, nor blubbering mouse curled into the depths of shadow as a claw reaches toward your tail. You are no ancient lover, who pulls at each hair as if pain is a gateway to the soul of another who no longer desires your flesh. You are no forgotten dreamer, shackled to a promise or engaged to mistaken truth. You are no forgotten loner, for even the wind and shadow and rain and fog and dawn seem to caress as you step into the day. You are no hidden sorcerer, for your trickery is always there to unfold even before a child's naïve eyes.
I have you not on a chain but linked through a whispered promise. That brittle enrapture.
You are no master, no king, no sorcerer of light nor darkness. Yet I succumb to it all with body unfurled and mind heart soul for your consummation.
Not a king, no. But a kingdom you create in me.