Under the cedar

next to my house is a bench --


for new encounters.

The springs offer no explanation that cannot be heeded.
My feet meet the water, which absorbs those sins that have calloused my soles.

The sight of you across the bank, under the cedar
Chills me with a sharp current.
I will never know why the cold water
Surrenders me softly to the Earth,
But grips me at the heart
When you appeared below the trees among
Their fallen leaves.

There are salamanders that live in the creek,
But they are so small, and exist so profoundly in the water
That only the people who have used their lives searching-
To protect them-
Have ever seen these blind animals.

You have never noticed me at the river,
But the river knows that I'm here
To guard the stretch of Earth that keeps us at our ends.

I want to hold you
And trap you in the sap of these pines
Because I know you would not run,
You find beauty in the ugliest of places.

I want to lock you in a cedar box
And leave you be until you beg my name
Because I know you like the smell,
You always were more with nature than I.

I want to hang you up in a great oak
For the whole world to see
Because I know you think you're wretched,
But you're beautiful to me.

She has a heart of cedar color
And dreams in shades of peony and lotus stems.
She leaves the smell of cyclamen and ripe apricots
Behind her,
Those who are crying in the shadows of Magnolias
Are finding a shelter within her.
Sometimes I imagine that I'm the sea foam
That is touching her ankles
And the air that envelops her lips,
Absorbing her every move,
That is reflected in the mosaic of her pupils.
Her thoughts are sleeping in the depths of my veins,
In every pore that absorbs her voice
I can hear her breathing.
I remain frozen in her existence
And in the contours of her shadow,
All of what I have seek so far
I have found in every thing on which she brushed.
After all,
I'm just a pale reflection of the stars
In her night sky,
The dying firefly in her garden
Of white poppies and wild rose hips.

Well I don't know how it happened
You just forgot, I guess

The pain receded
I kept breathing
And now...
I wish I hadn't seen that

It hurts to see you function
I hate to watch you love
...
I really hate to watch you love.


I wish you hadn't kissed me
In the wind
Genuine surprise coursing through my veins
I thought those sort of kisses were myths, all
My heart might have stopped

I wish you hadn't let me in
Serenades and rusty blades
Dreams and phone calls
Roller coasters and secret beer

The similarities bring me down
Why can't my soul mate stay my friend?

I hate the way you make me love you.
Every word, I miss the drawl
I used to talk that way.
My twangy southern voice has left and so has my love of spontaneity
You've wrecked it all

All I have is
Anger for your smile


Exploration
You touched my bones



Leave me alone.