the warmth of the sun
butter in my eyes
a shuddered relief
with everyone of your sighs

the passion of the sun
flames that swallow
burn me from the inside
and leave me hollow

and the knight drank and drank from the well
for that was what he read in his books
but he felt no great strength course through him
nor any great swiftness nor new knowledge
he was still just a small man
in a tin suit
and he cursed the world
and the world said
a promise never made is a promise never broken

and the waves pulled back
and so the sand could finally breathe
and it filled itself with sweet drug-like air
and smiled at the sun
before it all returned
and the drowning began again

the birds stopped singing some time ago and
i can't remember when they stopped but
that seems to be the pattern these
days and there's a candle lit that's
sitting precariously on the
corner of my bed and
somewhere in my
mind i hope that
something will
catch on fire
and this
**** hole
will
burn

d
o
w
n

like icarus
i was too close
and felt too much


                       high
             too
flew  


and burned
                            a   w        a              y




and now
                 there is nothing left
                                                       but
                                                                dust.

your hand was a star
glowing
and begging me
to hold you
to feel your warmth
and let it seep into my fingertips
let it crawl up my veins
let golden heat flow up my arm
caress my collarbones
let it spill into my eyes
and make them flicker sunshine brown
let it stroke the crown of my head
twist around my hair
and weave in tiny daises
that smell like rain
and your shirt
and alcohol
let it make me dizzy
dizzy enough to grip your hand a bit harder
and start the cycle again

i don't need to find somebody to love,
i already found them . . .

now i just need somebody to love me back.

and she soon found that she could no longer distinguish between absence of another and absence of self

grandma don’t remember much
but she looks at the picture on her
dresser
says she’s never seen joseph
hold mary like that before
ninety-one years without tenderness

i lie on the grass like jesus
ankles crossed and arms spread
hands open towards something
like tenderness

that i may return to the something greater
that i was a part of many years ago
and my flesh will become nothing
and my soul, everything
and this will happen
all at once

us poets are far too arrogante for our words
we speak of intangible things
with such sincerity
convince our readers that we have discovered some sort of truth
tricking them into a false sense of understanding
we think our words and our thoughts are grand
grand enough to be shared and listened too

but perhaps this is okay
perhaps our vague writings of love
and power and greed and anger and sadness
perhaps these poems are not arrogante answers
perhaps we are not tricksters
maybe, just maybe, poets are the translators
of human emotion into ink

but what would I know?
i am just an arrogant poet

it feels
a little bit like a dream
the way we would gather in the night
and walk the same path
with hushed whispers
down the elevator
into the lounge
taking our unspoken places
whispering among ourselves
about the day's adventures
but then we would be seated
and someone would break the seal of silence
and we would begin to talk...
about life
about love
about lust
about our futures
our dreams
our deaths
we would predict for each other
what we saw in their crystal ball
though we knew each other
for less days than i can count on my hands
we heard stories about ***
stories about friends
about hometowns
about heartbreak
we shared as many laughs as there are stars in the sky...

and when it all ended
i wondered where the time had gone
or if i had imagined it all.

I am not my weary bones
that drag me through the mud.
Nor the arms that hang beside me
or the beating of my blood.
Nor the cracking joints and fragile skin
that breaks oh so easily

I am not my tired muscles that strain
and beg me to lie down
My worn out eyes that long for sleep
but can’t let slip my crown
I am not the tears in my eyes
that glisten and wish to weep

What am I, you ask?

I am my beating heart
that pounds like a giant drum
my aching soul, my twinkling laughter
my courageous spirit next to none
I am my brilliant mind
that doesn’t know where I’m ending up,
but I know what I am and I know what I’m not
and for now I think that’s enough.

It's rainy all the time
where I live.
It's just the every-day.
It lives where I breathe.
It sleeps where I dream.
It goes unshaken.
I hurt, I pain,
I kneed my heart out in search of the source.
What is in there?
I tire,
as I have tired before.
It's rainy where I live,
all the time.

they have their hands all over my body
from miles away
across the country
no, across the globe
they have groped my chest
like children with a shiny, new toy
wrapped chains around my stomach
kept the key out of reach
deciding themselves that this is their right

they have given me an impossible standard
and no matter how much self love I have
i still think of starving this chapel
until what protects my body melts away
like a popsicle in a hot summer's heat
i hear behind closed doors
the way they can define me in a single word
they way they reduce me to a single caricature

. . .

it is scary
how many of you do not realize
that you are the "they" i speak of

he was an angel, you see,
and that was the problem.

there's a wisp in the shape of a father
and he stands outside my door each night
sometimes he takes human form
just to pour a glass of wine
i've started to see him
in the palms of your hands
and i am so shattered
when i look up to see it isn't him

there's a wizard who lives down the street
who vowed to fix the hole in my chest
but he filled it with dirt and dark and dust
and told me he tried his best

i think about the time when my parents just loved me for being their daughter.
now i have to prove that i am worthy enough to be loved.

you ask me why i'm not angry
you ask me when it began
but honey i'll tell you,
it's hard to hate the dying man

you ask me why i still love him
you ask me how i can
but baby i'll tell you,
it's hard to hate the dying man