Eye
On
The
Truth
Written
In
The
Sky
We fly
Soaring above
Grabbing the prize
The prize is in the sky
Written in our hearts
For us all to see

When I rain, I pour.
But this year broke me.
Sank its fingertips
into my shoulder blades
and tore me asunder.
Nailed me to the
floors of this apartment
that weeps like a willow.
While you wrapped yourself in goodnights
I screamed into the floorboards.
I licked at your fingers
like a dog.
No matter how deep I dived
I never reached the ocean,
And I cried.
Sweet Jesus, did I cry.
But men aren’t supposed to,
so I begged instead.
At the age of twenty
I discovered shame.
I felt like calling for help,
but my voice cracked
like a frozen lake.
You’d tell me you were going out
with a few friends, and I’d beg you to stay home,
but my guilt tied my tongue down
with fish hooks.
When I rained, only ashes fell.
And no phoenix clawed its way out.
Only my naked back, flayed by the chains of the prison
I forged for myself,
bleeding out poems that I’ll never see
again.
******* out air from music notes
in order to survive.
This year I discovered guilt.
I could never count how many times I said I’m sorry,
but I tattooed it to my chest
so when I made love to you
I wouldn’t have to say it out loud.
I used to burn.
Burn so loud that
when spoke
smoke climbed from my lips,
I lived my life like a car crash
but sang like a music box.
I plucked smiles from strangers
and drank up the voices
of girls
like wine.
I played loud.
And at the age of nineteen I found myself unworthy.
I inhaled smoke instead of speaking it,
and never let the car
leave the driveway.
I cried ink from my fingertips,
and used you as a telescope to search for God.
With you, I discovered far too much.
I still feel that only shackles embrace me,
but I want to shred open my rib cage
and the let the songbird
out of my chest.
Pull the hooks from my tongue
so I can say
I love you.
When I rain, I want to ******* pour.
So the world knows my heart’s beating.
My wounds are canyons,
that I’ll stitch up with poems.
I want you to know me.
I want you to hold your breath
when you press your hand to my chest.
I want to scream so loud these
walls split open
to let the ocean pour forth from their eyes,
so I can swim to the surface and write my name on its face.
Sing the moon into my hands.
And free that fire from my music box,
so I can find my way
home.

Ants crawl across this floor we’ve fallen on before
Crawling away from painful light meant for death
It takes time and height to view this bitter facsimile
Of the life that was when our legs shortened and
We carried righteous angst in disaffected thoraxes

We lived such a life chased by light unrepentant.
So it went with soldiers straying and fraying
Under the stress of the chase by cruel illumination
While those on the scent of something sweeter
Managed to stay out of the heat and find salvation

Truly miraculous things are these
that have no future but cocoon just the same
poor souls that should be outshined by time
find reprieve enough to shield timid bodies
long enough to find their own legs stilting

No feat of glory to any still around
But to those scattered by the wayside
These hulking creatures are visions of
Promise, a promise that one’s own feeble feelers
May one day cast out into oblivion and latch onto
The stuff dreams are made of and close their eyes
With open mouths for serums of wonderland

Such a shame then, when the hopeful
Can’t be afforded the lofty visions
Of their grindstone nose counterparts
And the wayside entraps them in whorish
Promises of paid-for pleasure

But life digresses while the underbelly
Digests the stumblers of chance
So we have you and me, and the world
Feeling inadequate legs stripped bare
So superior parts could be strapped on

This machination of imagination
Is how we get by that heat of life
What once incinerated futures
Inflicts faint unseen blisters--
Reminders of humility rising

At long last our earth-drawn eyes
Draw level with this glass half empty
But magnified with the intention of more,
More, more, more, colors filling prisms across the sky
Gaining beauty and color from the heat of long ago

But who would care about the minute minutes
Of suffering felt by those not bold or quick enough
When compared to this veritable Monet
Blessed with the gift of chasing pasts away
To be replaced with this gilded new day.

So it goes and so it must be in the minds
Still intact, kindled not hindered by the heat

                             ...

