He guards the door and lays by my feet
and tries to keep me warm.
He watches our one-year-old play in the yard
and doesn't bark unless he means to warn.

And he brought tears to my eyes when you picked him
last Christmas from the pound five blocks away.
But he still looks for your truck and searches for your smell
and wishes you would have stayed.

Come home soon.

I rock to sleep a brown-eyed beauty
and hum a tune you once played for me.
A haunting melody,
intended for harmony,
quiets her tears but unleashes mine.

She may never know the way
a lullaby sounds
as it leaves your lips.

Come home soon.

With a gluttonous obesity that devours love,
spits up lust,
and snacks on a
high-carb
pre-cooked
combination of the two,

we're counting calories consumed
with a track record of lovers,
regurgitating with regret and
binging again anyway when hunger pains strike.

Eventually we'll all suffocate
under the weight of the world.

i lifted my heavy body into the cold
when i heard you at the door

eyes red,
skin white.
you looked apologetic
and i, unforgiving

you stripped to the bone
to hold me close
and let my anger dissolve
one choked-out tear at a time

i yelled
and you listened
i finally
felt forgiven
and we drove away from the pain.

and when we stopped
you bought me a dreamcatcher.

but the irony i found is that,
my dear,
the only dream I'll ever have
is you.

knees bruised from kneeling
on the cold shower floor

you're out getting high,
and i'm pushing a prayer

eyes torn at the edges and
wet from salvation

i'm lost in translation
i am left bare

the hum of the fan, one that refuses to cool any part of the stifling room, is the only sound,
with the constant turn of the blades bearing a likeness to the steady rotation of
words and
sentences and
incomplete thoughts
thrashing about in my skull.

tossing and
turning and
back again.

lying sleepless and increasingly frustrated at the impossibilities I've constructed for myself,
in a fortress,
if you will,
of determined failure.

i've become distracted with false fantasies of adequate replacements.
i've reached for hands to hold to keep mine from interlacing alone.
i've cried out to the walls, to the ceiling, to the emptiness,
but i want to come home.

i miss Your merciful assurance lulling me to sleep.
but i've forgotten the way to You, and i'm terribly lost.

i am
selfish, ungrateful,
and altogether useless,
but i promise to try
if You'll guide me back in.


please.


tossing and
turning and
back again.

The fields of wheat sway to the melody of the wind,
surrounding us in a torrent of ecstasy
as we lie draped in the fallen leaves.
You design a daydream for us to share
and whisper it in my ear,
the thrill of possibility lacing your every word.
As conversations of distant hopes fade to impatient sighs,
Silence falls and begs us to hear
the deep breaths we take in turn.
An enchanting lullaby and a reassurance,
reminding us we'll have the time.
So we'll postpone our longing
until the arriving morning,
once again.

I love waiting with you, my dear.