I wake from life, the sleeping of the soul.
A body now before me, still in death:
A boy turned man turned corpse, and now the toll
Of measured time; serene and spent of breath.

In thought without a skull to harbor thought,
Reflection and conviction now refresh.
All Earthly duties, unfulfilled, shall rot;
Life’s aspirations fading with this flesh.

No blood to carry chemical caprice,
I witness being, true divinity:
At last as spirit, I arrive at peace
And join the energy, infinity.

In life, the sleeping soul is ever tried,
And waits for death, when life is justified.

I am seeking in life another body to help validate me;
To move my spirit from thinking that all I am is
This insignificant spec of dust floating in a vastly empty universe.
All I am asking for is someone with whom to exchange
Conversation, hopes, dreams, fears, woes, and comforts;
To exchange glances, gestures, touches, and ****** fluids;
So that my brain receives the chemicals it needs
To feel a sense of happiness, of purpose;
To give meaning to my existence through collaborating,
Overcoming the deathly gripping reality, the notion
Of feeling so small and insignificant;
So that I don’t have to dwell on the fact that all we are is
A spec of dust floating in a vastly empty universe,
Hoping our presence can be validated by the mutual exchange
Of conversation, hopes, dreams, fears, woes, and comforts;
Of glances, gestures, touches, and ****** fluids,
So that our brains receive the chemicals we need
To feel a sense of happiness, of purpose.

Is this what love is? Or simply the kindness of small persons
Helping to distract one another from our shared worthlessness?
What then is love? If not the gift of blindness to our cruel fate, lending
Some sense of meaning that we give ourselves in such hopes,
Then what instead? What greater gift could be received from another
Doomed human spirit than the ignorance to turn us from the coldest truth:
The acceptance of an existence void of purpose, justice, and answers?

I measure my living in learning and loving.
I measure my learning in yearning
and my loving in learning; but
I never measure my loving in yearning
for loving, for I'm
never learning from yearning for love,
nor learning loving from yearning.
I'm learning to love and loving learning loving; but
I'm yearning to learn to measure what I'm earning
from learning to live, love, and earn love
instead of learning to yearn for life
lived without learning and loving.

I know the way our fingers have mingled;
I know our lips can play
and our eyes can trace the cross of
interlaced limbs.
But I wonder often
if our dreams, too
can ever weave just as so,
like branches of a tree
we somehow both envision.
Who knows?
But what marvelous dreams
could become if only
a twisting embrace
were our sleeping, drifting
minds.

I am made of earthly fibers
Human fears and human features
I'm designed for entertainment
People toys for mindless creatures

Faces pass by the millions
I see the lives I cannot live
I see the many I could be

If only weren't I stuck in steel
Nothing here is even real
Days of hours of my routine
Self-destructive programming

I am made of thoughts and actions
Tracing circles, running in place
I reset when you round the corner
Ready for the next new face

Lovers pass by the millions
I see the lives I cannot live
I see the souls that they can be

If only weren't I stuck in steel
Nothing here is even real
Days of hours of my routine
Things I've heard and things I've seen
Always to be what I've always been

Tonight I stand alone
In the greatest silence
   I have ever known
I feel the air as
   soundless as
The darkest eyes,
The longest roads,
The emptiness of time

The sheer velocity at which
the nothingness reverberates
Assaulting with the
   gentle grace of
   absolutely everything
that is possible in this
Silence, here

No noises of anxiety
This quiet animosity
This moment of clarity

Life is about the little things
Sometimes we forget the simple joys;
Seeing strangers laughing strangely,
birthday drinks, the beauty of wings;
Doors that creak, trinkets and toys,
Separating the laundry piles,
Umbrellas blown inside out,
Little girls running from little boys;
Cloudless skies that stretch for miles,
Captive ears when a choir sings,
Jiggling the handle before a flush,
Summer sprinklers, produce aisles;
Who we are is how it brings
Us closer to the little things

this morning reminded me
of summer
the rigid air warm and dry
the cloudveil thin
its white knuckles tight
trying to keep together
while the crisp sun
whispered through the cracks
of the wisps, clasped pockets
of lingering winter
and eager spring
it was almost an anachronism
beautifully lying in an
earthbound fall
but with a simple smile
it is forgiven

These days
Our love is in the airwaves
I'm riding on my reasons
Toes upon the seasons
Waiting for the winds
Take my seat
Beside your feelings
Hold on tight for
Teasing, reeling
Close my eyes to
See through ceilings
Send my thoughts to
Satellites
And wait for your reply
When I know to
Flee or fight
I'll hear it in the sky

I want to understand how it feels
To take true pride in myself
All the while I succumb to
The every humility that is
Offered by love
I want to be soaring into the sky
And grounded when I just
Close my eyes
Beside you, rooted in
The knowledge of this feeling
The understanding it brings
The completion
The freedom
And to be who you are meant
To be

If you asked me every little thing I'd do to you,
I'd tell you my intentions one by one in order...
Dangerous--my list of things I'd do--when you consider:
The list of things I wouldn't do is shorter!

it was the first time i really felt that pain could be beautiful
it was there, on the wire
the thought first grips you
you feel it grinding its way through every vein and vessel
you hear it like the tightening of ropes
your core about to burst at any second
about to jump through every pore
then it transgresses
the potential inside is burning
a neon gas aflame through the windows
of your eyes, though closed,
seeing everything

Misconceptions, forced perceptions,
Doesn't matter what is said;
Information killing relations,
Choking on the lies we're fed;
Instantaneous distractions
All provided by one another;
Too much chaos, clouded conscience,
In one ear and out the other.

