Someday, I will hear your name without the swell of my heart,
see your face as if it were a stranger's;
but not today, not now.

Today I sidled up amongst the trees, my ear to the ground,
and heard only the echoes of the words you had meant to speak;
watched your countenance unfold in the undergrowth,
nestled between the dogwoods;
and by the riverbank, too,
your breath emergent, buoyed by the water's hushed murmurs.

Has anyone ever written you a love song?
Where they say something nice to make you smile?
Something like:

Never will I die, nor you,
as the long as the love we created remains,
floating somewhere, its toes curled and gripping the edge of eternity.

Someday I will write you a love song;
but not today, not now.

I forget the feeling of life rushing past me,
ruffled hair and stinging cheeks-
I forget the wonder of standing bare-***** in the face of overwhelming possibility,
relishing the shivers slipping down my spine,
laughing wickedly in the face of a glaring happiness,
the reflection of your essence crystallized in your eyes-
I forget the warmth of a summer wind marrying the sinking sky,
of open hands spilling the secrets of Earth, me by your side.

But I forgot to say I loved you
And you forgot to stay

And I said it with my softest voice
Wrapped cozy in the dusk
And she said it back
As the ocean would
Waves rolling with a hush


And I said it as a simple man
And I thought I'd stay the same
Now there's color in the blacks and whites
And nothing old remains

Sleep now
or wake to find the truth
That there is no man beside you
Just a boy still shedding youth
Sleep now
and forever lay in peace
I'll stand draped beneath this emptiness
You stay between my sheets

I never knew a song
to have eyes
Never knew a song
to look back
To sing, without a single word set free
To fill me to the brim with music
not sound
To shimmer and shake
Consumed with stories
Stumbling over one another to make themselves heard
and seen
But then again
I never knew a poem
Could be buried
In the wrinkles of a palm

I think of you, early and often
When I wake you tip toe your way across my lips
I think you have unfinished business there
You twist your way into my words, rest easy in my breath
I never meant to soak you in
You tangle your life with mine, like your finger 'round your ribbons of hair
The world around me is ripe with nostalgia
Dripping sticky sweet memories of you, like syrup
You told me if we were born flying, we would spend our lives wishing we could walk
But we flew together
And walking just isnt doing it for me anymore

I love you
boundlessly
beyond the notion of time
where life is measured through our moments together.
     I love you
with a steady heart, amidst a flurry of change and compromise.
     I love you
to your darkest of deed, with a shining naivety.
     I love you
wholly;
in mind and body and breath.
     I love you truly enough,
so that you may love me with lies.

Where do they all go
the unspoken words
Do they melt, into nothingness
burning in the backs of our throats
Or delve into the blue deepness of our thoughts
a sunken treasure
I think they hitch rides
with the hopeless
and the heartbroken
Sitting heavy on shoulders

And I'm walking with the weight of the world
and I'm walking with the weight of the world

Near a man, and yet
He finds himself drawn
To playgrounds
Beckoned by nostalgia, he thinks
The big red slide was always fun
But
This isn't about him
(I think he knew)
It is her, as much as ever
He misses her
Hanging from her jungle gym lips
Swinging through memories
Creaky hinges for laughs
(His, at least)
But
What does a child on the playground know of love
Except that
Paradise is here, and now
Beneath his feet

Pretty girls
Open roads
Why am I thinking
Of *you?

You know me too well
My need to overwhelm, my inclination towards violets
You know I’ve never been one for violence
But lately I’ve had an urge to wage war on this mileage
To battle the empty silence that divides us
Stretching highways, hungry for defiance
To shut despair's deaf eyes
Ever eager to remind us
All our lonely prayers are hushed
I’ve been ready to head home since we parted ways at dusk
These windswept arms of distance have been outstretched long enough
If I could march home along heaven’s backbone
You’d see my soles above
Swallowed whole in our story
Pages brushed with wanderlust
I’d hold the reigns of a comet with these half-moon hands
Charging back to you with the shining night at my command
Or pray for rain to come
And flood these unwavering lands
I’d slip the sunrise in my slingshot to send to your front door
Babe I know you hate the dark but I can’t hold you anymore
Id scrawl with chalk above the treetops
A hundred mile hopscotch
Jump from block to block until your front porch was my last stop
I wouldn’t hesitate to knock
Move checkered stars outta alignment
Forge a constellation highway
And leave my worldly woes behind
I’d rip the seams off the horizon
Force the earth to compromise
Make it fold itself in two until I’m standing next to you
I might just stack up all my time
Every second I’ve misused
Douse it with missed memories and blindly light the fuse
Or maybe you’ve been hiding
Tucked away between
The folds of sky
And endless rolling tides
So I’ll peel back the rimes of mother earth
To see what lies inside her
In my mind’s eye she’s been looking, too
A fruitless search to find you
But hell I’ll give up when my time’s through
Because I’ve seen enough of life to know
I’ve only cracked the door
But, you like my smile
And well, I like yours

I would scale the mighty chestnut trees
Growing in your eyes
If it meant that I could look upon
Your body, for a time

