It was a out-of-town trip
that prompted me to tape
a two inch bar of black
over a band of color.
So that's what hate does.

It's a maddening, saddening
sort of oppression,
this sort of silencing
It's a whisper-born fear,
half-irrational, half-necessary.

I'm a scared boy again, and
I'm standing in the school yard.
And here's what I learned today:
Anyone, everyone is an threat,
and protect your heart with hate.

I could be a revolutionary, but I am
an unwilling soldier.
I'm living life in safe-houses,
traveling only by the safest routes,
hiding my colors, red to violet.

I do not want to fight
a battle I believe is common sense.
But if I want to be free,
I have to arm myself.
I remove the tape.

That droll, little romance
was my first cigarette
an Indonesian clove cigarillo.
A year or two gone now,
but I still remember the sensation,
all the adrenaline and the drugs!

It was that nice, accurate drag,
that perfect ****
of smoke and nicotine.
Love was a potent buzz.
It had laughter.
The high.
It - the passion and ardor -  
...so good.

And the subsequent addiction!
I craved it,
took more than there was.
Smoked it to the ****
so fast
it was over before I realized it.
All that remained:
the fizzle of tobacco embers,
the quick-to-dry sweat
of the uninitiated.

Then the desperation.
I wanted it to work!
I smacked my lips for more of the sweetness.
Searched desperately inside
for only a sickness in my stomach
and poison on my tongue.

I’ve stopped smoking now,
but I will always be
just a little closer
to death
than I should be.

thoughts
visions
futures
allthewouldbeswhatifsyougonesmegones

qu­ickened breath
spiral transition
****** back
prophesy or...?

evaluate
observe
twitch
eyesgoingupupdowndownleftrightlef­tright

can't see
there's chirps
cars screeching
paranoia invading

panic
attack!
find
anythingtorunmeagroundofbeing

i walk
i write
i'm calm
thinking again...

when i said, "life will lead you
down a trail of broken hearts."
i really meant, "life will lead you
down a trail of broken hearts."

there is something about you,
a halo that pauses and asks.
i wonder if you have wings.
you are warm and inviting.

but maybe you are more of
a trap whose light consumes
bug-eyed would-be lovers.
you are disarming and deadly.

i'm not sure i'll ever know.

I was graduated for a year and a half,
but still a freshman of life, lost
in a school whose corridors stretched globes
and classrooms the size of whole buildings
who cast shadows longer than football field.

You were the senior who saved me,
who welcomed me,
who gave me a friend
whom I maybe never merited.

But it was never meant to last, was it?
You're the senior who had to graduate.
As the French say, "C'est la vie."

And the shadows stretched farther and faster
than ever before I had met you.

But not for so long, now, I loved you.

I flipped the page again to be sure.
The end of a book.
A good book.  A great book.

I am alive with the accomplishment,
given the hero and his world life
as only a reader can give writing.

And I am high off the closing,
the victorious snap of covers.
I glow with the sweat of life.

But every high has its crash,
inevitably, when I realized
a whole world I laid asleep.

*But when you gave that world life,
giving its word a home to thrive,
its gospel lives beyond its pages.

It was a out-of-town trip
that prompted me to tape
a two inch bar of black
over a band of color.
So that's what hate does.

It's a maddening, saddening
sort of oppression,
this sort of silencing
It's a whisper-born fear,
half-irrational, half-necessary.

I'm a scared boy again, and
I'm standing in the school yard.
And here's what I learned today:
Anyone, everyone is an threat,
and protect your heart with hate.

I could be a revolutionary, but I'm
just an unwilling soldier.
I'm living life in safe-houses,
traveling only by the safest routes,
because I love differently.