No one wants to hear the truth.
That's why we tell stories,
invent personas,
make secrets of ourselves.
Lies are the currency of love.
A peacock is just a turkey with pretty feathers.

I dream an autumn dream of you
In a winter lasting longer than sun
Burning hotter than stars
In the coldest nights sleep

I dream of an autumn us there too
So much so and so often now
That there's not a rain cloud left in the sky
For me to express myself

I dream and dream
Alive
Awaiting the autumn skies
Return

Stumbling around Ikea together
For fun on a rainy day, road trip
Admiring things yet to have
Can openers and dish racks
Aisles and aisles of flatware
Fitz and the Tantrums emerges from the ceiling speakers
One of my favorites
I start to sing quietly to myself
As we careen around the displays
I catch you humming to the tune as well
And something just rung in my heart
As the radio intoned
"You were just the right kind,
*Yeah, you are more than just a dream"

Billy loved his parsnip
He'd tend it day and night
To keep it safe from prying eyes
He stashed it out of sight
But one eventful morning
He awoke to such alarm
His parsnip had gone from puny
To the size of a baby's arm

Such growth was nigh unheard of
In a vegetable or fruit
So he bore it proud before him
Grasped expertly by the root
When he showed his doting mother
She was mightily impressed
So screamed a lot then swooned a bit
While clutching at her chest

The people at the bus stop
Shared his mother's admiration
But advised him that his tuber
Needed urgent relocation
So he took it in a taxi
Wrapped up in folded gauze
To the Guinness book of records
And he pushed apart the doors

His parsnip held protruding
With a confident advance
Like a knight atop his charger
With a huge organic lance
But security had seen him
They quickly knocked him flat
A policeman saw his parsnip
And he hid it with his hat

Billy served his sentence
For unsavory displaying
He changed his name to Danny
There's no record where he's staying
The moral of this sorry tale
Is far too dull to write
So learn your ****** vegetables
And know their names on sight

**

She kisses the boys and girls
that pay the most attention.
The boys play with vapor
and her girls play with tension.
I wish I was the only one
that she will decide to touch
but I am who I am
and, in a way, that is too much.

Sawblade-sunflower petals
wrap around an earthy cushion,
and the humidity hangs in the air
as her beige body is crumpled
and I feel too sober, pushing.

Baby yellow falls apart,
in her hair the flower starts
to trickle onto sheet and pillow,
decorating the absences
that define how hollow
she and I have felt before --
******* like an endangered species
on the killing floor, I whisper once,
I whisper sweet, "Don't you wish
that we didn't meet?"

She kisses the boys and girls
that give the most attention.
I played with vapor
and she played with tension.