Dandelion dreams wisped from
The lips of summers past,
Lips tasted
And gilded became the cage,
So to, ushered,
My sense of belonging.
I tried to move on,
An couldn’t
And she knew it;
She knew that I couldn’t
The moment –
I’d fallen upon her lap
As she grabbed one more
Dandelion
And took one more breath
And blew the dead petals
Whilst making the wind somehow
Dance, and I,
The fool once more –
In love and unable to flee.

Call me back to home.
Don't make me walk alone.
Take me to the place I belong.
Teach me again how to be strong.
Please let me stay there.
Free my short red hair fly free.
Yes fly free just like me.

I live in strange cities and talk with strangers
About things dear to me
I walk on alien paths and eat foreign food
And remember
I paint **** women, their hips large
Dark hair and full *******
And I know
We all seek perfection, not knowing
We are already perfect
I sing, my notes rise and fall endlessly
Like a swallow in the endless skies
And I praise
Hosanna in the highest
And as the dust motes dance in the wintry sun
In my wooden church, I am transported
To singing with Irish nuns
My skin browner, in a country of heat and dust
A country of mangoes and temples
Of saffron and silks
And as I don my jeans
Memories of my mother’s swishing silks
Take me home
But I live in strange cities and talk with strangers
And home is just another four letter word

Today I am drawn to Picasso's blue period.
looking for beach-side tragedies in grey fog,
seeing backs where I should see faces.
Everything is askew, backwards, sad.
There is no reason, just rhythm, a muffled drumbeat reminder:
You don't belong here.

You were never whole and don't know what that's like.
Where you are marching,
something at the edge pulls you toward
something else
and that's why you chase it.

My father says we are all part of the same hand.
The distance is nothing.
He pulls his fingertips together, pads kissing the tip of the thumb.
Separateness is an illusion, he says.
It can disappear in an instant.

I am the missing finger
the one lost in a thresher or blown off by a misfired gun.
There isn't even bleeding anymore.
I'm the itching ghost where the finger used to be.
What can you do?
Piece together a life, as if it matters.
Put one foot in front of the other.
March, march, march
Until the moment it slips.

Soften the focus, dim the lights
and maybe you're not such a ghost anymore.
It's that other life, the one on the other side,
and all you have to do is fall.

The pieces of my soul crack under forbidden touches
Yearning for more
I don't care if I become undone
Feeling the passion
Is worth more than the pain
Of numbness
I want to feel
Revel in the kisses and touches
That come from you
But belong to me
More
I want more
Of you

I like things
That do not belong
Mislaid, lost
Dropped, thrown
How do they end up in my frame
How come I keep on noticing.

I am attracted to things
That do not quite seem to fit
Subtly ruining it;
A smudge, a note
A love
Unwritten in the stars.

A weakness
For displaced happiness
Somewhere I never intended;
Maybe,
My love,
I misplace my heart in the right spot.

Matters of the heart should not be handled with your head
I don't care what my mother says

You're trouble, and you make my head hurt
But I love you, and your absence is worse

Your body left an ache in my throat
I'm attempting to choke it out

I come to you for help
Because I secretly hate myself

I feel trapped inside
My own
Existence,
Totally unable to escape it
Unless by doing the unthinkable.

I take a package of
Sticky notes to work
And steal a few precious
Heartbeats to commit my thoughts
To paper,
Forever immortalizing them.
These notes decorate my fridge,
Monuments that will long outlive me,
Reminders of those heartbeats
Where, during the pumping of my blood,
I was actually alive.

I clean up everyone
Else's messes
And thus I make my living,
But can it really be called that?
A living?

Day begins.
Breathe in.
I make the coffee, and attempt
To open my eyes.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it doesn't.
Off to work. To the broom
And the dustpan
And the beats of my heart
I will never get back.
Music helps, but it's not immortal.
Even the best of playlists gather dust.
My job is important, they say.
I don't believe them.
Maybe if I could just see what difference it makes,
Who my work impacts,
That there is proof that I am doing something right
Other than an empty pat on the back
And an obligatory paycheck,
Maybe then, it would be worth it.
Maybe it wouldn't **** away my soul
Like it does.
But maybes don't pay the rent,
And they certainly don't replenish my soul.

Only words make me alive.
But it is too late for that.
I was born with a gift
I'll never be able to use,
A sanity I'll never be able to reclaim.
I was born a few centuries too late.
Or maybe I was born with a soul
In a soulless world.
Where has life gone?
How can anyone live like this?
How can they exist
Rather than actually live?

Why am I here?
I can work such magic,
But there's never anyone to see.
So what does that
Leave me with?
A head and a heart full of
Words and a world that has
No place
For them.