maybe freedom
costs some of your soul
nights alone, coyote eyes
sparkling like stars alight
circling
for freedom wants its pay
teeth clicking through desert air
breezing just past your heels
circling, circling, circling
waiting for its chance

like the ribcage
of the deer
lay hit aside the road
now begging to be
devoured
red and gnarled
against greying grass
vultures circling
eat eat eat
take a bite of what
now open bare to see
once hidden
under fragile skin

i am cowboy lonely
lost, haunting,
hoping to be found
the searchlight-sun hitting
across canyon walls
sagebrush vibrant
against rust-and-cream stone
or cast over fields of
sweetgrass and wildflower,
i stand on the horizon
with only the wind at my side,
in my ear,
watching the clouds ramble by

lush honeysuckle summer
emerald world, rainy day paradise
kissing goodbye on a dreary eve
a soaring shift
dusty orange burnt against a stark blue sky
iron-tinted stripes of rock
strata like open arms, welcome and beckon
holding you tight in the blazing sun
among cliffs, canyons, crags,
the damp greenery
forgotten in the arid breeze

born in a suburban valley,
but the appalachians raised me
weekends consisting of
getting lost in the hills
with my eyes and heart
filled with wonder,
this world soaking in
like rain to dry ground

my home soil was birthed
from ancient mountain tops,
the crests in the distance
having seen eras
far beyond our own
they roll like waves across
this landscape,
fields of grass and corn,
harvested crop with bolts of hay
wrapped tight in bulbous swirls

perhaps that’s why traveling
always feels like i never left;
nature invites my footfalls,
belonging to the earth there

to ponder where a soul is from
how old or new it is
who i was before this-
a deep connection to things,
tugging on my string and pulling me
toward certain places, or people,
connections that linger even when
i am no longer there,
or not with the people whose
bonds i’ve grown, forged
appearing on the horizons
growing close enough to touch

we all ponder, truly,
to know ourselves
who we are and who we
once were,
where we are meant to go
and if we are meant to be
what knowledge i must have
collected before now
what wonders i must have seen
if i yearn to search to find
and lose myself
once again

Change is tedious
and does not happen
in a single night

It takes time to
move, to uplift
to push and pressure
into your next form

Remember to be forgiving
it is not as if
the Rockies or
the Himalayas
punish themselves
for taking millions of years
to grow to their height

And it is not as if
the Appalachians feel down
about their change
from sky-cutting magnificence
to tired, rolling hills

Time touches us all
for better or for worse
for building us up
or eroding us away
but in the end

mountains are not
made with serenity.
their peaks are
not carved calmly,
nor carved neat.
we too cannot be made
gently,
or with careful precision.

Do not forget:
becoming
is as tumultuous
as orogeny

“what has changed since everything?”

at a glance,
very little.
my room is still
a messy grave.
i am still just surviving,
the way i was before.
but i have overcome
in this process
of becoming.
there is no more pretense
for who i must be.
no tether to
an overidealized self.
it’s scary, daunting-
but i am not alone.
i never was,
despite what i
was made to feel.
what fear was
hammered into me.
not
anymore.
since everything-

                          Everything has changed.

time as a slinky
coils and layers atop another
the climb neverending

it did not begin
it will not end
it will continue its descent
down the haphazard
flight of stairs
it was pushed to
walk itself down

does it tangle,
i wonder?
curled over
so that the lines,
the paths of time,
cross so effortlessly
that whoever must detangle them
may not even bother

leaving time in echoes of itself
intersecting in strange,
residual ways
that we
will never
understand.

