I wish I could spill out onto a page
melt into the lines
and give you the meaning that way
but I am confined to words
these auditory hallucinations impersonating symbols
Maybe you could find it in my eyes
But I think you'll never find it at all
Not until I am words on a sheet
with two dates
one of air and one of earth
Should you shed a tear
feel fire too
Feel for the world as I could not

come to me cats and dog
in the meadow you all roam
Leah, I watched you take your last breath
And the winter air froze my tears
The moon shined on you and made you glimmer
and through it your soul rose
The moon was half dark as it was light
like you and your sister
and a star placed too perfectly at your side
which I believe was your brother

and God gave me a chance to look at all of you one last time

Run kids and don't look back

I'll be right behind you

there she stood as a mighty redwood
so tall and ancient
only to be fell
laid there so harmless
and they will strip her bare
she will be your furniture
your house
your toothpicks
and you will/do not think of her
only what she could be for you

A kiss goodbye has many things in-between
Like when I call you back ten paces out for another
I always find a way to keep you there for another farewell
I will always have another goodbye in me for you
So much so you'll feel as if you never had to go

Sight: Her salmon pink skin on her sage green dress
Caught my eye every time

Touch: The way her warmth flowed to me
Made me feel fire once more

Scent: Her 5 dollar cotton candy perfume
Lifted me from my feet like a pie window side

Taste: The bitter lemon chicken we had cooked
Rested on her lips when I came back for seconds

Hearing: When she'd sing, my god her voice
Was better than every song I did and didn't hear

So much so, I had forgotten my sixth sense

What can you write about a woman that hasn't been said yet?

Do you tell her things she's heard in past lives or ones she's yet to hear in future lives

I do not worry about redundancy

Instead I will learn ways that cannot be replicated

Languages that have yet to convey such meaning

I will be the wake: the light, the dawn

the cosmic inclination to summon you

with the hope our stardust collides again

I don't even know who I write to anymore
do I hope you'll stumble across my work
that you'll tell yourself "just one more line" again and again
And when you reach the end you'll read again
until there's nothing left to find
and you'll sob and tears will distort the screen
you'll wipe them away and forget all about this

women views words like currency
where hurt is the apex of money
and the love and camaraderie
one a prisoner searches for in the cracks of his walls
is just a vehicle for the softening of the shell
one they've erected
after one too many 'you're my diamond"
when they're just feeling the pressure of one
well my words are gold, woman
and I tell you
you were born gilded
impervious to these poison laden speeches
where you were taught to hate your fellow girl
and to die for the man who kills you
they may speak all they want
but you will stand bold and ironclad with closed mouth
saving your last word for a rainy day

one time my dog brought me a squirrel he had half killed

and I stood staring at it quiver, half alive, with a baseball bat in my hand

dog barking and my ears shaking

and I couldn't bring myself to do it

I watched it die and laid its body adjacent to our creek

I will not be an angel of death

I want to taste the flavor her words again
Where she spoke sweet and left something sour in word
And it was salt in the wound and acid in the cut
She was my obesity
Now, I am half the man I used to be.

Caught you hiding in the little things
Like the written word
From that you cannot run
The crumbled letter once written so cold
now sits, smoldering at the depth of a trash can
and you lay there, smoke in nostrils and eyes watering
Until the brimstone and ash beckons
And you dig your hand into the refuse and waste
Pulling out the fire to ease the tears and cacophony
Only for it to wither in your hands
And you will lay there again
Eyes clear and white like lily of the valley
With vacant lungs and a yearnful demeanor
Wishing the burn would go away

I long to be an old woman
Fingers stricken by wrinkles and skin memory of past love
I want to gaze longingly into the Miamian sunset and ponder on missed chances
I want to make cheesecake a long forgotten friend i venture back to with fondness every fortnight or so
I want to fall into trivialities like bingo or muffin making
To die beach side and ancient so that blood memory awakens
And with my last breath ecstasy implodes and i become the last generation again
The clock isn't real
Its digits are manmade
And with it comes functionality like we are predestined to coup against
I will be your old lady
And you will be that soft, young ear that my razor blade lined drivel will fall against

