I tell truth couched
in lines of metaphor
and marvel when you're
unable to decipher it.
I riddle my feelings
at you in digital media
under assumed names
and lament how you
can't see how I feel.
I pretend at such depth
but swim so close
to the surface I can
hear sing-song sounds
gurgling in my ears
and still feel the warmth
of sunshine on my neck.
I move with eyes
open in shallow water
but pinch my nose closed
against the current
to prevent it from
invading me with
the honesty that will
break me completely
in two.
I look at you through
this distorted mess
and apply new paint
to the same tired
******* wreck.
I sink when I try to float
even when I hold my breath
but I lie about it
about everything
if that isn't too much
to tell.
Did you believe me
when I said I was beside
you during those laps?
I was waiting in the shallows
crouched to seem in much
deeper than I am
and hoping that you
would pretend you couldn't
see through me for a while.
If I closed my eyes
and fell backward on the
surface of the lake
would you agree that
I'd floated or would
you tell the truth
for my sake?

What doesn't **** you
hobbles and breaks you.
Maybe gray skies invite
silver linings but rain
still falls too.
And **** cliché sentiment
this tired old meaningful fight
because tomorrow is
coming and daybreak
is not the invitation it's
meant to be tonight.
I paint myself in
purples and greens
and you stand on promises
but I still don't know
what that means.
Push the daisies through dirt
and share your various hurt
with the group.
Love isn't fire
and promise isn't hope.
Waiting for light in
the dark is the same
as hanging from rope
waiting for a savior
who never comes through.
Or waiting for me
to love you too.
And sure the ocean is open
and wishes are free
but fish don't have answers
and there is no completion from me.

Forty-seven minutes
from home and I look
at the lot by the side of
the road to see a couple
hugging each other
and it seemed real
and it seemed desperate
and it was odd because
there was this intimate
moment that they shared
with me and only I know
and I don't know if
that changes my understanding
of humanity or if I'll
even remember it in a few
hours time but I know
that it happened and
that to two strangers
it mattered and I'd like to
think that makes it
important but who knows?
Not me.
People pass overhead
in airplanes cutting paths
through the sky and
they look down on pillbox
homes from heights too
far to make out people
and they wonder about
the various day to day that
goes on under their feet
and who knows if
any of it matters?
Not me.
And in the pages of old
published works are the
thoughts of the dead
and maybe a turn a phrase
moves you or a theme
defines your life and
isn't it bizarre that the
author will never know
what they meant to you?
It's wild that no one
ever knows, not you
Not me.

You've moved inside of me
like a fire moves through
a dry and desolate forest
until the things I always knew
as landmarks no longer
look at all like or
even make any sense to me.
You've folded into my
past like ingredients
into raw dough
and I see you in my
memories during nights
I was sure you weren't
there and I doubt
my eyes and my senses
and worry that my mind
now tells lies as well.
There is an incursion,
an invasive species inside
me now where only
I used to be
there is now you
and the places inside
that have become your
colony.

There are days when
the fire stops and the
skies are blue
but the number is
small and the expectations
of good so very few.
The Bible does use the
word happy, ignore what
they say, unless
you have the money
to make them go away.
Don't settle for good enough
because it'll never be
because more courses
through our culture
and our blood.
And love under starlight
when you can because
love is difficult to find
and starlight won't be
free for long
nor likely will the night.
Find hope in the little
places where it still
grows because
the flood is forever
and we've seen the
last of the dove.
And dance, not before
God, but on the Earth
for your own sake
because the music still plays
and it isn't over yet
but we know how long
it'll take.

My blood is on fire
in dark night as the
drag burns fresh scars
across autumn skin.
You called me from
a thousand miles away
and spoke soft flowers
of need into a half dead
heart as easy as you
breathed perfume into
musty rooms filled previously
with gloom and anxious fear.
I have never loved more
than I have loved you
but the night here is long
and the moon absent from
the starless sky and while
I live for your approval
I cannot douse these flames
even as they brittle my
bones and melted my
useless heart and scorched the
backs of my eyes where you
have long lived.
I can't promise wealth
or status or even tomorrow.
I can't hunt down the moon
to fill the empty sky I've
given you or sing you
one single star.
But...
Call for me still, love.
I will respond as long
as I am able.

You've got vision
and you've got need
and there is power
in following where
you lead.
But I'm dead tired
and broken hearted
and the light outside
has fallen
too low to see.
And I've got meaning
and I've know tough
and I've got all
the memories of
all the things
that I've seen.
Maybe tomorrow we'll
be well
enough to walk from this
burning hell
into fields and pastures
of brilliant green.
One day, I hope and pray,
you'll be beside me
when I lay
down forever for
more than sleep.
Until then we'll be strong
and we'll manage,
together, to get along
because since the start
you've always been
all I need.
And so take heart
and take love
and every ounce
of the blood
that we'll bleed.
Walk with me
hand in hand
all along and across
this land.
Together, my love,
you and me.