I drink it
straight

I write 'em straight
to the point
bold, curvy, squiggly,
pressured or light
and oh
so transparent

Liquid courage
inked in my vessels

soft introductions
******* bodies
the outros
are mostly
unexpected

but they all
deserve a cigarette
afterwards

What lies beyond this dour door
that leads to things ahead?
I stand and wonder what’s in store
behind this portal grimy with dread.

Its glass is cracked, its lead paint is chipped
while its brick wall is turning to sand.
Its handle doesn’t invite to be gripped,
nor does it tell me where I’ll land.

I look all up and down the street
and see only more doors that look the same.
Before each one are more: their feet
wish to walk away from these doorframes.

Each one of us is seized by impotent rage
at facing a choice that’s no choice,
to be fixed as if in a steel cage
and finding no cause to rejoice.

But one of us in this bleak boulevard
must be the first to twist the ****
with the will to face the path that’s hard,
to not let our lives by fear be robbed.

Let each of us kick in our doors of fate
and overthrow their grips on our lives,
smash the clock and pass through that gate
with heads held high, fearless of where we arrive.

Spurred by the clarion call: it came to pass
our pent up waters burst the dams.
No captives are we! We struck en masse:
Battering rams forged out of lambs.

do you ever feel like you're not enough? like what you do will never measure up. who to be and what to do have never come clearly to you.

i know you.

I know your pain, your sorrow, your lack of faith.

"how do i believe in myself when no one else does?"

you prove them wrong.

show them your strength, your courage, your confidence. prove to yourself that you deserve life, deserve to be on this planet we call earth.

we all have something to offer, you included.

show the world the best you can be and then they'll see that they were wrong about you and the things you can do.

spread your wings and jump, i know you'll fly.

A frail man stood high on a granite precipice
as rain lashed harshly his wrinkled brow.
His dead eyes stared fixed into the abyss
while the deep clouds held an intemperate row.

The powdery embers of his belly’s red fire
had dimmed to flecks of faintest off white.
But now, not far from where this had transpired
shone out a tall lighthouse streaming bright.

And in its arc light’s blazing blue beams
the haggard man saw past his mind’s edge
to see he wasn’t the only in a feverish dream:
Multitudes stood each on a dark stony ledge.

Just then the others saw too through the gloom
that they were surrounded in this bracken dell
by bleak fellow travelers of similar doom:
They shared in their bones that they all were unwell.

This newfound chorus sang their litanies all
in crescendos of crisis and depths they bewailed
but the more that joined in, the music recalled
how by sharing their song they’d over darkness prevail.

There in the bellies of each in the throng
once cold embers began to kindle a spell:
This company of the crushed composed a new song
whose magic this sympathy symphony cast well.

The fences are on fire
Can’t you feel it?
The bonfire in your nostrils
Time standing by your side,
Whispering “quickly, love” and,
In the distance, lips part and quake
They—you—(what difference will it make?)
Tremble like a lake of sulfur,
A lake of liquified lavender
But darker—wine, yes, wine in its cellar
Can’t you feel it?
The ashes pasting themselves over the moon
The midnight sun, the falling stars at noon
Time grabs your hand this time,
“No more waiting, my love” or maybe
It was “No more hating, my love”
You clench your free hand
You bite your lip
You drench you drench you drench
Your body in acid in courage in rage
Can’t you feel it?

The fences are on fire
And love’s coming for you