I would swing all through the branches
Recount your visions passed
Bask beneath the shadowed canopies
Swallowed in the black

Yes, I think I would quite like it there
I’ll go one day. Perhaps

I melt
Like chocolate in your mouth
When you smile

Softly, now
Break me softly
Leave but your musings to the breeze
Let me revel in the tears I weep
Gently, now
Push me gently backward
With those hold-me-and-grow-old hands
Brush me aside like embraces were sand
Quickly, now
Quickly cut the ties
Do not stay to watch me crumble
Do not wait to hear me lie

Sometimes I wish
I had never loved at all
*Sometimes

Im sorry.
This isnt fair to you, you know
Your skin still sings to me
  With memories
   Of her voice

Im beginning to learn
Even love-struck stars
  Grow pallid
In the wake of a rippling,
 Regal moon
And now im left here
Howling at grey skies

I think
If people were fire
Your flames would rise a little higher
Than most
I think you would fill the cracks
Of the sidewalk
with wandering wisps of smoke
The dexterity of your flaming fingers
As they reached for strangers faces
Would burn through glacial gazes
Your aura would engulf these **** cold streets
In canopies of heat
You would stretch your ruby wings
To coast the earth
A body forged by nature
Emblazoned with raw truths
And I
I would bask in your glow
And fly a little too close

I find you
In the strangest places
Like
In between the freckles
of her nose -
Curled up to sleep
in the nooks and crannies
of a bittersweet melody
Dipping your toes
In pools of sound -
Or
Shapeless, clinging
To skin bathed in light -
You drip
Letter after letter
Into the palm of my hand
As blue skies melt to blackness -
Sometimes
You sit, cross-legged, peaceful
Up to your neck in rippling whiteness
I can tell you've been
Waiting
Until a too-long stare brought you to life -
Yet
You crumble when I reach for you
A beautiful mess
Your inspiration drifts soundlessly down
Glowing embers
At my feet -
You leak in measured counts
From melancholy eyes -
I breath your colors
Your impassioned purples
The anguish in your orange vibrations -
You reach through the crack of my window
Stardust in your amber hair
My muse
Rock me to sleep
With lullabies of the mind -
You swallow me, in silence
Stare at me through the eyes of my lover
Whisper secrets
When the wind holds its breath -
You wrap your feathered arms
Around all that exists
And bring it to the edge
Of a kiss
But just
For a moment

It struck me tonight
How impressive it is
The deftness of your tongue
Coaxing life
Out of shy, windless nights
I still remember
Sitting by your side
As your laughter floated westward
The bashful heavens made to blush
And you
Conducting an orchestra
Of sweet vivid flowers
Wet petals falling from your lips
Kissing me gently on the cheek
Painting cursive
On the sky's horizon
My words will never be so
Delicate
They are stiff; they are tired
They are made to roam abandoned alleys
And grow old in the open hands
Of a book
So speak to me
Drip your honeyed breath onto my chest
With shallow sighs
Wrap the fingers of your conversation
Around my hand
And don't let go

She said
you don't understand
it's more than that
it's bliss
it envelops all that was
and has ever been
I said don't be silly
I want to make love
and then I want to ****
I want to play songs on your skin that your lips don't know the words to           drink the candlelight in your eyes
  get drunk like wine
  sweet as
   summer
I want to paint goosebumps on your thighs
trace the outline of our future as our shadows
  dance on the wall
I want bodies to quake in a thundering rhythm
ships soft as silk under siege by some
  unseen storm
I want to color outside the lines of your body
  scribble musings with my fingertips
  read the response with the rise of your hips
tattoo your curves like there's ink on my tongue
I want to make you hit the high notes that make the sky split open
reach the moment of utopia  
where ragged breath is broken
and for a second
gravity consumes the both of us
I want our consciousness to float, made one by unseen forces
while you lay beneath me *******
souls no longer out of focus
and words no longer spoken
rather,
cloaked in
golden    hopeful
      moments
left to float in some abyss of sacrilegious potency  
Your aroma has a pulse
    it sighs in my ear
draws me in with scented fingers
   between your thighs,   beneath your fears
I want to soak in the madness as my sight disappears
and all around us sprout the roots of prayers
   unanswered for years
I want to collect the moments I leave you breathless in a jar by my bed
so when the arch in your back leaves you on the cusp of
   paradise
             and
      lust
I’ll crack the lid
and let you feel nirvana like Buddha never did
I wanna pay homage to your eyelids
  fluttering in heavy silences
a testament to science how your stomach falls and rises
I’ll savor the way your headboard creaks
take pleasure on a ride through valleys and peaks
I want ecstasy
   and movement
      to unite
    with the clench of your fists
   your trembling lips
your sweat as it drips
onto the sheets
A sacrifice of pleasure
and the message is received
embrace the fire of each other now the Gods are intrigued
I want heaven to fade away
seeking solace in the midst of weak and shaky knees
I want to hold you as satisfaction encloses
the walls fold and collapse in on us and all that’s left in the world are
two bodies
the matrimony of synapses and
two    bodies
a mattress moaning in the blackness and
two      bodies
a matching set of sins and quick gasps and
two         bodies
In a flash I relapse and there's no
body
And now I've perused road maps, mused with psychics
read encyclopedias front to back
trying to help find my way to...
to I don't know what
no
maybe it's a who
to help find my way back to the lover I lost my love to
And then when I do
I can finally ask her
how come when we finish there’s no divinity left to hold onto?
You see
   ***
is my magnum opus, what I live for
  why I wrote this
so as I sit engrossed in thoughts that linger and control me
  I want to say I picked a lotus
watched in awe as it unfolded
melted sorrows into roses
with one colossus stroke of bones and flesh I learned the road to death
   gets bumpy
if you’re lonely.

