Words:
Road blocks
On highways
Of thought.
Plato dreams
Of speaking
Utopia.
The cave grows
                   dim.

Stories spin webs that catch time as it passes.

Hours wrapped in spider's silk wait to be devoured.

Let me tell you a tale,

Some other time to consume your time,

A tale that will leave you hungry.

Indiana Jones never finds his life empty.

He will live forever on gifted hours,

Given by those who need.

They will keep on needing,

Trading their lives for stories of others'.

There is no poet like a knife.
There is no rhyme like dance.
The first time I held your hand in mine
Was the only love poem I have given you.
Fists full of dirt
Beads of sweat on skin
I have understood God the most when it rains.
When elements collide and my face becomes water.
There is no profanity like absence.
There is no obscenity like callous.
The last time I shook my father's hand
Is the only praise I have known.

He has torn down the temple.
Stones lie scattered across the sand.
In his anger he has cursed God
And stormed into His dwelling,
Making mockery of angels and eating sacred bread.
He has torn down the temple.
She is lying scattered on her bedroom floor,
Drenched in the paralyzing stench of incense,
Her ears bleed with sacrilege.
The curtain is torn, is torn.

There is a shell I have never broken.
I watched you check your mail.
I had already found my keys.
I waited.
You waited.
You knew there would be no mail.
You watched me scrounge for my keys.
There is a shell you have never broken.

You have grown heavier and heavier with each hour of talk.
When I met you I could just make out your silhouette on the horizon.
Thin as bird legs, you danced with each gust,
Teasing my eyes like candle flame shadows.
With each word I caught falling from raspberry lips,
Words I wiped on my chest to keep them close,
You grew wide and tall as a redwood forest,
Shielding my whitewashed bones from the sun.
It used to be, that when you moved, my heart kept walking.
My blood runs stronger than canyon-cutting rivers.
With each conversation you are deeper and thick,
Behind you the sun whimpers over the horizon.
I can see sides of you your silence once held,
Fooling my ears and turning my head.
But you have grown heavier with each hour of talk,
When you shift, my heart strings pull me to your side.
Your every step directs my inward thought.
Should you chase the setting sun to far stretching oceans,
You would tilt my world and my love would roll,
Head over heels until you saw fit to stop
And I could bask in your shade once more.
You are a giant in the eyes of my heart,
Heavier still with each recitation.
I imagine that years of words will swell,
Until I can just make out my own silhouette on your horizon.

If I could convince you of one thing,
I would convince you that you are worth it.
These arms are much to short and far too weak
to rip through the curtain of time,
but if I could convince you,
I would brush hours with my fingertips
and leave palm prints engraved on the days you didn't feel loved.
Reaching back, up to my elbows in  pools of your story,
sifting through the silt built up at the bottom,
twisting knobs and turning dials
until every time you heard his voice or her voice say
'you will never amount to anything'
instead played back
'you will never stop amounting.'
Spry young saplings, planted at the river's edge,
you will never stop growing.
You will always find strength when you lift your branches to the sky,
be it deep in your roots,
you will stand taller than northern pines,
taller than sycamores that split clouds with their leaves.
Believe me now more than your memories,
you will do so much more than survive.
I would spill this pain I see melted in your eyes.
With all of the righteous fury a sinner can muster,
I would destroy those times you were told
that it's never ok to cry,
that you must live like prisoners inside your own bodies
with emotions covering up the windows more and more each day.
If I could convince you,
I would swallow every steel bar you've ever known,
Giving you back your mother,
Giving you back your father.
I would fill myself with cages
if you would know that you are free.
You are free to live life as you have seen it in the trees.
Stand tall, and drink from the rivers of love
so few are willing to share with you.
In turn, share your rivers with those who also believe.
I would not erase the pain you have suffered,
for I would not dare touch your strength.
I would ask, that when you feel the wind,
like the breath of God, stirring through the trees,
that you would stretch out your branches and weep.
Water the ground that has brought you so far,
embracing every waking moment
that you might never again live in dreams.
If I could convince you of one thing,
Change your mind about time,
showing you that you are both past and present
staring boldly into the future,
I would convince you that you are worth it.
Whatever "it" you could imagine "it" to be,
Know that it will never measure up to your leaves.