Did it cut you when you came by
To say goodbye, to ease the lie?
Did you cringe to think the truth
Was far from what was in my mind?
Did it toss you, turn you, did you feel alive?
When the game got close, thought you might survive,
When you got away with it kept inside,
Did you smirk? Did you frown? Did you wipe your eyes?
How did it feel to hear me say
That it all turned out okay?
How did you nod and turn away
When you should have had something to say?

How did you hide just to save your face?
How did you crawl across the finish line?
How could you leave me so out of place,
Hoarding a truth that was mine?

It's hard sometimes to remember the good
The blessing of the earth
When all the world is falling apart
Death, disease, disasters, disregard
I feel like a ******* hypocrite
To see this all around me
Then take escape to a different place
In my body and my head
But my heart?
How do I sneer at those above me
But turn my head to those below?
What drives these people to do the things they do?
Is it hope? Is it empathy?
Or is it love that all of this is about?
What drives these people to do the things they do?
Is it hatred? Addiction? Misfortune?
Or is it fear that all of this is about?

A portrait of a child
Here he sits and wishes
For grasping ambitions
Too young for the feeling
Of content in the middle
Everyone around is feeding
On primal urges
They swing and stumble
But focus on focusing
They don't see the sky
With their eyes fixated on
One another and
All the shuffling feet around
They just seek the solace
Of safety, comfort
They settle for sitting and
Sipping, sulking, some
Perhaps weeping
This boy who sits, listens
And often thinks of
His positions and dispositions and
Places
Who he is to you, or you
Behavior reflecting the
Surrounding
This is the center, he thinks,
Which is a whirlwind of sand
Every particle a thought
Every thought an unvisited
Reality
Acknowledge them, he thinks,
But shall not explore
Instead, focus on focusing
Toward the edges
Toward the hills
Toward the hoops
And cease to sit, wishing
in the places surrounding reality

I wish I had a way
to destroy things
Intangible things
like memories that
mean so much to you
Because I feel
that power to control
would allow me to
take back from you
Just a quick swipe
Wipe a smudge
in your precious recollection
and distort
whatever insignificance
you were clinging to
with that little
painted picture
of a moment that only
truly existed
in your synapses

Life isn’t about having control;
No, not how we see it.
The greatest struggle is not
Nor ever was or will be
About power over what happens to you.
It’s not about having control
Of the events that occur to you
Because things will always occur to you
Outside the realm of what you
Can actually determine. Life
Isn’t about what’s coming at you.
Life has to be about what’s coming
From you
And how you see, perceive, and
React to the madness
Or beauty
Or pain.
What greatness will you exhume
(As rays of brilliance)
That pierce the cloud of approaching
Challenges? Can cluttered
Thoughts, though seeming so thick,
Be seen in a better perspective
That lights its ephemeral nature
Like a match that lives as short?
See it aside a candle
See this moment as a flicker
Instead of a flame
Life isn’t about having control
Of the events that occur to you
Because things will always be
Coming for you.
Life has to be about having power
Over how you come at them.
Life has to be about how you
See, perceive, and react
To the madness, or
Beauty or
Pain.
Oh how foolish to be caught in a trap.
We desire to manipulate our course
Through the crowded world of
Mishaps, meanings, mere
Coincidences. All along
We should be grasping
At what can actually determine.
Actually control.
Put your panicked hands aside
And open up your eyes

Perspective falls like patient winter snow
And melts the instant it escapes the sky.
It lands so softly on the dirt below
To dissipate; the cold ground seems so dry.

With vital time and much consideration,
Perspective builds like patient winter snow
And clarity outweighs deliberation;
Security and comfort start to grow.

The frozen moonlit night will then bestow
An affirmation; fear will melt like ice.
Perspective thaws like patient winter snow
Revealing that the journey was the price.

Is spring then some arrival? Or a start
When things will grow together or apart?

The comfort of your eyes is matched in none;
Your soul brings solace to my weary mind;
I’m stuck, convinced by fate, that you’re the one
Who’s meant to help me see what I can’t find.

So soon it seems to swoon and beam indeed,
But never has my breath been quicker taken;
If life is short, I’d hope you would concede
To spend time in my world which you have shaken.

I’ll take your hand with yielded understanding,
The hour may bring a devastation near;
If letting go will prove me less demanding,
I pray to muster strength to quell the fear.

This pathway means a means to absolution
If not together, still a resolution.

What hope is this, my eager heart has found
And thirsts like tendrils arching toward the sun?
What fate awaits if I should hear the sound
Confirming ambiguity has run?

What hope is this, whose outstretched fingers cry
Like children’s tantrums grasping, wanting more?
What heart is mine, forgotten at a sigh
That retrospect has shown me this before?

What hope is this, that I have broken out
Of history’s repeating prison cell?
What selfishness has overcast my doubt?
I fear I fail to trust that time will tell.

To step away from my anxiety
Would help to strengthen all deserved to me.