If my Life allowed me to
Love you a thousand times over,
I’d do so— die. And ask Heaven
to borrow eternity with you.

Your tears, love, I'll trade you
For my smiles, if you permit.
I'll now and forever let you
Break my heart, if you keep it.

When I see you,
I see nothing.
Not the stars,
neither the moon.
Are there clouds?
Any blue?
I can hardly say.

You're made of nothingness,
in my head.
Just a huge hollow void
of absolute emptiness.
In person, you were pretty.
But I do not remember,
neither the skin
nor the words,
but I do remember
calling you beautiful,
in my head.

In my head, though
you're more beautiful,
the sheer nothingness.
All over me like
a starless sky
on a drunken night,
when the woods stumble,
and the chair can't hold still.
All over my floor,
like crumbled pieces
of blank pages,
that scream dead poems.

You remind me of a diary,
that stinks in my closet.
so beautiful,
I was afraid to touch.
I never scribbled a word,
not even a smudge of ink,
untouched and flawless
and pointless.

In person, you aren't
that beautiful.
I do not want to touch you,
so maybe
I'll leave us undone,
because if I don't,
I'll lose the nothingness in you,
in my head
I'll have a face and a voice,
an image, a lady,
and maybe love
but mortality.

-RYS

On top of the world
I ain’t coming down,
Looking through heavens eyes
Earths turned hell bound,
Don’t worry close your eyes
It’s all good now,
I’m here with you.


Round and round we go,
Dancin’ with Demons,
Dancin’ with Devils,
Don’t worry bout me
I already know,
This is for you.

I knock on doors
that refract light
as sketched shapes of hope.
That chimera of real and illusion.

I remember that in hospitals,
maternity wards and hospice,
doors are to be opened and shut
with gloved hands,
elbows or leaning hips.

I hold myself to a few words:
I needed to go
and so I do,
"one-step at a time,"
when fortitude warms the path
And otherwise,
I remember a red light in the dark
at 6 am in February,
chortling engine
with two hundred miles to traverse -
I was sleepy and restless
and beneath my hums on coffee breath
a seed sprouted
barbs and blossoms.

I doubled down on heartbreak
and the fertility of schisms,
because the world is shaped
by twisting plates that ****** and slide
into one another in dumb collision,
and for all we glean of how,
it may as well be on stone rafts of fate
we built our hopes.

A girl, a woman, lover, friend,
liking me more than she should.
I want to love someone again,
I know she wishes I would.
I love the joy and pain of her,
our hearts are an open book.
My wounds are fresh from this mad world,
when life was harshly shook.
Portrait eyes are such a treat,
looking up at this new man.
Simply, silly, kind and sweet,
She reminds me who I am.
Her witness down inside of me,
exposure to all my tools.
Teaching each other honesty,
we're reinventing the rules.
She has a look she can't disguise,
whenever I look her way.
Optimistic hopelessness in her eyes,
bittersweet each day.