goodnight, sleep tight
don't let the bed bugs bite
and if they do
then take your shoe
and knock them till they're black and blue.

goodnight, sleep tight;
carry me away with all your might
and when you do
I'll have good news
and I'll be pretty
dressed in blue
how maybe then
you'll love me, too.
perhaps I am just
a mere bird in flight
so if I may
or if I might
I wish, I wish
for things to be right
yet I am a mere child
filled with fright
who once believed
the world was bright.

goodnight
sleep tight
how I sang you to sleep that night
you looked so blue
in the morning dew
it wasn't a surprise
your life was through.
you rest among the flowers
all dressed in white
and I wished that I may
I wished that I might
but I never got
what I wished for that night.

goodnight, sleep tight
I gazed at the stars
and held you tight
and on that day
I didn't fight
for what I knew
no words could write.
I wished I may
I wished I might
maybe one day
I'll be a bird in flight,

I wished for may
I wished for might
yet all I could say
was goodnight.

i haven’t said a word in fifty-three years
no, i told not a soul what i felt
i crumbled dreams like paper notes and
when i spoke i felt my own heart melt.

while you so declared your own ravaging fancies,
shouted like a song
a voice of purity, clear as glass
somehow, you were always wrong.

no, i am not bold, externally;
though my thoughts roared so loudly in my head
and when i put my words on paper
i could say what i wanted to be said.
my thoughts were so much louder than my words that
my head was almost deafened by their sound

perhaps i’d rather dwell in my imagined tales
than the sweet syllables i had almost found.
i dreamed, like you, to speak so clearly,
so greatly, and with such confidence;
but i mumbled, and so sillily
slurred vowels into consonants.
i dwelled in mere introversion so much that
when i opened my mouth to speak
i was held in great aversion, complete and utter disconcertion
and i could not tell you why.

indeed, i may be full of anxieties
but truly it did not matter to me, because
alone is not lonely
alone is not lonely
and i am not alone.

i talk to my shadow, for he is my friend.
i walk with my shadow; he's there till the end.
i spoke to him the things i reveal to no one else,
the silly little secrets that no one ever tells.

truly, what could i say?
he was the one that never went away.
he was with me on the treetops, under the light of the moon,
through the clashing and smashing, that sad afternoon.
he's the friend i cried to when i had no other -
no sister, no brother, no father, no mother.

"but i loved them wholeheartedly,"
that's what i'd say,
yet my friends did not love me in the very same way.
thank you, dear shadow, for being with me.
you, unlike the others, are not such an absentee.

love*
   is but
    a simple word
      that feels the night
        go by
          and by the time
            it grows,
              it's gone -
                left
                  never
                  ­  to
                      survive.

i passed the time
  seeking
    wandering, round
      and round
        a dream
          and when the darkness caught me
            i seldom
              cared
                to scream.

i picked up all the lilies
  my fancies,
    gone
       and lost
         and gray
          i never saw past
           the illusion
            for
              it was all
                gone away.

i sought out heaven's seeking,
  speaking,
    i never thought i'd say
      the days, the ways
        to ever know
          how it feels
            for
              love
                to
          ­        slip
                    away.

the best home to inhabit is one where there are no cares in this world, somewhere between dreams and reality, absurdity and rationality,
insanity, madness, asininity -
  somewhere, floating, engulfed in a pipe dream, the place you land when you’re about to go to sleep and you feel like you are falling.

the best home in the universe is the one where i did not care so much how people looked at me, my head was not sodden with insecurity, my voice not overwhelmed with timidity, and the world did not think of things this way.
perhaps you are the ruler of that kingdom.

truly, if heaven exists (and how i hoped it did)
it would be the place between dawn’s brightest day and dusk’s darkest night; a time when the sun had forgotten to set or the moon was shrouded with clouds and i had drunk too many coffees at three in the morning.

if heaven exists, it is somewhere deep below the depths of the sea where jupiter has lent its rings to protect us from the outer world, the one that exists beyond where we were floating.

where is our promised land? where is nirvana, elysium, paradise? it must be somewhere past these skies and far beyond this atmosphere.
a place not without sorrow but without prejudice, a place where this world did not despise and criticize and live in bigotry;
where we could stop ourselves from ruining ourselves, and where no poverty, war, or injustice exists any longer.
it is where my deepest thoughts reside, where my hopes dwelled and populated, and the lost dreams i had given up will live for as long as i do.

forever i had hoped to live in heaven, but in my heart i knew the only way i could get there was to die and i did not know if that was what i wanted.
i did not know whether that place existed at all.