Pressure is a privilege
  I tell myself
Measure the space between the thunder claps in my chest
They closer they are, the closer I get
  Im almost alive again

A buzz runs through my circuits
   To my spark plug fingertips
   But cant drown out the heavy silence in the air
   My breath runs from my lips

Theres a convict clinging to my rib cage
  I think
I can feel him stomping to get out
  Thud thud
   Thud thud
    Thud thud
Shackled in iron wrought expectations
And the unwelcome warmth
  of familiar faces
I cant let them see me fail
  But what if I fail
   Again

Have you ever noticed
The ground looks like a fuse from up here
   In my mind?
   I struck a spark the second I started running
I lit the fuse
The flames are licking at my worries
  Melting away
   The world around me
     Consumed by fire
I like this

You made your choice, our song is sung -
I wont speak of your sins -
  or the pull of your riptide tongue -
   not of losses and wins -

   I found religion in your eyes -
  Prayed silently for love -
Drank eagerly your liquored guise -
been drunk for long enough.

Close your eyes but keep alert
all senses to her breath
that takes, and warms, what once was cold
    now wrapped in velvet dress

Resides in her such sweet release
lips soft as crimson sky
rhythm sways, red lapsing waves
   sanctuary from time

The moment of
utopia
Where ragged breath is
  broken
And for a second,
gravity consumes the both of us

They say we are afraid of what we do not know.
so now I understand why we let fade the hopes of the fireflies underneath our skin that yearn to shine again -
   the cries of our goosebumps for a reason to get out of bed -
      the dying wish of the fireworks in our lips to be ignited with the heat of a perfect kiss -

Yes, we must be afraid.

Because you and I are God’s orchestra playing a symphony to which there is no end -
Because you and I are passion and eternity on a collision course -
Because you and I are the moon singing sweet songs to the waves at night to lull the ocean to sleep -
Because you and I are too **** beautiful a thought for anyone to dare dream, so it stands to reason I lay awake at night -
    imagining

Imagining that sometimes the stars in the sky play hooky for a night to reside in your eyes, and when the sun goes down it’s easy to mistake them for the ethereal moons of a distant planet -

Imagining the soft curve of your lips is the bend of a bow which draws back to       shoot forth the thirty-two brilliant white arrows that are your piercing smile -
  that your touch transforms the blank page of my body into a masterpiece with every stroke of your fingertips -
     that in your hair are secret love letters written by the sun with golden rays -

Imagining the world stands still when you cry, because heaven is listening for its missing angel, the one who improves upon the silence with her whispers and upon the stillness with the shake of her hips -
  whose words dance off her tongue and play songs on my eardrums -
    whose breath is like the warm embrace of a good friend -
       whose soul billows out with her laughter and mends the holes in my heart -         whose memories keep me company on lonely nights. . .

Imagining the gentle beat of your heart          the         to attention,
                                                      ­             shakes   earth
and           the           out of its skin, because you see it's not blood pumping
       rattles       moon
through your veins like the rest of us but shooting stars and good intentions-      
   imagining you stand tall not on legs but two pillars:
              one of virtue, one of compassion
       each built tirelessly stronger since the day you could walk the path from right to wrong-

Imagining that you live your life so loudly earthquakes cover their ears and the lightning shies away from you for fear you will steal its thunder
  yet the way you say my name lets me know what it’s like to be kissed by a sound wave.
Imagining you carry within you all the answers I’m looking for, if only I would take the time to realize it.

Imagining that my fate is written in the constellations, so when I hold you close the word ‘forever’ is blazed in the stars of the night sky,
that your love erases the line between our bodies and the moonlight letting it sink past our skin and collect in our pockets to illuminate dark nights and clouded minds;
Imagining you are less of a fairy tale and more of a reality, a girl whose name echoes through my bones to the tip of my tongue -

Imagining you are that perfect dream I never want to end -
  that dance I dance when I’m all alone -
     that voice in my head that reminds me everything will be alright

Imagining you could begin to understand the veracity of my words,
the footprints you've stamped on the inside of my memory,
     that an ocean of ink would run dry to quench the thirst of my pen tasked with the mission of scribing the sensation of my soul reaching through the bottomless cage of my body and holding hope by the hand in the comfort of my home

                           Imagining I didn’t have to imagine anymore.