Upward and wayward with
shaky plans,
I lifted my glass and drank to a
simple
song of leaving

I've been watching myself change
in the mirror
a restless heart, I can't stand it,

Look out! I'm coming
and one day, you will see
The way I move
makes you
want to confess to
me

I hear a lot about Christians. I hear a lot
about God

but holy light makes my eyes hurt,
Mother Mary makes me cry

And everyone always says that
Heaven
takes its time,

but I can't. I've got shaky plans and
a restless heart
Douse me in water, second time
fire, third time
I'm Holy

Because down in the valley,
down in the swamp filled with ash groves,
and the ditches of mud,
the dregs of society
who have always shone like
gold
to me

You are my holy gate,
my heaven,
my sacred entrance to
the promised land
where
we don't have time
for the privilege of
waiting
on
prayer

I almost forgot our
mosquito love
song
buzzing at the Oregon
sky
in laughter
in mud, in splinters and
hay
We used to be giants
too big for small
spaces
untouched by grace and
light
But we've heard it, grace, exists
somewhere
outside of us
outside of fear
outside of the unknown
outside of stamps and
welfare and the place we
call home
I almost forgot our
mosquito love
song

I am not the harnesser of energy,
  I'm more like a train station where
good things and
bad things
come and go with
time, that carry me,
fleeting,
and are gone with a
whistle blow

Sometimes I dream about you, but
it's not like you would
think

I'm standing in a public
place and
in,
I watch you
slink

And it just sort of happens,
like I've never
been aware

that you could step into a
space
and maybe
find me
there

and I keep running
from you, but
your face is all
I see

Every street and corner's like
you're coming
after
me

Sometimes, I dream about you,
and I always
meet your
stare

before we vanish
like a ghost - I
wish
I weren't so
scared

There are dark places, empty containers housing "rock
bottoms" that I've put lids
over.
Vessels, that live with or without you
cabinets that hold things I forgot I even put inside,
rarely-used possessions that
I've gathered over time -
sometimes by demand, but most
by no ask,
at all.

I forget about what lives in my curio
cabinet
until I'm where the case was
filled
Until I'm where that intangible
entree consumed me
where I was burdened with your
leftovers

A lid that opens up a little when I'm standing at the edge of the driving range -
and the single swing of a stranger,
a stroke,
blows the cupboard open
- a small yellow ball being hit by
a 5-iron releases a
feeling I'd forgotten to index, but I somehow
still placed inside

What else is inside of me?

There are really dark places I
can't find my way back to,
no lock, no key, no entry card or subscription
Just places in my collection, improperly
categorized,
- I can't find what's in there
No signs, no arrows, no naming systems or classifications
It's all too much

I can only see what's in my cabinet of artifacts
when I go back to a
place that held out a token to hand to me
- a bauble, a gimcrack to take
and
to place in the archives, the vault of
forgotten things.

I forgot to tell you
the last time I was there

when I kept my hand from reaching you
from brushing through your
hair

and that way you looked
at me, detached
and unaware

How'd we end up here?

I forgot to tell you,
it just made us seem so small

defining us to simple words
while running through them all

and the way I said I needed you
love, paper,
ink, and
scrawl

How come I left you in the fall?

Ugly girls don’t get hurt,

Too strong
and rough
with hardened
edges likes
Shells &
Barnacles

They're
always stuck
between pages or
interests too strong for
people like flowers