need sleep, will
love?

Your path is of your choosing
   and what happens next is up to us.

Does anyone know what this joy is?
This great sun illuminating me
I can feel it warming me from the outside in
calming my soul
forging the bonds of our friendship
two by two as the weather gets cold

and I know what to do about all this
I will do everything
and then it can find how to fix me

I give up
please
hear me life
please
give me any... any heart you can spare
because I am lost

sometimes happiness and
I are right
there beside you
and when you turn to
look,
            we get bored and
                              leave

I didn't know

     after all those band-aids we so
    painstakingly crafted for each other years
       years ago
                           yours had fallen off

    I wish you I wish you
      I wish you had told me sooner it's
not
     the best time to get a call like that in
            a sunny dog park
          
            but I will be there for you if you're here
                there for you when you leave
             there for you PERIOD.

                    nothing will change that

  It's funny, no matter
            how long I rub my eyes, I can't seem to
      catch my breath catch it maybe nope

             I will be there tomorrow
                and we will talk about our past

and your future

The moment when you
Pass under a bridge and hear
The rain stop

Just a moment, a perfect
Few seconds of silence before the sights and
Sounds come flooding back in

Enjoy it.

painted a guitar today
and somehow the glossy
made it to whispered coat racks in
my head, "protecting against
rain, sun, and humidity" and

preventing me from running these
tired fingers down your cold, glassy face
as the road rises up to meet me
and my words

If it's not the waiting (bronze
string melodies take care of that) or
the dreamy silence of sushi beside
papers and pens,

                      why do I feel this way?

what is the empty?

A greeting
        twirled across blacktop

     lazy in the sun, grown
        deeper in the eyes that

     reveal cloudy soul thoughts
          billowing like smoke before a fire

a feast for your taste,
question for your heart,
ringing telephone

Remove the news from
Inside your mind, you're
Soon to lose all
Sense of time

light through the glass / to wake whistling and shoot the
mockingbird / takes longer to warm a bed than / with two / one
and one forever / alone a promise to keep / you safe from / him
you / safe from you

in turn / the moon a wall / sunbeams penetrate blue / lively laughter
for once now / never again

joyous loops / (sensuous sputtering) to / life as we see it / but love
as we / plead remains (fault of the tried pleads guilty) /
silent

months return / in spiteful presence call / back the rain time /
rages over this landscape our / ravaged faces / weeping with
relief / as they pass

I miss you / so far from / trying to find yourself / lose your / self /
in the trees just / make sure when you / come back / to me / you
remember how wonderful life can be and why you should never
consider / leaving / when I'm waiting for you to knock on my
door

*I miss you too / and it's lonely out in / these woods but I remind
myself / replay your sincerities in my mind when I find myself /
drifting

I'll be home soon / please be there

In the name of our failing country, tomorrow
Night will be spent floating in and out of realization
With candles and fireworks exploding about my head

Happy fourth, every \ body

The pattern of mortal life runs
From the early explorations to
Gradual acquisition of knowledge to
Ultimate realization of this prize's futility

There, it cannot end
As the leading tone is
Always resolved
And the turn of the Being
Reveals dark places in light

the idea that roads are
necessary paths for
discovery is absurd.

exploration within
boundaries is a pre-
meditated dream,
worthless

let them fall into
disrepair, testaments
to our falsely-perceived
control

Somewhere in the middle of a ceaseless rain's drum
That led to your forehead smoothed under my thumb
And shivering stopped by a single warm hug
I felt (for an instant) the depth of our love

I'm a bit of a ****-up, sure
definitely not a honed ideal, a little bit
askew around the rougher edges, with no
niche found as of yet to proudly call
my own in this humbling collection of
determined bodies, but I wouldn't have
it any other way

I must be me. Otherwise
there is no chance
whatsoever

      and every dream is
      worthless (which of
      course is miles from
      true)

stand up and start
up (you'd better get
up) with fiery eyes and
a wistful heart

As a certain young girl fell down the rabbit hole
So too do I grow queasy at the thought of
A change in my surroundings
Mind you
The written word and expression
Occupy quite a large space
In my daily existence
But there is much to be learned from others
And sadness follows introspection

A fall from grace is nigh impossible
Beginning on the ground floor
As we are found
Choking in the dust, we
***** for the door handle
To encounter smooth memory
And long-forgotten resolve.

