i am not a poet.
poets are the sad ones awake at three a.m. mourning over the sad loss of their lover.
poets are the ones yearning to love, and to be loved the same.
poets are beautiful, dangerous and tragic. every word that they speak is a dagger in your side, the slow knife that cuts the deepest.
poets are the ones who realise the power of words, so they choose them carefully (they know they could be choosing their fate).
poets know that the absence of words is just as important as the presence.
poets are born, not crafted.
maybe i am a poet.

i believe in lovers kissing in airports, because they're not destined to see each other again for ages.
i believe in sadness, and the addiction it brings. i believe in unrequited love, because it's the only love i've ever experienced.
i believe that smiles can show signs of weakness, and tears can bring strength.
i believe in dreams, and know that they can't be squashed in seconds, because if you're meant to do it, you won't go without it.
i believe in the infinity that we call a lifetime. for it is the longest thing we've ever experienced. infinity is us. we are now. infinity is the beginning, and the end, from your outstretched palm, to the ends of the earth, to the ends of the universe, and back again.
we are infinite.

Fresh from the airport taxi we take the tram up to the Sacre Coeur,
For weeks you held a dog-eared photo in your passport folder
of this place.
There were others, with rich history and lines around the avenue
but, as if heaven bound we found ourselves here.
You'd never know we were at the highest point;
because everything feels vertical with you,
like the whole northern hemisphere ignores the sun
and moves with only your gait.
Time seems to slow down,
The warm wind pushes through the cinnamon flecks of your hair
shoving it in a bushel over over your right eye
as you look back at me with a smile so big
its as if the artist had no choice but to
draw outside of the lines.  
You ask,
so I take a polaroid of you
in front of the massive white domicile.
Behind your structured frame
its ancient hairs stand straight up against a pale grey backdrop
like a dim ghost in the presence of strangers,
or a wild animal behind barbed wire
that continues to pace back and forth,
never quite grasping containment.
I pull the film and allow the silver to disperse
but as the halides converge I
see the salaciousness in your eyes
and realize,
I may never be able to differentiate
between the animal and the artifact
and as you move upward toward the large equestrian doors
I understand
this is why I follow.

Your broken paced brand of love has worn me down.
I was a once sharpened pencil,  now worn to a nub.

You were the sharp rock that cracked my alabaster shell.
And you never even knew it,
You never even knew.

I have no strength to blame,
There is no need to ask my forgiveness.

I could have wrapped myself around you,
A blanket that would have kept you ensconced.

But you ran;
You ran until you could run no further.

You laid yourself down.
You slept the sleep of 'I give up."

I did my best to wake you.
I grabbed you by your mind's eye shoulders and shook you.
I shook you hard.

But your poppy-laced dreams have held your eyes fast closed.

*And now I weep for what might have been.
I wring salt-water from my tear stained dress.
I weep for the emerald city that could have been ours.

pen to page unlocks
heartache and rage
spilling ugly truth
lofty eyes turn away
claiming blindness
whispers empty chatter
tattoos crazy, outcast
the heart does shatter
standing cold, outside
looking in with desire
longing to belong
never finding place
time to get away
escaping to shadows
solace found in alone
fitting broken better
paper shreds falling
torn words scatter
needing retreat
tossing out the key

You know
I was thinking how much
I'd like to just leave it all behind
and let loose like a mad
rebel with plenty of caws
flitting through sunlight that creeps
through the trees
because anymore
I can't get behind another day of
constantly dragging on more
supposed last toxin riddles
while your hands become these frail metastatic
cooling tower fingers
I can already see them already shaking off
clinched jaw fuel droplets
onto cancerous rancid mass graves
and I don't want to imagine what's beyond that
Besides
lately I've been preoccupied
with the feel of timeworn ciphers etched
in my charcoal wings as I
descend on power lines joining
scorched throat jesters cackling murderously
at this scorched earth
See I want to get away from our plutonic friends
all they want is to binge on residual radiation
raising their safety glasses to their excesses
knowing their acceptable risk deformities await
with contaminated breath
Sure we've got a reputation of being devious
but I'd rather proudly flaunt tattered onyx feathers
than sit around with
decaying radioactive half lives surrounding
inactive decaying half lives abounding
We crows scavenge our meals indiscriminately
but we don't dare eat our young as you do

In the darkest hours of the night,
I think of you.

