Sometimes the trees sing our song
Whispering through the budding branches
They mourn our loss
And then they bloom.

Are you disappointed?
That our dislocated touch
still
lingers,
In buildings now dilapidated,
Days seen better,
Pupils dilated in dire straights.
Are you frustrated?
Our genetic make up,
Ran away
d
o
w
n
your
pretty
face,
laced with love -
but deflated.
To reveal pale skin,
Rivers of mascara flow,
Eyelash flickered like wings,
And flew into destructive mushrooms clouds en passé.
We must move,  
Fast;
To survive the dynamites blast.
Let me demonstrate this,
Now;
Do you still see stars in my eyes?
Is it constellations,
Or conversations behind turned backs you wish to have?
Out of order,
To betray with sharp knifes in spines,
In spite of the time we spent
Fermenting like fine wine.
Are you still mine?
Or just disappointed?

I'm just pointing out the obvious,

In an ominous motion we
burnt
out
like
shooting
stars

alas

We made it this far,
You
whispered
into
the space i used to take up in your heart.

I see the space station passing over, and I wave, and think about all the silent machines above me. Orbit is a controlled fall – I remember that. An endless downwards hurtle, but with just enough forward momentum to keep from hitting the ground. Freefall. I think about satellites, and how this barely controlled freefall is the only way that they can fulfill their purpose. I think some people are like satellites: we also live out our lives in freefall.

Satellite people, that’s us. We’re the ones who always say the wrong thing to the wrong person, or the right person at the wrong time. We didn’t get the Rulebook for Human Interaction that the others got given at birth, or soon after. Or if we did, we never read it – discipline was never our strong point.

People in freefall Get It Wrong, often. We’re good at self-justification, and we tell ourselves that she doesn’t really love him, that our unhappy childhoods are to blame, that our badness makes us interesting. We never got the hang of sensible, grown-up love - our bodies shake, our souls twist and burn inside our limbs, and we open our big mouths, and the only thing we can keep down is Jim Beam and dry toast, because we don’t know if it’s all going to be OK, now we’ve spoken.  In all probability, we’re never going to know.

We live our whole lives in freefall, people like us, but with just enough forward momentum to keep us alive. And we are alive – ****** and embarrassed and scared, but alive. It’s when we feel nothing, that’s when people like us hit the ground.

The way we describe love-pain – it’s all wrong. An injured heart doesn’t shatter, like volcanic obsidian. It grows, like lava. Under pressure, it becomes heavy and dense and hot.

The weight of an injured heart anchors us to the earth. The mass confers upon us visibility to others. The heat draws creatures to our side. Love-pain connects us, even as we feel we must hide. Love-pain is lava; it changes the landscape as it burns. An injured heart is not weak and brittle. It is the rawest Earth; it is furious creation.

A human heart becomes obsidian only upon death, when the body cools and stills. All we leave behind, in the tumbling soil, is the black mirror, through which those that follow us divine their future love.

The dog and me, we'll find the sea
And run beside the waves
I'll slip on stones, he'll hunt for bones
Beside the sea, the dog and me.

Beside a fire, burning higher
Than any human pain could be
We'll slowly sleep, as embers leap,
And sorrows won't exist for me.

I'll find a dog as lost as me
And offer him my bones.
And if he loves me, tired and small,
We'll share a life, our love, our all.

The dog and me, we'll find the sea
That washes broken love away.
I'll wake for him; he'll wait for me.
We'll always be; the dog and me.

Just down by the lights
at brokenland
there is a small patch of wilderness and a park,
where three cats roam.

The first is white with big splotches of grey
as if it built its camouflage
betting last winter would never end
now an easy spot amongst the hill of green.

The second was a dark grey
the color of the shade under a pine tree
on a partly sunny day
or a storm cloud ready to light up the sky.

The third was black head to toe,
body slim like that of a dancer,
and eyes of bright amber that shined like searchlights
even with a sky full of clouds.

The first I saw on high alert
nose up high, ears pointed, standing tall
a dog down the hill of unkempt grass
it’s owner leashed and in tow.

The second I saw on the hunt,
weaving in and out of wildflowers
leaping and pouncing gracefully,
steadily and quickly traversing the hillside.

The third I saw leisurely sitting by the road,
legs folded underneath it on a rotting log
watching traffic like a king on its throne
yet in seeming awe of its steady flow.

I have seen each cat only once
always when I am moving boxes to the new house
and I wonder if they have an owner
among the white row houses off Little Patuxent.