Have the time it takes to
love someone unconditionally



love the someone, the having time



laughter, once taken, gives the love
someone unconditionally wishes



murmur someone murmur love murmur
indistinct laughter



touch the indistinct time, the laughter, the
someone



have the someone to murmur touch, give
distinct love, unconditional time

Dying is a ways off
but life slips away into the
afternoon, minute by unforgiving
minute, relentless in its
passing

keep track of time before the
change as madness, an endless round
of applause cutting corners in a
racetrack mind

What place luminescent
joy has in a winter storm
I know not, but between
the labored breaths and
windy retaliation, it
shines

Put trees in the back-
ground, shade built from
green and mahogany, lovely
little flowers with yellow heads
marching to the beat of your
eyelashes, skipping like stones
across memories

and in the foreground let there
be only you, only you
as you are

While it's easy to talk about holding on to
moments, they always slip through your
fingers in hindsight (I never thought I'd miss
having my name penciled on a napkin holder)

always is a strong word, I just
know I won't be around forever

and I'm not supposed to, not
yet

is there a light to
curl my fingers
                    around
and pretend the red glow
betrays their fire?

you mean to stay?
incapable of letting out, midnight
walks and warmed benches, windows
whispering open at the touch of a lip

early openings in an otherwise beautiful
block of noise
                     I was so sure so sure can we hear more than
                     the others?

or else that thumping is my own
heart sending a message in spurts and
suction, congealed promises from my understandings
to yours

If love is the answer,
Tell me the question
Tell me your question
And I'll give you my answer

Precious minute.
Don't pass me by without filling
The crevices of my mind with reason, purpose
Please don't leave me before you help combat this rising
Tide among the leaves,  as time flows like water
The seconds laugh away

In time
Everything will become crystal clear

If you just hold on one second (******* it)
I'll listen to you

In essence
We might as well not exist, for all the harm we cause

Can't you see how much unrest you bring?

I used to know love is the answer
Now I question and scrutinize every speck

*Won't you answer me?

inhale and
compose like wildfire, searing
words passing warmth like a baton between
minds, distance easily traversed by
a whisper, by a calling

"I am here"

and all is well.

I miss you.

And you're right, it should be easy.

Hey, look
It's me there on the wall
Never thought I'd look so frightened
Never thought I'd seem so small

Isn't that all they ever tell you?
That we're just fighting for the cause
This time it is quite different
We're breaking our own laws

Flailing
Turning
Writhing
Burning
Fire's in my blood

Snacking on my hopes and dreams
Watching as I tumble

down.

You'll take to the grave of their question
What did I win?

She's dead
     you see

in essence, the laughter
for no reason other than "we
lack energy for meaningful
conversation" before the sun
pulls heavy drawers on this
little room of ours, all
snuggled up and pretend while
life remains frozen and dead outside,
time curled with us by the fire

Say when in a heartbeat will
light dwindle down to the
dance on a taper and mirror-eye
bells?

Say how long a lifetime im-
possible it's quite im-
                                      possible
(expecting that wilted
red flower sunk into
its vase to rise up and smell as
though)

            what's that?
alive?

Good evening, lettuce.

You are not long
for this world.

the memories I want to make in this place
are no longer on hiatus, they
peer between laced fingers and
whisper your name

tracing hands on a bench

        hold out your finger, I'll
    circle it in burnished gold

Perfect
as the father once
told his son
                 "just wait"

Hustle and bustle brings
Grins frozen onto faces
Mantras pounding rhythms into
Sunken eyes
Hollow out a space for me
Within yourself
Please, I wish
To know what makes you
Tick
To put to fire
This opportunistic kindling
I stumbled upon
While on the run
From my greatest enemy

What will tomorrow bring?

Get back on top, beat yourself down
Explode to incredible heights and defy gravity
It never ends until it does.

Don't let them boss you around
       or let me try to influence your decisions
   thinkers don't play roles
                             others set out for us

  People like me make their own
            

             I will not settle, and,
        for a little while there,
                                        neither would you.

Are not we all simply vessels of wood
Pulled by tactful strings
Eased every which way they desire?

Are not we powerless
Unable to overthrow the influence of every
Little shred of evidence as to why
This is wrong?

Are not we spoken for
In the gazes that say everything
In the eyes that meet you and tremble
In the hollow laughter

We are nothing but shells
Failures forgotten
To sink deep in the ocean of time
And disappear.

You know you've been searching for something
As for what that dewdrop holds, anything but a compassionate smack
Upside your head inside a tree beside
Our waterfall

Stinging water, soothing thorns expand under parting skin
Only to laugh as the crocodile laughs

Did we really think it could monopoly the skies?
What a falsehood

Can't feel anything
Does this mean I'm dying?

Is there anything
                           after
the fire simmers down, bed of red
      coals on the cold
                 dark ground all
              around when there's
        no sound and no space and
            no crystal tinkling laughter
   to climb your spine

                 or walk along a river spread
            beside a tired and tortured head
                        is there anything
                                             after?

Do you eat words like I do?
(Swallow them whole and kicking)

And what if I told
      you the world was on
           fire like a burning man,
        absorbed in his work,
              painfully turning to
                     productive ash

could this truth light
       the words from your
         lips, warm my
      sentiment as if
                  ignition is perpetually
                       within the scope of
               time like a teacup
           slipped under the table

Do you ever feel strange?

I do at times.

No matter how the glow from inside draws me
The rabid dog barks at my door
Forever distracting
Someone **** that dog.