I think of your scent being a blues song,
Playing a lone trumpet
Drifting over my face.

It’s a funny thing,
What the night does to us,
Especially if you aren’t asleep.

But I have dreamed of you,
Eyes looking into your eyes,
You so close to me you breath in my exhale.

In the darkest hours of the night,
I think of you.

I think of your warmth,
Spreading over me like strawberry jam.
Sticky, sweet, and always easy to spread.

The inhibitions of the daylight,
Are lost within the dark.
Stuck in their bedroom with their nightlights.

I have lost all of my layers,
Now here,
Just a skeleton of myself.

In the darkest hours of the night,
I think of you.

I think of your shoulders,
Hard as Atlas,
But soft as the curves in your body.

There is no way I can’t think of you,
You are the night.

It’s the place we live
A place of treachery
A place of trembling hope
And sorrow

A place where centuries of salty tears
Have cried the oceans high
Where the pines, the redwoods, and the oaks
Have fled high to the skies—learning from their earthly mistakes

I want to know it all
But I know I never will
And I want to feel strong
But a feeble human existence can never fulfill

And when the thorn ******
That’s when I’ll feel pain
But to the pain I feel when I lose you
Every few months-it is nothing

You were here on the first day
And we know-- and He knows
You wont be here for the last
But I hope you will be, for the talks in between

We don’t really talk about it
Instead we talk to talk intelligently
And I like that
And you like that

And that is why we’re the same
I wonder when I’ll have faith
Perhaps, when you have faith
Have faith in me and have trust in my words

Sorrys spread themselves wide—too wide
With every rise of the sun and turn of the tide
Despite the try, despite a determination of independence
They are taken

I worry I lack some sympathy
For I did not cry the day I heard
But you do not cry on the days you die
And you die for quite a few of them

Do you know who knows?
Or do you not care
Does it matter?
For me, it does, and you know, and he knows, and she knows

I scoffed the day I heard you believed
I laughed that I figured you a man of reason
You said you could be both
I still scoff

When I shall count the stars
When I shall breathe evenly
When I shall free the butterflies from the pits of me
That’s when I shall—when I shall free you of the blame

I know you deny it
And you may right not deserve it
But when I’ve read of all the little live things
We too, will be alive

Do you count your lucky stars
Or do you rest assured
I call the arrogance a bluff
I call it today—for tomorrow

The blanket of grey
Which comforts me so nicely
Will always remain a compliment
A compliment, remembered, and not deserved

It’s a humbling experience to realize
Not one idea you will think
Will ever be
Original

And it’s a disappointment to realize
Some ideas
Ideas of others
You will never even think

In that I call injustice
But no one will make it just
And I will rest aside
Quiet… less than robust

My existence is frightening
So is yours
So is his, so is hers
Though arrogance makes for a fantastic façade

And we’re all incredibly concerned
That today will be lost before we have achieved something--anything
Yet too distracted by tomorrow
We fulfill the prophecy, and yes, we lose today

Pride is a thing to tussle with
I want to be proud, but more so, I want you to be proud
Of me
We’ve been told to not be so proud

To be humble and oh so very honest
Though those before me have proved, time, time again
That to be anyone and to get anywhere,
Humility just won’t do

And that’s the juxtaposition I live
The contradiction I’ll never escape
How to make it all of worth
While upholding a worth of self

Your mood changes with the moon
And I try not to mind
For I know that mine
Is as steady as the tides—not very