Borderline, borderlands
Of shifting, whipping, changing sands
Around the ankles, grain by grain
You're buried once, then twice again.
The grains are hot, the earth is cold
Your failing stance will never hold
The North wind blows, then South returns
The nights are freezing, Sunshine burns.

A mile forth, and rain will fall
A suffocating summer squall
Another mile, and the snow
Will freeze you solid, keep you cold.

Here I am, I'm breathless
And you, you're just the same.
My recollections failed to serve you
Justice once again.

The sight of you has chased away
The numbness of my limbs.
My beacon cheeks are fire bright;
My widened eyes; a-swim.

And everything is rushing back
And hanging on my lips,
Unspoken words that surge and rush
Like blood to fingertips.

I wish my eyes were ocean tides
That rose over and crashed,
So I could saturate your core
And make my presence last.

Oh, that those waves could draw you out
And pluck your from the shore
I'd carry you away with me
To where we were before.



*Original, Unrhymed Notes

Here I am, and I'm breathless
And you're just as I remember you
The sight of you has chased away the cold
And I'm a beacon, all flushed cheeks
And wide eyes
My coltish knees locking
And suddenly I cannot make the words
That will carry be across this
Invisible ocean
Break across you like an
all-consuming wave.

There is a trail in Pennsylvania that is barely tamed
That winds on down the mountainside and fractures into veins.
It lashes through the trees and wood, like man-made ligh-ten-ning
And offers streams of water tasting pleasantly of spring.
This way is framed with micro-caves and fissures in the stone
Where sweetest water rivulets feed moss that's overgrown
Haphazard wooden walkways dot the snake-like trodden path
Their clumsy steps all akimbo; they bridge the wild gaps.

And even further down the trail, dodging brown tree roots
That point like gnarled fingertips and target untied boots
Below, like uncut diamonds lodged into the mountainside
Gushing waterfalls sing aloud, in ranges far and wide.
Their surging torrents babble in a distinguished harmonies
The wordless wind responds by rustling through the countless trees.

There, at last around the bend, before the lumbered river
A bench there sits within the shade where coolness draws a shiver
The wood is at the mercy of the lichen and the rain
That rush to bring that broken boards back to the earth again.

And there, amidst the other foolish carvings in the wood
Scrawled with hopeful youthful hands that did the best they could
The chips and angles buried in reveal what once was true
This is the final place where I will always love you , too.

Fighting gravity always seemed futile
But hand over hand, I gripped each fissure
Ignoring the natural patterns
Denying the pull towards the inevitable end.
And you're an ever surging mountain
That scrapes the sky
Like the sun personified
And I- a wingless Icarus
Long to stray close enough
To burn the tips of my reaching fingers once more.

Planted firmly on the ground
My feet would wander aimlessly anyway
Always circling the base
Always coming back to the place where I could tilt my head back
See you shining there, perched atop your shrine
Like the most beautiful treasure
Like the unattainable cookie jar on the refrigerator
Only no amount of crying will ever place you in my eager hands
No amount of sweetness could quell my need for you.

No, hand over hand
I push against what should be,
What is,
And what will never be.
Struggling against
The necessity of
Letting go.

Morpheus has never been
A kindly lover, nor precious friend
Yet in this stead, he strives to be
Replacement for reality.

Sominiferous ways that heat my blood;
Make my wilting spirits bud
Leave me wanting, never free
There on the cusp of reality.

Like morning mist, not half so pleasant
His remedies are evanescent
From where he lives behind my eyes
And plagues my shattered paradise.

He wears the exquisite carapace
For whom I yearn upon his face
And therein's where my torment lies
From golden skin and forest eyes-

From false reunions, makeshift bliss
From joining eyes and parting lips
Like cannon fire, the sound's refrain
Draw parallels to this cruel pain.

That Grecian Sandman, Morpheus
Lothario, for whom exists
To overchage the soul with hope
So poisonous, I gasp and choke-

Yet bodies, minds, and souls alike
Find inspiration from the strife
And haunted persons, like myself
Endure his falsehoods where we're held.

He haunts the dreamless, lucid world
Upon the cusp, the conscious swirl
His narrowed eyes, his blunted sight
Despise waking world of light.

I said I'd wait a thousand years
A thousand years I've waited
The fragile seeds of hope I've hewn
Have blossomed forth-
And faded.

The span of time, the falling sand
That journeys down the glass
Has shivered down to rest against
The last wish of the past

Words I've writ of you by night
Have lightened now by day
Would that I could read them now
I'd not hear what they say.

Truthfully, the beauty of a newly conjured flame
Undeniably must end
When met with winter rain.

I'm just here
Standing on a street
Staring into the gaslights
Trying their hardest, like me
To push back the grim.

Come back to us through wind and ice,
Through ever-raging sea,
Through torrents soaring through the sky
From where you’re flying free.

Come back to us from far ahead,
From where we do not know.
We never wanted you to be
A place we cannot go.

When images left in your wake
Bring smiles evermore,
The absence marked in falling tears
Heals hearts that still beat sore.

