In the face of this wall we stand and laugh.
Not because it's funny,
anything but at times,
but because we just don't
know what else to do.

Had you stayed,
beyond your time
here and there,
there would have been so
much more for you to see.

I recall that the news broke,
and it rained.
Did it ever rain.
It rained as if in response.
I embraced a man in the street
and we felt something for someone
that wasn't ourselves for the first
time in our short lives.

Because you didn't stay,
we can't reflect on the power
of those odd days.
How they shaped us in ways
that we couldn't have predicted.
But you didn't stay,
so it fails, not falls,
on deaf ears.

Everything was silence,
waiting for my song.
Before there was a face
to meet your face there was
this tired man.

Within myself I felt the ripple
indicate that change,
whole and complete,
was waiting in the still air
between then and horrifying
******* Now.

Fight the pressure on your eyelids.
Push the dark away.
Feel around for the primal fear of death.
You may cower from it always,
but you may never again deny it.

Life is fire and pain.
It is see through flesh and
the dull ache of mending bones.
It is screams heard before the dawn
and so much courage.
So much love and so much gritted teeth.
So much stubborn justice.
So much missed time and perfect
accidents of arrival.
Life is love,
first and foremost.

So much comes down to timing,
and so much comes down to skill.
In between the two is where you can
find me.
The barrier is torn down,
but it remains in our hearts
and in our dreams.
I wonder if I am what it will take
to puncture the falling fog.

Where there was a void there is now
my presence. My feet on solid ground.
The world waits, poised to see what I do.
I look upon my city, from high and from low.
I feel the bile turn my stomach sour.
I hear the voice in my head shouting that
I'm insane.
I see them waiting and I leap.

How I hate to disappoint.

I remember gravel drive ways,
the smell of spaghetti sauce.
I remember a life filled with
cheap knick knacks and late night
television judgment.
My flash light would burn to life
across the winter landscape of
east coast forest.
You were waiting somewhere
within. Somewhere ahead.

I remember buildings scape the sky.
Paper, and the smell it only gets in stacks.
I remember potted plants on the balcony,
and sitting to watch the skyline
as the sun rose behind it.
I remember, my god I sill remember
in cold sweat, the noise Zelda makes
when the heart meter runs low.
You were there with me, or at least it feels
that way sometimes.

I remember you, but mostly I don't.
I try to joke and kid, because I don't
miss you. How could I miss anything?
Except that I do.
And somewhere in these half remembered
things I know that I will find you.
Strong and wonderful and prepared to
applaud when I take on the world.
You would wink.
You used to wink.

I.
When the snow came we sheltered ourselves away.
Warm by the pyres.
We let them burn.
Cinder and ash.
The dying light of our fires,
like a hundred stars swaying,
winking almost, against
the banks of snow covered hills.

Deep in our slumber we felt the
touch of warm spring.
Water cool enough to swim in.
Blue and green and milk white.
In waking, and we did so with protest,
there remained only the gray white
of winter dawn and the ****** cold.

When one of us fell, frostbite or exhaustion and little else,
we would carry them along.
Burials impossible, we added
their number to the pyre.
In this way we could keep warm.
In this way we could pretend that
we still felt human and alive.

Some days the snow was hard enough to
stand on.
Other days it was clean enough to eat.
Still we walked.
Always, it seemed, we walked.
Always we.

II.
In the heat of desert day we would fan
ourselves with our hands.
We didn't dare to remove any .
We didn't dare not to stop to drink.

We wrapped our heads in cloth and
worshiped long forgotten gods.
On days when we couldn't move through
the sand storms we made camp.
We were once many.
We were so many.

Now we are walking.
If this trudge toward oblivion
could be called walking.
And walking we called it.
We would stop to smile lies
at one another.
We would stop to die.

Forgotten as old gods.
Less than the sand we died on.
Less than the whole.
Incomplete.

And we would be left were we left.
We didn't bury anyone.
We were so many.

III.
Call to me, for I can only just hear you.
Call for me
and I will come.
I will find you against odds and
skies.
I will see you whole.
I will breath you complete.

We awake to movement.
We are movement.
Ever walking, ever here and there.
Looking, we believe.
We believe in nothing.

IV.
There are those that want our things.
Our sad detritus.
Our lives before it ended.

Incomplete decks of playing cards.
Eye glasses with lens missing.
A license plate from an old car.
(They are all old cars.)
Mason jars, soda bottles,
cans, thermos, can of peanuts
all filled with water.

It's the water they want from us,
though they will take the other things.
They always take the other things.
Memories and dust.
Memories and Dust.
Cinders and Ash.

We were many.

V.
When finally we are alone,
the leaves fall about us.
The moon hangs in our imperfect sky.
In the end there is us.
And the end is us.
And we?
We are alone.
We were many.
We are one.

Occam's Razor blades burn through the air
around us.
Because You blush when you laugh.
Because I pay attention when I joke.
Obvious.
So ******* obvious.
Because I swell to see you,
and you meet me among the clouds.

Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora

Obvious.

I can't tell you. I've told you a million times.
But it's too hard to say it right.
The words are difficult.
I love you like a religion.
I worship you with the devotion of the faithful.
I know, the atheist claims faith.

I love you like the spot behind the
living room recliner that a dog hides
behind during a thunderstorm.
I love you like a thunderstorm.
I love you with the depth of an
Irish song about heartbreak.

I don't know how to do anything else.
Because you blush when you laugh.
Because I notice.
Because I...

Obvious.
So ******* obvious.

I run my fingers across the surface
of the water.
Above ground pool.
I'm eleven.
You stare out your window,
you know I'm there.
So very Romeo.

I call to you.
I throw stones at your window.
My god, the innocence in an age
before cell phones, and Instant messages.
The freedom of love before email.

You press your lips against the glass.
Puckered. A kiss.
You didn't wear lipstick.
You were young still.
Little girls weren't yet taught
to think they were adults.
The grease from your lips left an imprint.
It wasn't shaped like a kiss.
It mostly looked like your cheek.

Above ground pool.
My fingers damp across the
always blue ripples of water.
So very Romeo.

There were notes, folded into tight and
puzzling shapes, and passed in class.
The checkmark appreciation game.
I kept them.
Unchecked boxes.
They were in my pocket.
They're gone now, but so are you.
So am I.

When I kissed you I had my eyes open.
I didn't know any better.
It was nothing.
A peck.
Everyone thought
we would be married one day.
I like to think that you knew better.
So very Romeo.

Catch your breath.
Breathe.
In.
Out.

Hold it.
Feel your lungs burn, ready to burst.
Hold it.
Let go.

Feel your heart?
It's beating fast because it was convinced
that it was going to die.
Your blood is pumping.
Your arms and legs feel alive.
Gloriously alive.

My heart does that when you say my name.
And I love you for making me feel
so close to death.
For making me feel so
Gloriously alive.

Catch your breath.
Breathe.
In.
Out.