your eyes
are the ocean

salty tears
are its waves

bitter storms
are your temper

and lonely shipwrecks
are your rage.

my eyes
are a forest

feathered lashes
are its oaks

shady glades
are my sadness

and weary deer
are my hopes.

I must be made out of stone,
A stone is a good thing to be,
I have weathered wounds ,
Changed a bit on the outside,
The core remains the same .

A stone is a good thing to be ,
Nothing changes inside,
A landslide or an avalanche,
It’s just an adventurous ride,
An experience that shaped me.

Nothing changes inside,
Time has layered me solid,
A little unraveling by nature,
Is time again working on me,
Showing the grit that makes me.

Time has layered me solid,
Bruises sharpened my edges,
Water smothered me smooth,
I could lay alone for ages,
Or I could flow and dissolve .

You and I were broken
Elements,
Waiting to be paired
With another that would
Cause an irreversible reaction.
I envied the way your atoms were
Always bursting with energy
Inside of you that you often
Took for granted.

If you were oil, brash and bold,
I was water, invisible and quiet.
We tried to mix, but nature wouldn’t
Have it.
Continuously trying and failing to turn myself
Into an element that could be useful
To you,
An element that when combined with yours
Would instantly create heat and light.
A burning reaction
Full of love and lust
Mixed into one test tube.

But we failed the test.
Maybe it’s because guys like you—brash and bold
Don’t belong with girls like me—invisible and quiet.

The breath of the past was light with normalcy,
Not yet soured by the fear and the hate
And the gusty bruises.
What would you do to feel
The wind again?

Sometimes I remember the soil beneath my feet.
When I do my bones ache for static ground,
For the hot dew of summer morning.
After it collapsed from under me,
I walk with the tenacity of a bird,
My footing always a step behind.
Have you ever
Walked against the earth?

When I heard the screams my lungs would swell with water.
I’d grasp the blade under my pillow
In shallow hopes of repair,
But I knew if I tried I would only float,
Since the ocean does not forgive.
When did you teach
Yourself to swim?

She felt the heat when she saw you,
But she never saw the fire.
We danced around it and pretended
That we knew each other.
And we smiled,
And we laughed,
But your corneas ignited.
In the deepest black the sparks flew
And the heat twisted the corners of your mouth upward like scorched wicks.
I would ask you why you watched us burn,
But to you
We were all just ashes.

Gaze on that woman by the train.
With curves like gunpowder
that will shoot fireworks again.
As her and I once were.

Since then, of women, I've abstained.
My chest is a pyre
to the damsel I couldn't retain;
fondness that won’t expire.


You say I could never attain
and imply I'm a liar!?
Or you think either me insane
or least she's miswired?

The evidence on my brain -
melancholy, ire -
the despondent husk that remains,
need you more enquire?


...True, of her, no displays of pain;
eyes that jolt not tire,
poker voice tipping no disdain,
legs that feed desire!

For her, gone love is not a chain
hidden by attire
or flushed down a forgotten drain.
It merely retired.

Love like hers was the wind and rain
to my earth and fire.