but i don't tell you about the times i try
to think of my future
and all i see is the color black,
like shot out lightbulbs
or dark corners,
only pitch black.

i don't tell you about the times
i think of spreading my wings
and flying away
and my throat starts to close
and i can feel the hunter's watch ticking
away the minutes of my life,
the minutes until he lets the arrow fly.
piercing, through my heart,
my last descent a great crescendo to the grief and the joy.
the arrow doing the one thing i cannot:
to fly.

but i guess i'll wait in this purgatory
for a day
or a year
or whatever...

why do you get to charge straight ahead
and still i linger,
locked behind a fence.
still i watch my tears fall onto the sheets.
i don't think this festering wound will ever fully heal.
think there will always be this little broken part of me.
i thought i was strong and cunning.
instead, i find myself a push over,
a doormat,
a fool.
second chances, third chances, fourth chances.
in the day i write love poems
but by night i stitch my bleeding heart.
why is it that this pain is a hollow chest, numb lips, and shaking fingers?
a feeling you can't quite explain,
until your sisters tell the same tale.
and then the wound is back.
worms and knives and caves.
you cried and confessed
yet i still dream about the times i acquiesced.
you lived in the guilt for a week,
i live in it permanently.
so let's bleed together
with our permanent wounds.
watch me bleed out...

i wish it could be enough.
wish those blue eyes could carry me
across the sea
to places high and low.
the late night streets of Paris
and autumn in Italy.
wish i'd live 160 feet in the air
not
on sand or in wheat fields
or always desperately waiting
for you to come home after months of separation.
wish you'd walk across that graduation stage with me
and not
stomping boots across dirt fields
and palms coated in gunpowder.
i wish i could be content with hours and days apart
and living a simple life
but i just can't ignore that yearning for something greater.
the fish hook in my chest,
pulling and pulling me towards something more.
i wish i could be content with you

but are you not in all things?
the glory of morning and the peaceful rest of night.
our love is no light affair.
it is the heavy press of storms
and found in the eastern and western rains.
is not each word but a picture frame of my love?
to display it as clearly as a blue sky and an untouched lake.
are you not with me in every moment?
a constant presence
through every sunset and sunrise.
through every hot month of summer and cold of winter.
you are the heavens,
you are the earth.
and happiness is of you, a brilliant
radiant light of all the good in the world.

no matter what time i wake you up in the morning,
you have the soft glow of happiness after seeing my face.
(i want to wake you up every morning for the rest of my life)

even after sitting in a car together for seven hours,
you put your arm around me and sit right next to me on the couch.
(i'll never get close enough to you)

midnight apology hugs heal my restless soul
and wipe worry from my mind.
(meet me at midnight, every night, and i'll always forgive you)

you cuddle me until we're both sweating and suffering from a lack of cold air, and then some.
(i'd move to antarctica if it meant i could hold you forever)

you like hunting for seashells and you're not afraid
of the ***** in the sand.
you love the whole shells
and i like the broken ones.
(did you know my love for you is greater than all the seashells in the world)

you trade sea dollars for kisses on the beach and in the waves,
you put your sandy hands on my thigh too.
(i'd kiss you for free)