Let it be know I let sand fall through each crevice
And when you watch it all fall
You don't count the grains until about 10 left
I count it like seconds
As the texture slowly leaves my nerves like a girl you hate (love)
Those with cancer, suicidal ideation and a beautiful wife
Become aware of their fleeting beaches too late
So they make snow angels in it
Slowly sinking beneath instead of standing up
And the sand awaits the next eager, quasi-benevolent boy
It is a line to the beach, I check my ticket number
"21"

Springtime comes and we are still cold
Where you wave flowers in lieu of my hands
Chrysanthemums are my favorite
In them lie hidden a poison veiled by colors and patterns
But you didn't know
They were dead before my fingers connected
She loves me, she loves me too much i say as pick the dead petals
Before they were all gone and my breath to the wind
The angel on my shoulder is ignoring me and the devil is on vacation
and its just me
all alone with my vices and stonewall demeanor
tall as the shadow of the tree i hide under
and you are so high up
breathing in mountain air and living
As above so below it hurts
miles above me and yet you dont look down on me
Instead you extend a hand down
And i kept getting lower and lower
Until your arm reached its limit
And i peel my skin off trying to find the reason
the chronic ennui and morose feeling juxtaposed with your canyon length smile
To realize I am no more a man the more layers are gone
just getting closer inside to the boy who never healed
You never saw all the times i wanted to cry
to wail and scream and tell you what was killing me
the poison in me for so long
i tried to keep it contained
only for it to spread like wildfire
Why did it take you dying for me to love you?

Does my name strike you in the chest
like arctic wind on bare skin
or a heatwave from an oven door


Or have the memories and associations turned to blank
An image to picture
A scent to happenstance
The words to just sounds


Did my face fade to another then to silhouettes then to shapes
only to appear in a restaurant booth or each puddle along Route 8

Carry with you that piece of me however small it may be
even if my name is just another outline amidst infinity

Autumn, fell into you
fell in love and your arms
and let the dam break open
and the tears flowed like sweat
like sweat when we were so close
treated everyday like our last because it very well could have been
and then it was
we didn't notice the trees dying
so human
the conifers watching
watching us frolick in the remains of their deciduous brothers

love, torture filled yet beauteous

reminiscent of flora emerging from ash after a forest fire

like a waning gibbous projecting yin and yang we too were light and dark

I have still not seen the stars but your words of them carry me there

A brand new Lego set is splayed on the floor.
Fluttering pages threaten calloused fingers as the reader flips through pages.
The loose pieces clink together as delicate hands sift through them.
The bright colors flash and blend together in the pile.
Piece by piece the two finish their structure.
Though some pieces are missing, and some are out of place, the structure is beautiful, and they are content.
As it's lifted to its final place, one of the hands slip, and the structure falls to the floor.
It crumbles apart.
For a moment, the builders hold each other, then one speaks to the other.
"That's okay. They're meant to be put together again."

a man who lives in semantics

who ignores colors and exists monochromatically

wept when he could not solve his problems

he spent so long with the flower under the microscope

that he never got a chance to smell it

I feel desire
A desire so strong and papable amidst the futility
Like a search party for a child everyone knows is gone
A seemingly juxtaposed love affair between a rat and a coyote
A tethering feeling with no slack in its shackles
O, my dearest, trap me not alike fortunado
For I have not wronged you

I miss the analog sounds of the controller

I miss the overlapping sounds of footsteps amongst the sticks and leaves

I miss the sonorous sounds of a reel being cast into shallow water draped in ripples

I miss soviet style ballet dancing amidst the arguments in the kitchen

I miss the back pain from letting you have the nice side of the bed

I miss letting the love **** me

This eyeballs
It pursues you
It bores its tendrils deep beyond any dermal capacity
No matter if a jaunt, stride, or sprint
It is (in) the second person
Can you see yourself?

