Language is painless—
but somehow, we're
afraid of the words
that we painted.

I’m watching my roommate come to terms with the fact that he actually likes a girl here who likes him back, and in the darkness of the dance floor, a smile curves across my face like his arm around her. They are happy.

I turn and scan the room for a broken bird, a wing clipped by circumstance and bathroom mirrors.

I find her.

Feathers furled, perched on a chair, her presence is threadlike, the stray ones pulled from shirt sleeves, I hold her between my index and thumb and I feel nothing but air between my fingers.

It’s a beautiful kind of lightness. She is a beautiful kind of lightness. Her hair caresses the air around her like satin.

Her eyes wide, sometimes I think it’s from fear, but sometimes it’s from the shadows of happiness that she allows to step on her heels from time to time.

They are amber. I see crystal histories, lattice lines of the past I wish I could know, but she keeps her stories locked in her stunning amber prisons.

I fled from her tonight. In the darkness of the dance floor there was no light to reflect from her amber eyes, so the grip of my insecurities around my neck tightened, and I left.

I wanted to walk to the lakefront. Clamor down the rocks to let the moon lap the water into mist upon my slacks, I could picture my silver tie reflecting the moon back at itself, drifting in the waves before the saturation of obsession dragged it to the bottom of Lake Michigan.

I couldn’t stand the thought of my tie not reflecting your eyes, the gray circle at the edge of your irises like the edge of a stormfront,

Transient thunder could lie behind the next whisper of your voice or closing of your eyes.

I couldn’t stand the thought of never reflecting your light, so I only walked a few blocks. I kept looking to my sides, reminding myself that the moon, and you, were still with me.

My dear, like the moon, our time is waning.

But my dear, like the moon, your amber eyes are waxing, lunar storms always on the horizon.

How I long for the fall of rain.

mixed stirrings
hard to place this constant ire rising from ashes of a fire not quite, yet felt
stir into that melting *** the sum of miscellany unknowns
all wrought from the unsweet gifts of quotidian sighs
no need to wrap the present, baby, for it's already here
twinkling in the birth of every moment
we hardly know it nor acknowledge
so busy wrenching pain from secret places the darkness loves to keep

yesterday brought unsought smiles of outer space dust
then space in pushed into the blue spit bubble of crayfish folly
and fear frozen into place on cauldroned cheeks
as tendons pulled fury tight on a cocky bounty's cry

I want to carry that sweet loading joy
which scorches my receptiveness in astringent non reciprocation
I die to please that spangled energy so much
which holds back its cagey kernel, far from my prying hands
I kneel to take in out of the blue blessings
which fall slapdash on this preoccupied trajectory, forever waiting in sozzled hope
I take the package you flash and cast heavy
which leave sweltering whiplines across my insides
all fine, all just a fine melange

beneath your magic fontanelle lies a sunken cache
there are painfully few privy to that miracle
I live in hope of neither looping nor taking
but just to be happy to bear witness to the shiny array of your gem stock

you are like none other, inimitable and hard gemstone (inside)
a mix of purity stirred in crazy, along with star shine and fire sparks
*my angel with honey eyes

we wake up in sun-drenched rooms.
we sleep to faint, nocturnal tunes.
and we roll in glorious as the clouds
with a lullaby of sound -

the sound of the rain.

we wait in hope of brighter days,
as we watch the tree limbs sway,
and we're onto whatever hope we can find
that sleep under these blue-washed skies.

we fall soft like autumn leaves.
we're swept on by a tranquil breeze,
we land upon the puddles and streams,
and drift away to bigger seas

to the sound of the rain.

Because every page in my textbook
Is the way your hair gets curly
When you sleep for so long
After staying up too late
Reading
And cursing
And drinking tea
And going about some business
That's nothing to do with me.

'Q

today, you questioned me why i can't believe that i am vital to any equation
but that's just the thing, i need other people to validate that i am important
because i can’t do it for myself, i'm nineteen and already breaking down into
the components that created me, the dirt that failed to turn into a garden
weeds entangle around my body and dogs chew at my skin with knife like teeth
shooting up nirvana into my brain like opiates and spitting out black tar-like goo
it only looks black because my eyes are closed, i can't see how red the water is getting
drowning in my own thoughts, i can't be kept under an oath to stay quiet
how i'm this backwards concept of happy yet sorry for how i came out is beyond me
my understandings is this, life isn't something to be romanticized nor to be loathed
don't have feelings, any at all, and you'll do just fine in this narcisstic society


- kra

the quietest words are the loudest
      knowledge and open eyes to the real world
                           through prose i speak and speak alone
                                           nobody encouraged me to be outspoken
                                                       ­   i was a shut-in, trapped for months
                                                          ­   like anne frank, with only power in writing
                                                         ­            i found power in words, nobody taught me
                                                                ­                   how to live, but i learned how to exist in
                                                              ­                 a world lost in it's sin, a mediocre society
                                                         ­                lost in it's power of indulgences and faith
                                                           ­        with paper and pen, i can capture honesty
                                                    the most brutal tragedy, the most beautiful love
                                      i've never felt intense fear, like hanging off a cliff fear
                               but i've been pushed to that cliff one too many times
                     i've always been scared of heights and losing someone
               but my fears are all in my head, my heart is power
         my heart is courage, my heart is love
it is the first and last thing i have

- kra