it doesn't seem that i can get high enough
                                                                          or low
to find a reason for b r e a k i n g this cycle
                                                        cycle          cycle
                                                                  cycle
of trying to become drinking buddies with my demons
or unconscious of the fact that i'm slowly letting my passions
                                               die.
i'm empty
on the ins
ide but at
least i loo
k ok.

I thought something
Was wrong with me.
I'm writing so
Seriously.
Reading poetry
Religiously.
Lines invade
When I'm retiring,
Ascending I'm reciting,
Divining parallel parables.
I'm convinced he's
Left the stage,
Replaced by me
On the page,
In figures of speech.
The Chosen words,
Give meaning and comfort
Religion obscured.

There is nothing
like the buzzing
of your own heart
in your own ears.
Nothing greater
nothing worse
only dissonant
rhythmic changes
as you rise
and fall.

The pound
pound
pound
of pulse
breaking through
innocent
blue veins,
coaxing a response
out of limp,
lifeless wrists.

You scratch,
nothing but swift,
apathetic strokes
while knives
slice pomegranates
too full
too excited
to resist
spilling everything.

One inch
is one state
two miles
of thousands
on the map
but the key
camouflages
the most convenient
escape routes.

If you want to
touch
and feel,
find refuge,
be alive:
fight with the ***** deckhands,
throw your hands up,
let it be.

When I was young
and summer was fresh
I used to watch
the worms
bathe in the driveway
during a heavy rain.

They danced about
the pavement,
their pink flesh
speckled with dirt,
soaking up the droplets
so freely driven
d
o
w
n
w
a
r
d
from the heavens.

And I would think
how nice to be a worm.

Days spent digging,
handless groping
through brown tunnels,
unseeing eyes peeled,
searching for a spouse
to do the dirt dance with
before introducing them
to the big, mean world
above.

And I’m still thinking
how nice to be a worm.

Focused only on
living,
crawling,
feeling,
never finding the time
to notice
the enthusiasm
of a thunderstorm
when children
press their noses
to windows
and wonder
what worms
are really all about.

I am the moon
Illuminating the darkness which paralyzes my trust.
At night is when I feel both familiar and yet not at all--
I could disappear. Evaporate.
I could Exhale slowly and become a living eclipse.
Am I the moon?

I am the owl
Sighing into the breeze with a long, aged heaviness.
Do you know how many lives I’ve lived?
I exist beyond illusion. Wait for me on the other side.
Tree limbs like train stations. Infinite platforms.
Am I the owl?

I am the farmhouse
Staring into the cul-de-sac with calm, focused intent.
Memories of nothing and pictures of no one come very strangely to mind.
I miss standing here alone. I miss the apathetic.
I used to feel only me.
Am I the farmhouse?

I am the wooden spoon
Stirring the *** filled with ancestor’s palates.
An unforgivable connection found deep in salt and simmer,
I taste a feeling I cannot find in another.
I wonder if I could hold a house together.
Am I the wooden spoon?

I fall in love
with an average
of 13 people
per day.
It’s the little things
that move me
in such unconventional
ways.
Strange, crinkled eyes
and misshapen smiles
help me
to forget
my own denial.
Reach out to me,
touch me,
remind me
of the existence
of something.
Strangers
whose hands
have textures
I don’t recognize,
I surprise
myself
with connection,
though it’s familiarity
is not foreign,
it is in fact
a trait
I revel in.
I push myself
willfully
into their worlds,
like curling
back over
moss-covered stones
into new homes,
into deep wells,
to satisfy a longing
to smell
the waves
of their existence.
I am lost
where I do not belong,
in Thanksgiving evenings
begging brothers
to play songs
while mothers
clean kitchens
and little ones
flinch
over whose game
was won,
while porch arguments
rise
over memories
come undone.
I fall in love
with
the histories
and the fallacies,
of strangers
whose shoes
do not fit me,
of he’s
and she’s
whose subtle,
brief moments
help me find in them
some peaceful atonement
for the ones
I actually allowed
myself
to leave.
Do you see in my brown eyes
what I see in your blues?
Would I love you
if I really knew you?

What a ridiculous thing
to avoid what makes you hurt.
A refusal to acknowledge
the prickers on the cactus
or the shattered glass gleaming.
But I'm attracted to the green,
to the glitter of the deathly dirt,
calling me unfairly close--
"just look at me."
Like the sharp blades of grass
looking for a whistle,
grip a piece and pull--
I'll slice your palm passively.

I yearn so much,
I cannot stop from pressing a finger
into my bruises to make them stay put.