Memory does no justice
When time comes; fades the lines
A face so dear and dominant
Fades back into mind.

Falling through my fingers
Burned to ash and gone
Whirling into dark and grey
After much too long.

Gone and so with joyousness
Fleeting far away
I'd give the world to have them back
But pain to have them stay.

I cannot begin to grasp
All of what I've lost
I've let this slip away from me
At much too high a cost.

Not for all eternity
Will sadness streak my cheek
Or curve me with a sightless weight
That bows my kneecaps weak.

Nor evermore shall I mourn
A departure so abrupt,
A constant fixture in my world
From it, so sudden plucked.

Even all time, so short and long
I dare not wish nor pine
Each blessed day that passes by
Each night would ease my mind.

But for  lasting moment
Each smile, each laugh, each breath
The memories shall hold me now
No longer left bereft.

Seldom though eventually
His words will wash away
The human mind's a yawning sieve
That siphons thoughts away

For all we are is flesh and blood
And dust, in all due time
His face embedded in my thoughts
Will someday leave my mind.

Each grain of sand; each thought of him
Will slither down the glass
Slow and steady, one by one
Until he's in the past.

For now my mind's a youthful cache,
No wave can wear or wash
Impressions left upon my soul
Cannot be staved or quashed.



-Un-rhymed Notes-

*Every once in a while
The human mind is all it's built up to be;
A sieve, where the balm of time
slowly mends and knits
The torn edges of the chasm.

Every once in a while
It is as if the wound has healed
And the flow of muscle memory
Ripples beneath the unmarred surface

I used sit beneath the shroud
Of stars that swathed the sky,
And gaze at length, with wistfulness
At Moon’s cycloptic eye.

My eyes absorbed familiarly
What were in my own.
Her perfect luminescent face
Despite the scars that shown.

I wondered if she missed the earth
Around whom she did dance
And if she tried, fruitlessly
To catch his lonely glance.

They’d never touch or cross in path
On journey through the sky
She knew this, and so did I
No matter how she tried.

I wonder beneath the moon
All wrapped up in the sky
But now I know just how it feels
To only ever pine.

Within the rain, the silent song
The gentle beat, the soothing thrum,
I close my eyes to drift away
To find some peace, I cannot stay.
Sweetness and soft, through dreams I stray
In soft grey tones, the cloudy day.

I sought to forget one
Where others slept
Six feet below
Pristine lawns
And glistening headstones
That winked cheerfully
In the summer sun.
The gravestones were like stately soldiers
All in a line, the young like a mirror
And the old, stooped like the elderly
Telling the story of many rains, many storms
And many moons.
Their tales would momentarily
Fill my ears
My mind's desperate eye
To block a face
That still dwelt amongst the breathing.
A face whose significance
Needed to die
For me to continue leaving.

I remembered the other
Somewhere deep,
Leaning like an old painting
Against the inner curve of my skull.
That precious work of art
Filled my thoughts
While my feet dragged down
Countless miles
Dirt roads
Hot asphalt
And trodden trails.
There in my head,
The lost one,
The keeper of eyes like the sea
Existed only where my memories roamed.
He was not telling stories with the others
Six feet under
Nor did he pace amongst the masses
Wandering as I do...
He existed in the wind
In the air I tread through
In my desperate attempt
To have somewhere to visit.

Remembering to forget.
Forgetting to remember.

Is dalliance a sweeter state
Due to it's evanescence?
As human beings do we just seek
Ephemeral acceptance?
Or do we yearn eternity
And dwell on it erstwhile
Knowing that our truer selves
Will furtively beguile?
Is affection what we deign to be
A dulcet, soft concession
A short reprieve, a known repose
For sanity's repression?
How much is conscious harmony
How much is chemistry
And what then for the subtle myth
Of serendipity?

Everything was all
Lit candles and dusk
Hibiscus and pear
Unfurling out in smokey dragon tongues
Across my navy blanket.
Things seemed...
Sexier then
On a twin bed, surrounded by miles of
Forest.
Some nights,
Like a Highwayman
I stole away through the parting branches
The moon's cycloptic eye a beacon
Through the dead tree sea
And run to my Bess for kisses
Sweet, not-so-innocent touches
In the courtyard that overlooked
The Cemetery.

In the wake of what happened
Sleep beckons me
With half-truthful promises
Of whom I may see.

Half frightened, I’ve spent
Minutes… and days
Fighting the slumber
That takes me away.

Half wanting and wishing,
I let shut my eyes
And pray for the darkness
Of my paradise.

Where you walk beside me
Whole and unscathed
And say through those lips
“I could not be saved.”

Yet stand here before me
With eyes like the sea
Tangible, touchable
And right next to me.

So how can I move on
Or even forget
When dreaming of you is
The last thing I get?

