There's something lost in translation
Something lost from mind to paper
Where the most precise words fail
From paper to other discerning eyes
Where the words are no longer yours
Intentions are stolen and melted down
Forged into weapons, new and beautiful
Things you never intended to create

You’re a thought half remembered
Finer details seeping and slipping though
The cracks of memory
Never solid, always fleeting

Filling in the gaps
With leaps of logic
Painting in the blanks
With complementary shades

The past never dies
The corpse is repacked
Airbrushed and glossed
So it isn't so hard to look at

Disappointment washed over your face
Radiating off of you in waves
Creating ravaging riptides
Dragging me down into depths
Unknown and unexplored

Poets are assassins
Words wound and ****
Cut open arteries
Spilling life blood
Sharpening and refining words  
Honing them to a killing edge

Poets are sorcerers
Words; their incantation
Grammar; their arcane ritual
Sentences turn into spells
Transforming you into someone else
Teleporting you to a distant place

Few poets are prophets
Gifted and cursed with visions
Vessels to be filled
Conduits waiting for lightning to strike

Poets are codebreakers
Deciphering life's enigmas
Translating experiences into words
Skilled technicians
Finding the right words
For exactly the right moments

Talking on the phone is easy
But making phone calls is difficult
Thirty gut wrenching seconds
Heart beat ringing in my ears
Lungs working overtime
Every time the ringing tone resumes
I think its someone answering
My muscles tense
My lips ready to spit out
My already rehearsed lines  
But no one answers
I never leave voicemails
A worse fate is ****** upon me
Anticipating their return call

The photo is shot
The subject is killed, embalmed
Corpses on display
Moments entombed in amber
Preserved forever
Taken out of time
No past, no future
Only that one shining moment

You kissed me on the corner
Of Highland and North Central
A block away from my house
My eyes were closed
My stomach was tightening
The air was still
On that slow June day
That was just hot enough
To justify ice cream
I had walked over that spot
A thousand times before
Unaware of its purpose
I've walked over that spot
A thousand times afterwards
But now it has been transformed
Into a nerve ending
Independent of my body
Every time I step on that corner
On Highland and North Central
For better or for worse
Memories flood in unbidden
Fresh and as volatile
As that June day