sleep evades my brain
like the moon erases the day
sinking across the sky
floating in empty chasms of stars
drowned out by the blinding lights
that project into the universe from this
city that encloses itself around my head
like a box of letters
sent from a childhood fantasy
to an adulthood not quite living up to expectation
describing the hopes and dreams inside
the version of me that is not completely
utterly out of love with reality

Downstream, I float

carelessly rocking back and forth with the currents

created by the rocks stuck in the mud

at the bottom of the murky river.



The rapids appear, further down the river,

but I do not feel the fear of anticipation;

instead they evoke

a moment of clarity,

wind rushing past your face

with your eyes are closed

and you have lost all sense of control of your movements

and you just give in and stop trying.



At the end we let our rafts go further

down the river

after we found the banks

and swam ashore.

We have the flint and tinder, glinting

in our eyes, waiting to ignite our bodies

filling our moments with sparks and sometimes,

flames, when I see that look in your eyes,

across the room, that makes me feel

connected, to you by some intangible silken thread.



The canvas is ready, the paint is prepared;

we can create more than just a conversation,

a fleeting glance, in passing-by.



We could paint the stars expanding

across our vision in the midnight sky

as we wait and watch and think and hope

that someday, perhaps I could just hold your hand,

and make you understand,

that I’m the man who loves you.

I want to dive, headfirst,

into this ocean of ice-cold passion.

I want to feel the water engulf us,

swallow us whole.



I know the fear you feel,

the unholy anticipation of the rush

of sinking into the ocean,

when the tides are rough

and the water is cold.



But until we fall in,

it won’t ever change,

it will never go away.



We dangle our legs off the edge,

occasionally dipping our toes.

(I want to swim in your arms)

If in your last thoughts before you sleep,

in those lost, vast moments, alone in your mind,

you think of me, just know;

As I drift off the edge,

my mind is filled with

the smell of the forest, as the wind shakes the trees;

the sound of an apple, being bitten by delicate teeth,

the sun’s reflection, cascading perfectly across the surface of a pond,

and the color of your eyes.

Mental adaptation;

confused thoughts inflict steady minds

with anticipation, hidden behind concrete barriers,

that slowly degrade, cracks forming with age.



Vines prying at those empty spaces,

in the division between our stolid faces;

Destroying the walls between our eyes–

(maybe we’ll find they were always aligned).

I believe in heaven,

but I don’t believe in hell,

it’s just as well, I don’t want to dwell;

Don’t want to wait for a single farewell,

it’s not my soul I want to sell.