Towering over this glass of possibility,
Our focus is intent, not missing a thing
You and me, and the world all focus
On this contrived concoction of color
Bewitching that betwixt reason and love

All our eyes and all our thoughts
Gather power by the hour
Drawn from this pool of glory
Not a thought dropped into
This wishing well

While we sate our psyches
From this languishing pool
We forget how the same spark
That defined us, as we grew above the fray
Is now returned earthward

Isn’t it entertaining to contemplate
Life in the context of those wretches
Blessed to have the power of immediacy
While we sit serially still, no purpose
But to make these poor ants run.

I remember the jelly bean jar
perched next to the owlish librarian
in my school when I was younger.  
One lucky soul would win a prize
for pulling the right number of jelly beans
out of an air still filled with fancy.
I can’t remember who won the prize,
and I can’t remember what the prize was.

But I guess as selfish minds are wont to do,
I remember the act of guessing.  
It was a childhood of guessing,
and I wonder if any of those guesses were truly wrong?  
When the engine of innocence toils away,
any solution, however fanciful,
can’t be false in a world that finds falsity
in far more veritable places.

I digress back to that jelly bean jar,
packed full of sugar,
and to a young mind,
full of promise.  
To a mind such as mine,
a mind akin to my classmates
who shared my sugary desire for that jar,
any guess was as good as the other,
as long as any guess was your own.  

We clutched ordinary pencils
scribbled on ordinary paper
with our own extraordinary numbers.  
In the basket went these figures most accurate.  

Days during the week passed
with those store brand jelly beans
mashed against each other,
childhood memories turned ordinary pages
wrote with ordinary pencils
until that singular, self-sure number
mashed against pages turned against it.  

However strong that memory of numerology
in a room full of words is etched in my mind; no trace
of the end of the jellybean contest remains in my ledger.
No trace of the disappointment of losing out
on such a treasure trove of tooth decay.  

But I guess this is the way of the mind,
it tends to trace out the positives
while it remains filled with youthful levity,
no weight is imbued in innocent minds,
and so tragedy, loss, and disappointment
float away past untroubled eyes.  

But time rolls on and much like the crushed growth
under an ever-rolling stone,
our lives start to fall harder on softened memories.  
Our lives harden with our heads,
and those days of living out short-lived fantasies
fade with jelly bean guesses.  
So as we mature and feign to seek the truth,
a small part of me keeps a singular page earmarked
for a time when the truth no longer weighs
                                                                              down the air with half-true deceit, and a mind long
abandoned
will return to grasp fanciful ideas
out of an air that’s still light enough
to evade our youthful fingertips.

Screeeeeeeechhh!
Thud!
Silence!
Hearts stopped
Faces turned
Jaws dropped
Prayers began

He left his assembled bricks and wood and furniture
and ran
ran towards the sunset
with nothing
but his silhouette following him
even years later
it felt like yesterday
possessed
he ran as fast as he could

Prayers began
blurry shapes hoarded around the car
his eyes refused to close
against the horror
of what lay beside
his high crushed
into water
his delusion failed him
his brain froze

He ran as fast as he could
to the beach
wanting to walk into the water
wanting to stop breathing
seeking unfathomable peace
that final peace

His brain froze
get out of the car
people shouted
was a life lost
he didn’t dare to find out
he just wanted
a few seconds back
just a few
seconds
back
please

That final peace
eluded him
waves silenced
by his cornucopia of emotions
his eyes now refused to open
the saltiness of the beach
was overcome
by tears
that flowed in secrecy
inflaming everything within reach
embracing his cheeks
toying with his lips

Please
callanambulance
sheisbleeding
somebody
tieyourshirta­roundherbleedinghead
isittoolate
is it too late

Toying with his lips
tears turning into questions
could I ever forgive myself
his sobbing heart
didn't acknowledge the question
it just faded
he lived
with himself
he died within

Is it too late
his wife asked
holding his hands
breathing heavily
her eyes averred
every moment that they shared
their feuds
their make ups
their teasing
their loving
her eyes were done speaking
and now they rested

He died within
wailing like a baby
he slept there
with parched eyes
reminiscing her parting words
etched in his heart
etched so deep
that it bled internally
bled and ached
to release a shriek through muteness
muteness, deafening
deafening his emotions
making them oblivious to his existence
his fists clenching
the vacuum of solitude
the moon and waves began their tango
and the water rose
higher and higher
embracing him within
maimed to be saved
releasing a gushing hymn
for she was now deemed
forever with him.