I’ve lived in the thrush
and hot candle wax
a palm of welting skin pressed against a foggy window
damp with the grit and sweat of dawn
I stepped into the copse
bundled in its swarthy tightness
there is rot here
and flesh
the pulsing of a heart
giving life to each sapling and elder branch
if one wants to find the heart of the forest
look no further than up
the moon
a woman in her own right
no celestial body can deny this truth
there is a certain relativity to one’s heart
and to the extent of which blood and flesh and bone define us
I wanted to believe in something not purely physical
that could tell me what I was or could be
but my blood and flesh and bone
bind me
to the dirt and to the heart of the forest
which I hope
I believe
is not purely physical
in its own right

I would now like to declare myself insane
And I’d like to be left alone
If possible I’d like some bitter tea to sip
Whilst watching static on the television
Sleep…
               Sleep…
                             Sleeping…
Transfixed in a half mad stupor
                             Slip…
               Slip…
Slipping…
It’s funny how you suddenly realize these things
Waking up to a demon hanging from your ceiling
Sluggish
and
clinging
to
threads
My seams stitched together
To keep my humanity from pouring out
Stability
Tick…
             Tick…
                            Ticking away…
I’m a time bomb
And you’re all getting burnt
When I blow

So vibrant a character
that he creates a roaring symphony
with a glance in your direction,
and as he walks
the colors form in his footprints,
because he keeps his soul
at the bottom of his shoe...
You must follow the trail,
You must look into his eyes,
be deafened by his music.
You wonder if he hears it too,
if he sees the dazzling spectrum
left in his steps. They tell his story,
but you cannot read its brilliance,
you cannot look into his eyes
long enough to finish the symphony  
before he breaks your gaze,
and you cannot reach the gold
at the end of his rainbow trail
because it never stays for long,
just long enough to be admired
before he disappears
to come again after the storm,
and beckons you to follow him
into the sky
                    where he floats,
                                  just out of reach…

This is the little girl with September in her smile who wants nothing more than for her feet to grow wings as she dances to fly her to somewhere without bounds.

This is the boy who resorts to hiding his Walt Whitman behind a comic book so people don't question the light in his eyes.

These are the revolutionaries still waiting for their messiah. Who've yet to learn how to grab opportunity by its earlobes and drag it to where they can beat as much out of it as possible.

These are the lost ones
Those who forget where they come from or where they're going
Those with sandpaper skin and voices that tell their lives with one syllable
To those who are lost
Here's my advice

Looking in unlikely places is where you'll most likely find adventure
And never leave home without a journal and pen
Because changing the world usually starts with an idea inked on paper
Walking along with your nose in a book is an excellent way to bump into someone doing the exact same thing
If you stand in high places
You'll often feel what you think is the urge to jump
But more than that it's the urge to fall and see if your dreams will carry you off into the raspberry sorbet sky or if they'll drop you like a lump of lead on the sidewalk broken and bleeding and wishing you'd never dared to dream in the first place.
And if you want to preach, you don't need white robes and golden pedestals to do it right
Your heart will get broken sometimes
But when that happens all you have to do is put a hand on your chest and feel the pumping and pulsing the humming and drumming the ticking and tocking of your clockwork heart as it pumps liquid life through your veins telling you that it's okay if you need to eat an entire tub of ice cream
Everyone does now and then

Just remember,
You are who you pretend to be
So it's not a bad idea to make-believe you can turn your aspirations into dandelion fluff to grab hold of and sail away into the unknown where they will come to rest to bloom and grow and lift you so high you can touch the sun, round and golden as a dandelion blossom...

