To the girl who empowers me,
With a laugh, a glance, an honest word,
an unprompted touch of my shoulder,
to do the things I otherwise wouldn’t bother to:

Never have I been so brave as to hold a ball python for my own fun til she spoke of a snake who’s half her height
like an old friend.
That is not a metaphor.
Or to do that one pull-up more
and maybe one after it,
if there’s even a chance it’d bring me a step closer
to being the person I know I want to be.
And I’m definitely not yet a person who’s built for pullups,
but with her looking my way, doubt seems like a foreign word.

She told me she wished
that she could someday be the subject of my writing,
yet it seems every time I try to prove
that love is action,
passion eclipses intellect,
my paper folds itself into an airplane and flies by its own accord,
and I’ll be ****** if,
of all the things I can’t control,
my own words will be one of them.

I know I severed us for a while,
tugged too ******* the Jacob’s ladder between her fingers,
wanting more in the moment than she had to spare,
til her eventual reply was noble truth:
that her hands wouldn't be vacant for holding
while she had so much to set them to work on.

Her hands, her beautiful hands, were booked,
sometimes literally,
with her thousand different interests and commitments,
and all I could do was lay in bed at night,
sometimes tossing and turning at the thought of the time
where she took me in her arms on a whim,
and I was unable to fall asleep
for fear that, if she permeated the film of my dreams,
she'd be more nightmare than not.
Yet with time, she spoke to me by her own inclination.
Whistled to me like the stray dog I'd made of myself
and lay out a spot to sit next to her.

I never realized until now how much I respect her
for never playing nice with the boy who,
assuming we’re friends enough,
calls me a useless lesbian.
I guess that pound of a joke had some ounce of truth to it,
for all the times where what she and I had
felt like one great web of miscommunications,
and subconsciously I see her as the spider
or she sees me
or sometimes it’s us both this whole time.
But if there's any certainty in it all, it's this:
She'd been in at least the back of my mind
for as long as I'd known her,
asserted herself right away
as the kingpin of my flighty wits.
And I still dream of writing something that makes her heart beat,
even halfway to on par with all the stories that race
through her head,
in her wild blood.
I wanted to be her latest passion for even a moment.
Because the honest to god gleam in her eyes
when she tells me what’s really on her mind
made me so selfish as to want to be that thing,
for however long
or not-long
it could last.

Yet I've sometimes seen that fervor in her eyes waver,
like they're trying to promise something better.
Little does she know
she's already the best thing for me
just by being herself.

And I understand that she doesn’t love me
not in the way I once wanted,
but having her for however long in my life,
before she’s off like a free willed honeybee
with so much better to do,
that is enough and so much more.

Because despite how I’ve tried to deny the facts of the matter,
I’m firmly rooted for a girl who's bold enough
to crack the whip over my head if I ever went to war with myself.
A confidant that won't run,
won't offer half truth when the whole of it
is all that actually matters.

This was that paper airplane
comprised of eight months of the cheapest blood, sweat, and tears
from the first moment she set up camp
in the farthest reaches of my heart,
to where I was finally past the point of dreaming
of any future
where she may not be as happy with me as I am with her.

For better or for worse,
I've straightened my spine and let the honest truth sail
knowing full well that she doesn’t owe me a thing.
I'm still not sure if I was coming clean
or stating what’d always been obvious,
when I wished for her peace
among these watercolor depictions,
for her to find the rest she so craved and deserves,
and to wake, inspired anew, in a cycle that suited her,
whether I was a part of that cycle or not.

To the girl who helped me find the gall,
and who's going, going,
gone on to better things:
Gabriel García Márquez says I love you with all my being,
so maybe that’s why I'm finally letting you go.

1.
Magpies sang of an avian astray
Silence soared over the African horizon
Last seen heading Serengeti's way
Off your perch daughter of Poseidon

Pegasus tame ascended heavens sky
Looking for smoke risen or a glisten
Over the Serengeti and Masai
Waning nights turned to
                                        waxing fright lead to
                                                                ­              prayers of frisson

2.
Emergency at Victoria Lake
Three hundred and fifty mile detour
A miner in need, a friend forsake
Beryl, an angel with the cure

Her wings not heroic nor romantic
Just a job at an uncomfortable hour
Lacking of sleep and a dose of frantic
Set sail in the moon, Africa's flower

3.
A life saved and a tank fully nourished
Took on the life of a bird and set course
Peered out and lo and behold
A gleam
a glimmer
a glint
a glisten
a welcomed gift
a green palm among a snow so white
There she lies
Woody's delight
"All Metal"