A balance beam
the edge of the sidewalk

Excavator escapades
the sandpit

Sundry scenes eclipsing face
Mom's cooking

Turn around
Nothing

May we draw a dream
A photo in a field
Can we share what we've seen
And your love I may wield
Perhaps a game where we die
A picnic where we say nothing
We can let our pet birds fly
Just give me something

If ever struck with the frigid end
I hope we may meet again
If not by fate then by chance
And may you run to me
In this field of flora
Never to worry again
You and I
Till our end's end

Do you ever wonder
The answer to a question
That your brain knows
But your heart ignores

Grace my presence
Give way in a field of flowers
Allow me to carry you
A kiss whilst spinning
Just like the movies
The sweat betwixt our hands
The petrichor from the rain
Lest we grow apart
Don't let go

A whisper in your ear
One last time
If it all were to cease
Would I cross your mind
Past that initial time?
For me
You'd be that sunset
The one that never goes away
Would you notice
The star that has already faded
Its light barely reaching your eyes

Under the threshold is the water of the abyss
I worry I may drown at times

A whisper almost silent
Grazes across the breadth of my face
Your aura pierces me
I stick my arm into your chest
I feel for your soul
I grab your life in my hand
I rip it from you
It slips from my hand like sand
I can never pick up every grain

When the anger seeps from my eyes
I breathe
I breathe and think of your heart
Beating in your chest as I listen
We are so close in that moment
Yet still I feel neglected
How to kiss and love
To tell me you have doubts
My dreams have dreamt through you
Your eyes
I have seen us
Only us

Each turn a reflection of the last
All too familiar
When will you realize
Your deja vu is just redundancy

While your body leaves
I can feel that your soul remains
And with it my mind
Like the two lovers we could never be

When I stepped into your room
On your bed where we used to love
It took everything I had to not cry
A hand covering below my eyes
To not let you see the emotion fall
Along my face
So devoid of anything
I'm sorry I left without a word

Can you feel the heat
That radiated off you
That followed you
As you left
It slowly died
With every step you took
Away from me

We often start a poem with you or I
Sometimes unintentionally
It just goes to show
How much the soul needs another person

The hell that so many say awaits us
Is right at our feet
We survive it everyday

I wonder why
Why a sunset evokes so much emotion
I sat on a hill facing one
I knew it would be back the next day
But it felt like the world was ending

A tiny Midwestern boy
The hay in his pocket at the corn maze
Grown by the ways of pine trees and baseball practice
With his only motivation that things will get worse

As quickly as the first is whisked away
The second was too far to begin with
There has now been far too many to count
I stopped after the first
They seem the same after a while
Like a stack of rocks on a log
Nevertheless
I stack them

We lay together amongst the earth
Gazing at what seems unobtainable
I am in awe
The light that may not even be there
Oh it is so hot
I am grounded again
By the star that sits next to me

I saw you staring
Out of the corner of my eye
Like a vulture at a carcass
You sat next to me
And kept staring at me
You tried to speak
But i did not hear (i did)
I was a fool
i will probably not get to see your hoop earrings again.

I watch you from your window
Your angel
How you move, how you breathe
Sewn into my eyelids
Why can't you see me
Just look, only for a second
But for now
I am your shadow

Carry me with your waves
I cannot separate thoughts from it
Your exterior
I bite into it, that's where the addiction lies
Creo que sientes lo mismo
Even your aches I think of every aching moment
This is the devil, but i am done with heaven

I had a dream
I sat on a rock with a girl, i could not see her face
She told me she'd meet me there again
We always missed each other
She'd sketch little drawings for me on the rock
I knew it had to be you
I saw you in the dream, sat with you
Another girl walked in and said
"Did you like what i did with our place"
I knew then I was meant
To let you go