If to pluck a petal
makes me wonder
"love me not,"
then every pebble
(cause of stumble)
heeds a path
that most forgot.
Just a human
now exhuming
bones deep buried
under doubt
that with sunlight,
wonders one,
might not life
live without?
Much too late,
conversation
we never braved
to breach,
forsaken--
but with faith,
self foundation,
bleed so others
we can teach.

I can’t go back to that spot.
I tried once, but my legs grew heavy
like concrete blocks sinking into the ground
and pulling me down into the hot
core of the Earth.
I can’t go back to where we laid together,
floating beneath the wires,
our bodies touching, my right side to your left,
your fingers laced between mine,
braided together in everlasting clasp.
I can’t go back, not ever, because then
I’d remember the exact color of your eyes,
melted bronze,
two chocolate drops dissolving in my palms
and staining a blouse so carefully unbuttoned
by hands that took their time.
I can’t go back without you,
it wouldn't be the same;
I’d get lost in the memory of your mouth
closed so tightly upon mine,
sealing in the sunlight and wild blueberry kiss,
our tongues waltzing,
dancing and dipping inside caverns deep,
my bottom lip grasped between your teeth.
Even when I think I could go back,
I know the patch of wildflowers
where you knelt down and stole a single one,
where you placed it gingerly behind my ear,
will no longer be there.
And I swear...
if I went back and everything had changed--
Or worse, if it all was the same--
I'd be too afraid
I’d never find
the way
home.

There's something in the air,
a flicker, there,
a flash of passion,
an impossible flare that rose
in the mountain, a sun gold
sipped from a bowl
of wonder.
It grows, like thunder
rippling through my hair,
caught in my nose,
brightening as it goes.
It glistens upon the stones,
lifting from the pavement,
an amazement spread wild
that piles from below
and settles as a smile,
there for everyone to know.

What stands after nothing,
what grows in the night?
What answers the calling,
what soothes untreated sight?
Tonight, without knowing,
know we sustained the right,
here now, without crumbling,
fight the dust in the mite.
We'll delight in the other,
never smother the fight...
but when hopeless
feels dopeless,
always answer the cry.

You are the stone thrown
into the depths of my river,
the subtle unsettling
upon my surface.
As you sink below my water,
don't fear that you may disappear
like all the secrets beneath--
from you the
stillness in my bones
ripples out and echoes sweet
from the deepness
that lives inside.

Come to me when the night is deep,
when the darkness surrounds you,
when the spiders creep.
Spin a web with fingers sleek
and catch your prey when the world
around sleeps.
Haunted secrets we keep
when the air is not breathable
and all around the sound seems
unkeepable,
when love is weak,
tangled,
despicable...
Know I hold you,
unfold you
in a world that's predictable;
I'll lift you, unshift you
when the night feels so crippled,
uncage you, reclaim you
when your world falls unfixable.
Tonight under moonlight
when the wolves hunt alone,
we'll tune out the drone
with love's resounding home--
We'll delight in the known,
knowing we're never alone
and howl at the moonlight
too soon midnight gone.

Down the river's side
with stars in our eyes,
sun beating sweet rays
upon the rippling tide.
I tilt my head back,
let the water lap at my toes--
the comes, the goes,
in the throes of my mind.
Drink in the afternoon,
sip it like wine,
wind under the bridge
where the train tracks collide.
There's a mesmerizing shine
at the horizon line:
where everything meets--
My solace, divine.