Something that cannot be stopped,
elusive. I am loving.
Coming, breezing about.
Heard and felt--
a gushing disturbance,
whispering breath through
Strands of  hair on heads on shoulders on feet
Liquifying globes of blossoming trees,
prancing upon crisp leaves.
Bringing chill and stealing breaths
Burning and breaking down.
Quietly expanding,
        hushed voices,
             growing louder
We will rise in the midst of the falling,
we are the wind--
carefully sneaking through the cracks.

I shot a man
Erupted his brain into shreds
Shattered his slack jaw with my booted heel, they
laughed when his blood spilled,
flowing and simmering on the summer cement
Who do you trust?

If we could quit and begin again
If my actions had no consequence
If you were able to mask your true identity
If everyone only chased impulsive pleasure
Would we live differently?

I am afraid
that we are sinking
I am certain that we will slowly
poison ourselves until we become immune

Justifying our acquired weaknesses, ruining any and all friendly competition
Ignoring flags on the play that say there are too many
players on the defensive line

Who told you that this is real?
Trapped in one body for the entirety of this consciousness cannot
persuade me that I am here

Take me into the
vastness of smeared pink and blue
Where the birds find

a place to disappear
Lighten this heart of mine, let
me float where winds are

born, where the noise is
lost so that I may feel as
alone as I am,

truly

May I be excused?

My fingers barely connect with the keys
Making letters appear in perfectly straight lines,
Misspellings automatically corrected,
Bland sentences erased and replaced

If I ever wrote as well as I intended to
I would work for my words harder than
they've worked for me
I would form thoughts in shallow trenches
Working out every letter, digging the flow
Reopening blisters and blinking on stinging sweat,
if I ever wrote as well as I intended to

Let my verses stretch the length of the valley
Giving the earth a fraction of what
she has given to me
Let them climb the cliffs, bleeding
nubs of fingers guiding their path
Let my words fall to the sky in towers of smoke

And when I am finished
Let them be swallowed, corroded, and filled
Let them dissipate and separate, for no one else
will I ever write as well as I intend to

Tonight, the earth is thriving.

All of the birds are sounding off.
Wet rainforest air catching,
throwing back echoing songs into the
breathing trees, towering.
Waves crash hard onto the shore,  
I mean it this time and don't
make me show you again!
Showing us again, again.
Girls in short, fluttering skirts
prance through the street in tall heels,
summer wind slipping through the
valleys of concrete jungles.

It is said that anger is a secondary emotion-- While
white hot rage swiftly climbs your ladder of ribs and seizes the heart,
something more vulnerable came before it.

Tonight, the earth is wild.

Looking at the super moon, I am searching for
anything softer than fury. Wondering what possibly came before I was
mad enough to *****, laughing bitterly instead.

Before, hugging me hard,
making me sure she meant it,
"Hi, Honey" came from her lips,
a voice too sweet to be natural.
Before, I called her Mom and
stopped knowing what the word meant.
Both of us made things
easy, until they got hard.
Before I was mad, I was happy.
There was a time it wasn't taxing to
remember our laughs tangling
into the brisk autumn air.

Growing old enough to realize we had all done
a dangerous thing, smashing two broken families into one house
and calling it whole. A full home of people feeling empty.

Tonight, the earth is warm.

Her eyes were a clear blue, thinner than water and
colder than frost, constantly shouting out the way she was lost.
Just there behind them, she was trapped, clawing to get free.

I took to feeling sorry for her to fight a blooming hatred while
savage teeth cut into my lip, holding back heaps of "how could you?"
Squeezing my eyes shut, I sat shivering in the afternoon sun.

I told my brother that I was sure I didn't love her at all,
Seeing a reflection of my hardened expression in his young face.
I said I would have to fake cry at her funeral.

Tonight, the earth is electric.

Tears on my cheeks and burning in my throat,
I despised the thought of being like her. Only making me more like her.
A terrible silence settled into our lives, emphasizing all voids

I was up late on a school night, gathering few belongings and my
dignity in a black trash bag. Driving away from that house on the hill.
Loneliness in the night chasing after a full back seat of children.

Tonight, the earth is alive.

Forgiveness is a tricky thing, the act occasionally coming
prior to the decision. Revealing the before, the hurt of missing something I had
wanted so badly. Bathing in bright moonlight,

tonight, the earth is listening.

Tonight, I would cry at her funeral.

Tonight, leaves me quietly sobbing, I have been betrayed.