I boarded her heart.
Careful to follow the politics of comfort.
Too much weight on either side & We'll surely panic.
Tumbling down.
Spiraling out of control.
I packed light.
Finding everything I need on board.
I enjoyed my window seat.
Being her passenger.
The pleasantries of flying first class.
The view of a different country.
The tedious flutters of anticipation.
Constantly aroused by the exploration of beating hearts.
Continuing to see ourselves in reflection.
Flying destination after destination.
Going here, going there
Non stop.
If ever we should crash.
I'll live knowing this was the best flight I've known.
Light in heart.
Parachute untouched

Still Running

She’s still running,
so when I offered her my home,
and a place to unpack,
she didn’t even stay long enough to hang her clothes,

I suppose,
we’ve all gotta find our way on our own,
I suppose,
not every place we lay our head is our home,

in a zone,
can’t answer my phone,
don’t know where it started,
or where it will end,

she said she wanted a friend,
someone she could feel comfortable,
but I betrayed her trust because I’m a Man in Lust,
so instead of a friend I touched her like her drunk uncle did,

I’m sick,
don’t go so far as to put anything in,
but I did cross a line,
when I got turned on and held her hand,

****,

****,
what happened to our plans,
****,
what happened to a Happily Ever After end,

what ever happened to functional,
why do we have to all grow up so fckt up,
when well we find a place where we can heal,
who will help you me us we finally grow up,

I’m torn up,
and I know exactly how she feels,
because I was taken advantage of as a kid too,
and I know exactly how much she wants to heal,

but you can’t heal a wound,
if you don’t open it up,
and she’s still busy running from your pain,
and covering up her cuts,

and this is exactly why,
when I started to cry,
she began to get scared,
and decided to take flight,

because she thought I was becoming,
exact what she feared the most,
which is an unstable person,
that can not offer her solid support,

so she left,
without closure,
and I messaged her,
once I’d gained my composure,

I apologized for being so emotional,
and for not communicating with her clearly,
I wrote her I’d do anything to see her again,
I wrote her that I missed her very dearly,

she wrote back saying I could meet her at the airport,
to say goodbye,
but asked me not to ask her to come back,
because she wasn’t changing her mind,

I immediately agreed,
and asked her what time her flight was,
9:45 at LAX,
which was exactly when and where my flight was,

so we met at the airport,
and had a soul to soul,
you know the kind of conversation,
that simply can not be had over a telephone,

I apologized,
for not being the man then that I was now,
and told her,
if she came back I’d be willing to take that vow,
she smiled,
saying we’d only known each other a few days,
I smiled,
and replied when it comes to Infinite Love time doesn’t matter anyways,

we said our farewells,
and I watched her disappear up the stairs,
then I went to check in for my flight,
because I too had to get out of there,

and wouldn’t you know it,
in a twist of fate,
it turned out that my flight and her flight,
were departing from the same gate,

31A and 31B,
this must be destiny,
so there we were a with each other again,
just her and me,

and this is when she told me,
as the salty water began to appear in windows to her soul,
that when I’d called her to invite her to California,
she’d thought that she’d finally found a place where she could feel comfortable,

how she’d been in this cycle of meeting men that made her feel unstable,
and I knew she’d been in this cycle ever since her drunk uncle,
and I knew that even though I’d improved and could provide the stability she craved,
it was too late and she was gone gone away to probably repeat the same mistakes,

because she’s not going to get rid of the issue until the issue is faced,
and she’s not going to be able to face her issues if she keeps running away,
and I could have been the one to see her through be her truth and heal her too,
but instead I just lusted after her became emotionally unstable and pushed her away,

and that hurt me more than almost anything ever,
because I realized I’d betrayed her trust in the worst way,
I realized all she needed was a true friend and then maybe a lover,
not a lover that she didn’t love that couldn’t behave,

and then I watched her walk away,
for the 3rd time in as many of days,
and even though she walked,
we both knew what she was really doing was running away…

∆ LaLux ∆

Newest book is FREE here: www.scribd.com/document/367036005

I have awakened
a deep, drawing wanderlust
that yearns to break free.

set me to airplane mode,
I feel like I'm going to implode...

my thoughts, they're spiraling,
there's a short-circuit in my wiring

this world beneath me has gone ablaze
& I cannot escape this fiery haze

I'm soaring toward a sea of flames
from our world without a trace

falling
fast

here
comes
the:
             crash

Flying through the air at speeds unknown.
Eyes closed.
Heart racing.
Traveling to a land riddled with memories of pain.
Is it possible to enjoy the pain?
Joy opens up the soul to more pain.
Eyes open, clouds passing beneath.
The world lives on beneath the massive metal machine.
Humans work on, unaware of the several hundred bodies flying overhead.
Life goes on, joy remains yet a distant dream.
The plane lands.
Life goes on.