As occasional insomniacs may know
There are certain sounds that only occur past midnight
When everything is still
They awaken…
Scuttling and skittering
along hardwood floors
Crackling, creaking
the sounds of a settling house
Tapping, rapping
from inside the walls
the sudden rush of motion
on a deserted street
someone’s chasing
always chasing
no time for sleep
Then you, enveloped in starlight
You entangled in sheets
Maybe hidden under your duvet
Maybe staring out your window
into the night

The distance between us
Small enough to feel your stirring thoughts
Long enough to lose yourself in the abyss
Is it possible to sense the presence of another
Across the span of your own lonely world?
Perhaps we're two ships who've lost their bearing
Floating aimlessly
Passing in the night
But then again we are just two people
Whose compasses stopped working
At exactly the right moment

It’s the kind of subtle trickle
That turns the asphalt into a glassy mirror
Ripples, ripples, ripples
Over it like a black pond
The silver lining of each little droplet
Streaking the sky with shades of gray
The streetlights cast an amber glow
Upon the shimmering mist
Hiss, hiss, hiss
Against your stinging flesh
Turn your face up towards the darkened sky
Let the rainfall and streetlights wash away the dust
The dust of the souls you carry on your lips and cheeks
Etched into your back and palms
Their burdens may cause you aches and pains
Let the rainfall and streetlights wash them away
Rainfall and streetlights
Rainfall and streetlights
An urban confessional
Where the sky leans in to listen
As every perfect drop of water hits your skin
It’s the sound of a cleansing
Only you can comprehend
And although the hope of purity may have been swept away
by the wind of unfixable mistakes
It’s still the belief alone in possible redemption
That keeps you from relenting to temptation
Drink up the tears of the sky, child
You are forgiven
You were always forgiven
After all
Paths were made to be strayed from
Straight lines are mundane, they all look the same
And never give a little boy glass when you haven’t taught him
how to grasp what’s right in front of him
When he drops it
It’s a dangerous job
Picking up the sharp shattered pieces
Do not make him do it all alone
Yes, inevitably you will cut yourself
On the broken shards
Crimson teardrops
If they tumble from you
Do not distrust your calluses
You made them through your own hard work and suffering
But they can only do so much for you
Remember your skin is a shell not impenetrable armor
So it’s best to avoid the things you know will cut unnecessarily deep
Bleeding is just another way your body assures you that your heart is still beating
Looking up from the gutter the universe awaits you child
Do you not realize what’s at your fingertips?
Infinity
So don’t give in just yet
Let the rainfall and streetlights heal you
Drip drop, drip drop
Let them bathe you in warmth
Radiating
Let the rainfall and streetlights take you away
To a better place
Wherever that may be

Sunken eyes and sleeping feet
Foreign, perhaps unrecognizable to those who once knew her
She knows neither where she is going nor how long she will be gone
She’s on the midnight bus to nowhere
Waiting for the last stop
City lights **** past
A blur of mysterious incandescence
A collage of multicolored ambition
But the true radiance lies on her face
Glassy irises reflect and refract the passing scenes
Taking them in greedily as a miser saving gold  
It’s all she’s ever wanted
She’s on the midnight bus to nowhere
Heading anywhere but back
She’s thought too hard and is suddenly not herself
Peering down at her hands
Not her own
Some stranger’s, some being’s with more courage, more audacity than she
Nothing is quite real
But then again maybe nothing’s been real until this moment
This one glittering second
Lost to us after it passes
And what then?
Existence starts all over again
Your head’s moving faster through time than your own feet on the ground
And when you stop the cosmos flow from your mouth as you speak
The most unadulterated insanity
Could never compare
To the endless synapses of ecstatic mischief
That comes when we’re running faster than we ever thought possible
Maybe to something
Maybe from something
Maybe blindly into the unknown
Every second
More hammering than the last

I can imagine no stillness more perfect
than a winter night
When the snow has caressed the barren landscape
to purify it in white in preparation for the approaching spring
The trees no longer teem with chattering cicadas
only the sound of descending phosphorescent flakes
Cars dare not brave the treacherous streets as they once did
when the sun shown high and mighty
Like a doughty king
Lest we forget the encroaching tides upon the shores
that he shown over
He blinds us with his vivid blazes
reflected off the frozen ground at morning
but for now it is the time of night
when everything is still
An era we like to pretend will be infinite
Could we stay a little longer?
pondering how to articulate the sound of snow falling
Let us make this a grand masquerade
of feigning to be more than what we are
In this one moment let us be
As grand as the whitewash of winter
Although we are but little things
to the biting chill of an arctic storm
let us at least be drifting snowflakes
Intricate and lustrous for a time before the thaw
Where we will once a again
be returned to the earth