Maybe if you hold me closer,
Tighter than you've ever held,
You could hold in all my fears
And all the bad words I’ve yelled.
You could keep together my pieces
And make me feel whole again
But we both know you’re not glue
And you can’t close the cracks in my skin.
You wouldn’t be a permanent solution
But I could at least feel complete
If you could lay me like concrete.
Maybe I’ll last longer and be functioning
Knowing one day a crack will break me apart.
I just hope by then I’ll learn to let the earth beat its heart
And I’ll have flowers growing from my faults in spring.
You know I love the weeds,
So I hope I become a home to the grass and flowers we don’t let grow.
I’ll be the ground that feeds
And I’ll be the land you can’t mow.
I won’t move and I’ll let my shattered pieces breathe new
Because you may have helped me not feel broken but maybe being broken is what I was meant to do.

Always the flow of water-across muddy banks and
Passages into lakes filled with the essence of nature,
Pulling tides and the smell of alpine, hickory wood and
firn. Always the flow of life-ever passive, trance state,
Picking up speed it rushes, like the sound of blood rushing
Through the earths veins, towards endless vinyards and orchards,
Cascading over cliffs like sparkling mist, into ravines and it continues
On. Into the forest, into the pines and the sage brush-not thinking,
Quick to find solace in this mid-morning dew, this canopy, deer hide.
Continue to be cloaked by the grass and thistle, branches and vines,
Not stopping, ever residing in it-never looking back until reaching that
One point where it is certain that the past concrete, cement and steel,
Are but a thing of memories of tragic times to be kept so forever, never
Looking back, never to return or see them again until the very world ends.

Always the tide of stream water, endless in the universe, it's strength,
And it's endless source, that source, from which all life flows...

i may grow
from a crack in the concrete
but i still grow

as difficult as it may be
i will not let the weight
prevent me from blooming

The fervid lover sits on the bed, towards the edge
With his golden ash tray, and a coal shining near her mouth
in washed out radiance, quite enough to overlook.

She ashed her medicine, watching the cigarette tears
glide to her thigh, bruised by that man with a shared name
before deciding that she’ll stay.
******* coward anyway;

A tree swaying in the middle of the concrete jungle.

Pain came every time the little boy heard his name
from the monster who changed when the moon rose over the edge
of coliseum mountains, holding barbarity in his eyes and fetor in his mouth.

But when the sun rose oh how he loved and looked
in admiration, telling him “Don’t shed any tears.
There’s nothing to fear.
Why shed your tears?”

A tree swaying in the middle of the concrete jungle.

I put therapy loaded with copper pills in my mouth
and gave it a *******, trying to decide in a pool of confused tears
my emotions, and if they were stewed or straight edge.

I put the syringe down for just a moment and looked
beside me, analyzing the plastic cuff with a familiar name
before deciding that I’ll stay.
******* coward anyway;

A tree swaying in the middle of the concrete jungle.