during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
******
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

The ambivalent affect of a cold cup of tea 
On a snowy day, late March 
When everything rings of life and death and urgency 
Like our elliptical elections  
With their Messiah complexes  
Mundane 
Like Thursday desks and tables 
Green tea tainted with undertones of unwashed coffee 
Lingering in the pores of mugs 
The politics of shame 
And all the things I wish I told you 
(I wish I had told someone) 
But cyclical realities are ultimate realities 
And I've chosen mine already 
Woven with interchanging self-destruction 
And re-composition 
Re-construction 
Resurrecti­on. 
Pain. 
Dull, dualistic  
And dripping from my forehead 
Did I mention Thursday? 
Did I mention scars? 
Shall we move to new and different places 
And leave ourselves behind?
Burdens like sticky, heaving blackberries 
Molten, melting, gooey, globbed together and leaking  
Through the cracks in my straw basket 
Heavy. 
Dropping berries walking paths to places 
Falling like blood-bombs 
One by one on the white-brick 
Walking silence into sunsets  
And never looking back at the 
Rotting plasma carnage  
That marks the roads I travelled 
What's left are leaves and stalks and thorns 
A basket dyed dark red and sticky 
Me, poised and paralyzed  
Gasping, gagging, groping in my liberation 
Homesick 
For places that never existed 
    That never will 
Crying stories that never happened 
Fearing creatures never born 
Blisters and bruises, 
Beckoned to oceans 
In the soft-tide I saw my future 
In the undertow, my past 
Riding the waves with crystal foam  
And diaspora trash 
All my chunky sins intermingled with salt and seaweed.
Questions burn me
Bind and blind me
Battered and bleeding 
Left helpless on the floor 
And they yell  
Learn faster!
Learn better, learn well!
If pain leads to the deepest learning 
Then I will know so very much 
Muffled and maimed I'll sink in it 
Drowning,
Docile in the knowing of things.
Facts and figures
Factors, functions, fractions
And formulas
Here are the things I know
Splintered, smiling, basking in their blinding light
They’re my diamonds, my precious disasters.
They are my welcomed death.

Eyes open and perceive
Taking stock of the surroundings
A blood-burned path of blackberries and scar tissue
My knobby-spine leaning against a tree trunk
Sea breeze, and my aura
Free-floating but defeated
Affected ambivalently by these words
By worlds
Spirits and bodies and
Torn flesh and minds
Still always cold questions
Still always early Thursdays
Walking
Working
Willing to draw more breath
Willing to keep walking
To keep working
To keep breathing
And bleeding.

Who knew,

The girl who had
No voice
Would
One day
Teach the world to
Sing
?

To banish their
Bashful
And beam forth
In beauty,

To learn to
Simply
Just Sing
?

A time ago
Her soft
"Hello" was
Lost
Within
Translation
.

But now?
Oh, now!

With no care
To how,

That caterpillar

Has
Found
Her wings
.

Salty kisses trace their beauty down tired cheeks
Songs split with the heartache of too much love
And my palms are empty
I reach for some sort of conclusion
Some suggestion as to where my bandaged heart
May warily stumble
I am lost.
In eyes the colour of chocolate milk and lashes reminiscent of licorice
I am lost
In eyes the warm dawn blue of glacial landscapes
Laughing with years of happiness crinkling their edges
I am lost.
My exhausted heart struggles to hold scattered emotions
That scud gently across the surface of reality
Disturbing the dark waters of my soul
And crying to the wanderlust in my veins
They speak to me
The peaks jagged in the brilliance of dawn
Stand majesticly
Tall, demanding, inviting me into their surreality
And i am lost
The harsh white glint of sunshine on frozen snow captures the notes trapped in my fingertips
And i want to sing
I want to dance under the expanse of life spread before my stunned eyes
Kiss the drops that rain down on young hearts in love
with life
I want to sing to the glistening stars
Wheeling above our awestruck heads
Breaths
intermingled in a cold condensation before released to the darkness
such a profound feeling of connection
my heart is full
my palms empty
and my cheeks salty
Love found in freedom along the lines of his arms
which raise in admiration of the wild beauty we are
submerged in
I am in heaven
If it were made of cold stars, singing snow, soft breaths, unexpected laughs and an infinity of limbs which reach for eachother
Strings of freedom plucked to the symphony of the ranges
that cradle our bodies
Bodies heavy with the honesty caught in these peaks i let a tear cascade down my cheek
Because I am lost
Between chocolate warmth and glacial ecstasy
Both of which catch my swollen heart with hands meant
To cradle and breath
The mountain air that crisply reflects our tired limbs
The hoarse crack of the whisky jack nipping scraps from
frivilous fun
A spoon, glinting in the alpine spring sunset as his laughter
lightens my soul and sets free my wings.
We are so perfect
ly unperfect
A silly meandering giggle permeates our friendship
But eyes
Like the warm dawn blue of a glacial landscape meet the salty depths of my soul
and look right in
Profound understanding, contentment caught in the smile in his eyes
the light touches of my foot
hands red from the cabin heat
set free the smile trapped in my shoulders
And i am whole
He is more to me than these limbs are to my torso
He is my legs which run down the snowy hill
The stomache i slide on as we glide down penguin slopes
The fingers i use to ink down my indecision on scrap paper found in the lines of my heart.
He knows how much I care
He asked "do you love him?"
a crack in his  voice
his shoulders hunched with the weight of my emotional betrayal
I could not answer
My lips formed
Yes
I care for him. I may even love him.
But he is my best friend
My sword fighter, my rock scrambler, my running through the dark blindly spinning underneath the wheeling stars for the pure hell of it lover
He is the raw moonlight dancing through the clouds
kissing the branches with laughing lips
He is lightness.
And I am lost.
I am alone
And so i should be on this journey to freedom
Buf he makes me feel as if i belong
My mind is a canvas
These mountains my muse
and he is my paintbrush
Streaking sunset hues across my landscape
And I cannot decide.
So i release and let this mountain become my guide

He held a shaking gun towards me
And I laughed maniacally
Silly lover, don't you see?
You have already burned holes within me, Done much more damage internally
Than that silly gun could ever do