It was like we were wrenched from Morpheus' grasp and shaken, until our eyes adjusted to the harsh light and our bones stopped their clattering. We make like tea bags and steep in hot water, letting the dregs of the past day settle at our feet.

We drag our feet through the quicksand pavement and trudge through the black-tar roads to work. War is rampant in the world and in people's hearts, we see murders on screen and deceit in the streets, we're observers to the horrors of humanity. All we can do is watch with pained eyes.

Our minds are barraged with arguments and advertisements, ethics have been defenestrated, our worries overpopulated, our patience stretched thin and beaten cacophonously. Our consciousness is beaten down with pessimism, our thoughts devoid of hope.

Our souls weep at the state of things, the martyrs gather in drones at St. Peter's gates. We do good only so people will be good to us, we greet each other with half-smiles, and half-truths. At the end of the day we drag home, our consciences heavy with the burden thrown upon us.

But we meet again, we kiss, we embrace, and we join hands and strip ourselves of these mundane garments, we’re a mass of hands and skin and long sighs and worn-out smiles,

and with tired eyes, tired minds, tired souls, we slept.

I no longer say I love you at the end of the day,
finally you understand I do not feel that way.
I've been silently  begging for you to tell me
that I was never really a part of this family.
This is how I'm feeling.
And I'm not certain I am healing.
Some days I crumble to the floor
from the pain that  is settled in my core.
One day I won't come back,
for in my heart, you've left a crack.

it doesn't have to mean
anything.
sometimes I just need to
draw something.
something about the way her
hair falls into her face
when she laughs.

something about that crow on
that wire that keeps
yelling my name as if I've
hurt his feelings and he wants me
dead and in Hell.
something about the way I've never
heard anybody say they
love me in her western dialect
before.
I melt whenever she does.
hey, I melted the first time
she said she liked me.

that's all there is to it.
it doesn't have to mean anything.
just like dust, rain, chest pain,
a cracked windshield, a hole in
your sock or a letter from the
taxman.

it's just poetry, mum.
just little
somethings.

“Hello”

The sudden garland of a voice
like mild rain on a searing day;
refreshing invigorating.

It is a calm mercurial accent
Bolivia or Macedonia?

But there were so many
and “how they do vary.”
Distinct and irregular voices.

I took their lips for my mask
And played their words
like new dances for my breath.
Their garlands rooted in my throat
spoke a whispering cadence of euphoria

So when I speak
the graffiti of their lives
is scrawled across my tongue.
In all the rounding sound of my scattered vocabulary
each and every relationship utters it words

From the cradling of my mother
to the last beady threads of goodbye
not one word belongs to me.
I speak with the tongues of men
And of angels

I like handwritten letters
And old paper back books
I like walks downtown past old buildings
With peeling paint and cracked side walks
I like old sneakers with holes in them
And soles that scrape the ground when you walk
I like things with stories to tell

I like to meet people and talk about minimal things
Things that won't matter to anyone else
The things that cause their eyes to sparkle
And make a smile tug at their lips
I like to listen to their opinions
The things they feel such passion for

Yet I do not like to stick around
Never do I get close enough to touch
No one makes it past the mask of sincerity
Masterfully placed on my face
Never do I let them breach the surface

I like to stay light and free
Of hurt, pain, and complications
And humans carry these things with them everywhere they go
So once I've learned all I can about a person I move on to the next

And continue my journey of life

I like old fashioned romances
Throwing rocks at windows
And cool walks in the night holding hands
I like good morning wishes and butterfly kisses
I dream of embraces so close
You can feel the trickle of their breath on your neck
Their heartbeat involuntarily syncing with yours

I dream of these things
These things I have longed to feel

I still get excited at the sight of a swing left vacant at a playground
Or mini marshmallows in hot chocolate
On bitter winter nights.

Slate skies lay still
Cool against my smile on bus stop corners
Already missing the bright caress of sun
Your letters arrive less and less
Further apart than the one before
I breathe you in on each envelope
Curled black ink telling more secrets than truths with each line

In my bedside drawer
rest letters sealed and stamped.
piles upon piles of potential
regret.
I may not shine, but I choose
not to rain.
silence is at times
closer to a yes in my language than in yours.
here, attached to the leg
of a white dove;
my heart. blank paper is
still paper. men suffer
from limbs lost
without words.

Tracing the edges of many a time read pages
I hear between the lines
More loudly than what is written
Dear John on the tip of my fingers
A heart that will not give up
Shadows lace this back and forth
Waiting for the light to break

My heart and I are not
always on speaking terms.
sometimes I want to
tell it I'm sorry, but it alway
beats me to it.
keep my blood flowing, I
beg of it, and I will think
for us both.
later. later. later.
then we'll rest in love's
nest of sweet childlike
restlessness.
later.
I have heavens for us, after
the rain.
suns with your name
on them.
blue is the color of sorrow
and cloudless
skies.

I will be seeing you in starlight
Behind the echo of my midnight sighs

We survived progress
The three of us
Secluded high on Mt. Ararat
Safe from radioactive fog
We have all we need
More than we could ever want
We have everything

What kind of bees gather in such masses?
You're raining and then you're clear again
They'll pay to hear you babble such nonsense
You're surfing in near perfection
You're ruined by the pure maybe
After the loss, In the shadows
Fly fly fly fly fly
Float
I'll throw this to the ones watching
See just how hungry they are

On Ararat we long for a new language
To express the confusion of loneliness
Knowing that nothing will change a thing
But still, to talk
We must remind each other of who we are
Once in a while
It's not easy being the world

What did you come for?
A soliloquy?
A sonnet from a madman?
Madmen, true madmen don't do sonnets
They assault and jar
They resent being toyed with
In no uncertain terms will they tell you
What they think of you
In the guise of a poem
But chances are you won't get it

I sat in front of a wood burning stove
Feeding pages from a spiral notebook
To the fire
Leaves and more leaves sparsely scribbled on
Because there was a conciseness and brevity
To my poetry that conveyed the stark nature
The rudimentary nature of my state of mind
The flames ate it up

I apologize
I haven't smiled in such a long time
It's hurting my face