The tourniquet
That staunches the onslaught
Of thoughts is precarious;
Sometimes running it's course
And becoming so soiled
That things leak through the cracks.
Those days are difficult
Two hands and a will of steel
Mean nothing...
He slips out and around my fingers
Staining everything with bright
Poignant memories of another time.
My hands, on occasion, are enough
And I'm all I need
Holding the edges tight
Teeth gritted, waiting for the sides to knit
Into something strong and new.
When the tourniquet is fresh though
I remember why I need it so much
Remember the softness of cloth again my
Bruised flesh and sign in the heady relief
He offers.
I don'twantdon'tneed everything hiding behind this flesh
Seeping out constantly

It's Novocaine, in a way
Slathered over my brain
In a chemical cocktail
That's supposed to keep my mind
From the endless cycle of self imposed
Punishment.
There's no On or Off
And therein's the problem
Capping off something
With no particular filter.

To clarify, I'm a bit all or nothing,
And the promise of peace they gave me
Also implied artistry of my thoughts;
The conversely sharp and wonderful inner workings
That once gushed forward effortlessly
Are locked up inside in the plugged up
Pool of sludge.

What a paintbrush they have these days,
Drenching things in black and white;
I see the logic in settling, to gripping these little oval promises
Of a better life for sanity.
This cold clarity enables me to remember
What once was with a measured calculation
Of the good weighed against the bad.

Grey is a foreign object after my descent into the Matrix
Red pill, Blue pill,
I finally understand Cipher.
Somethings are better left unknown
Sometimes ignorance IS bliss.

By and by and breath by breath
I Find that I have nothing left.
I am the skin laid out to dry;
The flayed, scraped creature that had to die.

I watched the sun's trip through the sky from
Sunken pits, these empty eyes:
Its gentle pace on through the trees to
Scarlet death on cloudy seas.

I felt the day rob from my veins
I longed for dusk, I prayed for rain
To fill me up, and quench the yearn
From hollowness to seek return.

I petrified here without you
I burned and withered and I knew:
By and by and breath by breath
I've given all, I'll give what's left.

And I'm still here, completely bereft
Where you placed me when you left.

It was like removing an arm
Severing flesh and bone,
Sawing down through ligament
Until the muscles shown.

I felt the weakness pull me down;
A riptide of lost blood.
Swirling in the undertow,
Yet hiding from the flood.

Alone, the other arm groped
The space its twin had been,
Fingers only closed on air
Around the phantom limb.

Gone and yet still here with me
In everything I do.
Feel as though it never left
Though in my heart, I knew.

And though this piece, this part of me
Is never coming back
I feel it still, so tangibly
As I stay the track.

Robert Frost spoke of ice
And fire in his poems
A choice to claim the chill or heat
And call that choice his home.

I’ve found my heart in water
In earth, and in the breeze
Two options binding me for life
And one that sets me free.

Were I though, to chose one path
In struggle, just as Frost
There no simple words to show
Without one I’d be lost.

I miss the excitement of liquor
The bite before the burn
Before the heat
Echoing up from my core
Like the refrain of a cannon's fire.
I miss the tiny suns in my cheeks
and the need to love and be loved
As the magic swam through my veins.
I miss the thickness of words
The gentle barrier between thought and speech
That made it impossible for me to tell him
That his eyes were like Spanish moss
And he smelled like the Northern wind.

Of all things I remember
I'll always recall the sunflowers;
Benevolent guardians that kept
Whimsical treasures from the wandering eye.

There was a slick magic they harbored
Bottled in their rich, sun darkened faces;
The surrendered seeds
We gathered against the wishes of the jays.

I grasped them, granted access to the castle on the creek
Lighthouse in the wood that beckoned back after
The last crawfish had wriggled free
The final apple was plucked,
And the birds had sought refuge.

Cross the distance
Close the gap,
Make a stride traverse a
Infinite chasm.
Every pale replacement
Is a soft lie
Whispered inward
At a truth, a need
To accept that
The otherside has faded to myth;
Fallen to shadow.

Having recall
Of the way oasis feels
With certainty, the grass is greener
Back in the place
Filled with emerald eyes
White teeth smiles,
Skin like guilded earth.
These
Recollections
Made me certain I was touching eternity
When the waves brushed my skin.
There is wordlessness in this knowledge
A sublimity, a divine loneliness
Knowing the expanse that
Divides lands,
Stretching beyond sight, perception, and physicality
Feels like nothing
In the distance between us.

I can’t, she thinks and cries in vain
Her lips take form upon his name
They tangle up her swollen tongue
And banish every song she’s sung.
The sun burns out, red smears the sky
And plunges into eternal night.

Goodnight, goodbye, so long for now
Sweet garish, perfect sun
Back to the night, achromatize
To shadows I’ve become.

These days it feels like I've traversed
A whole entire universe
Yet two decades with one year shy
I'm slowing down at Twenty Five.

Short of breath, I close my eyes
Yet keep the inner open wide
Upon a place that won't exist
Unless I choose to reminisce

Sleeping bleeds the staunched off wound
Once bound and kept from swollen eyes
And in the welling, gaping maw
I see the truth swept in the tide.

The sleeping gaze, turned inward then
Sees faces I won't see again
The lover I once washed away
Sweeps shore-ward, where he'll always stay

Within my skull, against my mind
Beneath the dreaming cobalt sky
The softest skin, the sweetest sin
Will always fill my dreams with him.