maybe i am so used
to keeping an arm’s length
between myself and others
that death settles into the same role
someone i know,
but who keeps a distance
both out of respect for my ways
and for the times i have nearly met it
face-to-face

the lack of existing
the lack of knowledge on the subject
of course is frightening
it is why we are all
a little afraid of the dark, still,
a little afraid of what is around
the next corner

death, however,
i have known since i was a child
it has been there at wakes
at visitations
at final goodbyes once
the bodies have gone cold
and once the parting words
have been spoken

every time it arrives
it keeps a distance
out of respect
for my ways
and for our familiarity

it does not scare me
for my own sake
(i have known it since i was a child)
(i have nearly met it face-to-face)
(i believe it is gentler than we like to think)
(despite the variety of ways it takes us)
but with death
always comes grief
always comes mourning
and that is the harder thing
to meet.

jesus walked into that desert full of doubt
and i’m not really sure if i ever
willed myself to make it out whole
he’s a lucky guy, refusing temptation
i wonder if the thought crossed his mind
when that itch called to scratch
but maybe i can call up that
wilderness, that doubt-filled drought of inclination
and make it all my own

sometimes everything just
pools in the back of your throat
feeling like you could drown in
whatever emotion
****** at your eyes,
threatens to drop into your lungs

cold and tingling under the ear
behind the jaw
in a place not often thought of
in the day-to-day

sometimes
we have no words
for the things that happen
to us
sometimes words
are all we have

often
It’s a messy helping
of both-
words we can’t speak
feelings only conveyed
by screaming from
rooftops

messy
is key, here
this is never a clean process.
(regardless of what we crave and
wish and want)
few mops could properly
soak it all up

a sponge is none the wiser
sitting on the lip of
an overflowing sink

it can only do so much
to soak up what it can before it is
oversaturated
overstimulated
falling in the flow of water
as it tips over that lip-
careening over the edge,
full to the brim,
with nothing left to do
but fall.

i think i’ve grown comfortable
with my own suffering.
        surviving,
                       and only surviving,
for so long-
anything else feels
                                       alien and discordant.
it still makes the future fuzzy,


out of reach.


it overwhelms me.
drowns hope.
scars and blood
bring me back to focus;
but slipping hasn’t happened here.
grounding has come
in mountain peaks,
desert heat,
the mist coming off the sea.
stagnancy will eventually return
and that will leave me in limbo.
i only dream to keep
peace with the sweeping land,
making hope grow anew.
watering the forest in my chest.
keeping the fire of my soul from becoming all-consuming.

if heaven is real, it's an open road
it's a place I've been on far off travels
where the light hits right and the sun is warm, like the love of a friend
it's a moment in time where you remember
that the world is a beautiful place
despite the cruelty, agony, and pain
it's the eye-shine on a deer amidst a
nighttime field, the headlights pass over
it's the vision of a birdshadow crossing overhead, or landing beside you
like an angel checking in
beady eyes bright with intelligence
letting you know heaven is happiness
and nothing more, nothing less

dark skies glitter from the ground below
past the clouds they dance
swirling around those who learned to climb that high,
not born innate to flight,
metal body with many souls
granted council with the stars
while canyon giants sleep below
and the bright moon looks on
a silent supervisor
with sparse electric glow
mirrored as if water
the performance above

perhaps i am just
a harbinger;
a bringer of things
making way for a
breakthrough.

in this i myself am not lost;
accepting the change
natural to life,
being one with a
catalyst.

sharpened teeth,
curving thorns,
knowing and prescient;
no prophet nor god,
simply something          
                     monstrous.
looming.
majestic and terrifying.

from the rose bush
and her bloodied thorns:

a reminder that blindly grabbing
for the plush flowers of
life, love, and future ?
means sacrifice.
yet all grow shocked,
gasping aghast
when they are pricked.

                        when blood is drawn.


                                                                                 when change occurs.

i have been valued
most of my life
only for the pieces of me
well-liked.
they take those pieces
with them
when the rest of me
becomes intolerable.
leaves me full of holes;
full of things deemed
unlovable
frustrating
damaged.
walls have grown
to guard the tender parts,
to be particular about
what people get their hands on.
still these particular parts
chosen to share
get put atop a pedestal,
later revealed to be
more than ideal, unattainable-
i am still too much
and not enough
all at once.