The girls never loved me.
Never when I was young.
Never when it mattered.
Not one tried to hug me.
I still feel how that stung.
Fixing what was shattered.

The girls never loved me.
I wrote poems each day.
I placed it in her hand.
Not one wrote back to me.
They just walked away.
It never worked as planned.

The girls never loved me.
Though they admired my mind.
But just to help with school.
But to really love me?
They may have been too kind.
I just was not too cool.

The girls never loved me.
But somehow I survived.
I made the uphill climb.
Someday they would love me.
Their needs had not arrived.
I was ahead of time.

These poems come from dreams,
From places where there are no rules,
No conventions,
Where there is more rhyme than reason.

These poems come from dreams,
From random scattered images,
No connections,
Where things just allude to what’s real.

These poems come from dreams,
From a way to communicate,
No clarity,
Where feelings overtake the mind.

These poems come from dreams,
From a desperate need to be heard,
No filtering,
Where raw emotions author words.

The first time you said “I love you,”
I felt my soul floating away.
I’d been waiting for it, it’s true,
But words I never thought you’d say.

Life changed when you said, “I love you.”
I had lost feeling in my heart.
Your words made everything feel new,
So new I don’t know where to start.

You surprised me with “I love you.”
Needing to hear it so badly,
I wasn’t sure just what to do,
Knowing I love you, too, madly.

The moment you said “I love you,”
I felt that Heaven was my own.
My love, the one thing that I knew
Was that I’d love the next unknown.

I could have been more careful than I was.
I didn’t have to love you,
Or let my heart be broken,
Enough to let you in there,
Suffocating me, lifeless,
But beating for you so that you could breathe.

I could have been more selfish than I was.
I didn’t have to love you,
Or break pieces off of me,
Breaking them off one by one,
Till I was a shell, shattered,
But able to put you back together.

I could have been more angry than I was.
I didn’t have to love you,
Or hold you so innocent,
As innocent as a child,
Withholding judgment, calmly,
But letting you turn fury back on me.

I could have been more knowing than I was.
I didn’t have to love you,
Or confront my need to give,
Giving so you would love me,
Till I left my tank, empty,
But looking back I learned what I should be.

I wish that all mirrors could be windows,
Having had quite enough introspection.
I want to live in the world the world knows,
The world that is more than my reflection.

Trapped behind walls seeing nothing but me,
These mirrors have cost me my perspective.
If I’m all there is, who am I to be?
Solipsism is no man’s objective.

I peer through the glass right back into my face.
I don’t even know if I’m seen behind.
Windows are mirrors to the human race,
But the reflection in mine makes me blind.

I wish that all mirrors could be windows,
But scared the world won’t like what I expose.

Weathered and ragged and flaking away,
Ageless, majestic, for day after day,
Haven for robins and the honeybee,
This is the bark of an old hollow tree.

A suit of cracked armor letting rain in,
Lifeless and cold, hardened like calloused skin,
Home and shelter where squirrels can flee,
This is the bark of an old hollow tree.

Vestigial barrier to bygone rings,
Same as it’s been, now for so many springs,
All that is left of its great pedigree,
This is the bark of an old hollow tree.

A trunk withered down and dead from inside,
That empty space, where owls now reside,
Inside those walls there’s still reason to be,
This is the bark of an old hollow tree.