I watched him take California's south side,
tossing invitations back over his bronzed shoulder,
in a careless way he had coined

But the sky here has a way of wrapping me up, lifting my chin
upward and rooting my feet in this rocky Missouri soil
Like petals of an overgrown sunflower, my lightened hair
danced around my face

I watched the pale blue of the sky fall down on me and intensify
Masking the sprinkle of stars where our gazes had collided,
though the pairs of eyes set thousands of miles apart,
resting snugly in their sockets

Sleepy words streamed into my ear, leaving my mind feeling lazy
Hardly able to find the familiar tinge of dryness in his sentences--
As though the thoughts he had were lessened in value the moment
they passed through his lips

The early morning clouds had not yet agreed upon the day's weather,
billows of white thinning out into wisps and collecting again
Slipping over the roof top and onto the next neighborhood

I was lulled to sleep in their slow deciding as he held his breath for
the yellow of sunrise to spill through his shades in slats,
reassuring him that the darkness is not forever, although I had
caught him wishing it might be

I had never met my match until our two brains rattled,
our hard heads made contact and butted repeatedly
He made a habit of softening mine, kicking soccer ***** at my face
and kissing me slowly

Fast friends, always outrunning one another
Cynicism rushed warm red in our young blood
We unbandaged our wounds, and bled
openly into summer nights- so thick you could reach out
and steal handfuls of loud black

My crippled hands shakily wrapped up his festering gashes
Sealing in hours of stories of starving, of screaming,
of a scared little boy all bruised and beaten, before
we vanished back into our laughably broken lives

The back of his Blazer became my bed while my darling father
snored drunken oblivion into the air conditioned house I escaped from
Fresh cut grass from the open field, caught rides on my bare feet,
scattering across the comforter that spread over folded back seats

We wrestled and hurt ourselves, I would win, underneath him
We got faded and hurt each other, spilling unspeakable tales from
between our teeth and tears from frozen eyes, down onto our collars
Smoking like chimneys as we lay, swimming in music and moonlight

Every sunset was justified in its ending
Putting the people to sleep and quieting the cooling streets
The beginning of every day was a feather
trying to break the spine he was straining to straighten

He would tell you he was fine,
never given the chance to settle into good,
interrupted every time he slid into being okay
I would tell you he was a private young man,
overcompensating for chronic unhappiness
with good intentions

Laughing off every nightmare, until the room shook,
with sinister hilariousness-his own brand of medicine for
a sweet heart, poisoned by misfortune, a sharp mind
blinded by the lack of peace and easy comings

The night he left, I bought a sapphire tie to compliment his icy eyes
Unsure whether It would be a poor parting gift
or end up tied around his wrists to keep him from going

We had ended the physical slice of our relationship some time before
I sat in his passenger seat and struggled to form a sentence
that would be worth a ****

We waited for our stupid minds to catch up
to the swelling and swirling of emotion inside us
Refusing to say goodbye out loud, I tasted the
Peppermint and *** on his mouth for the last time,
quickly

My best friend went away and he never came back

Someday I will be unexpectedly thrown to the ground
Blaming it on my own unsure feet
until I catch sight of the culprit pair of Vans attached to a
smirking Blonde Beauty

I will grin as I trip on him again

I miss you now, for the chance that
I may be spared later
You're more than enough
to bring me to my knees
from shock, to pleasure,
for fervent and long prayer yet
I stand while you shovel,
unsparingly, digging us deeper
I smile and you show me
how to be alone, together
Catching glimpses of
the bright side of the dark

You can share this breath of air,
if you come close enough

Hesitance resting upon us, dusts over
our desires, keeping me safe and you sound
Taking us nowhere, heavy sighs everywhere,
declaring war with the sound of emptying lungs
Unending battles beginning softly again and again
Filling lost minds with the fight to remain free

Two, itching to feel what it's like to become one
The space called waiting connects me to you,
pleasantly black, surrounding us separately
I begin to help you deeper, not stopping
to remove the damp earth from beneath my nails

You can share my one breath of air,
if you just come a little closer

I toy with the idea of breaking a resounding silence
Getting tangled up in the beginning of it all
Shall I call you teacher, indeed you are learning me quickly
Would I refer to you as my dear friend, words drenched in wanting
I could start, calling you by name, knowing I'd never pick up again
One word left hanging, and repeating, and killing me,
sweetly

You can take my last breath of air,
as long as I break away from here.

Doe eyed, she looks up and asks,
"Will you carry me?"
Halving the rhythm of footfalls.
Honesty in his action hitting the
first notes of a lasting song, holding

fulfillment and fear in the
form of a little girl in arms.

Loyal through the swells- music and storm,
teaching things that he had no business knowing while
conquering things that had no business attacking him.

When the fork in the path
read that he must decide between
Rest and Moving On
he quietly comforted his aching heart
and limped further,

Apologizing all the while to the ***** faced child.
Her arms around his neck choking him, warmly.

Finding peace in their relentlessness,
certain that would
carry her when he no longer could,

taken with the idea that
death was the needed break he awaited.