Yeah, I've moved around
for a whole while. Lost
a lot of myself, lost sight
of the goal, wasn't quite
sure what the goal could
even be about. "Something
this excruciating can't
be worth the pain", I thought.

And most of it wasn't, but
some of it meant everything,
sometimes longer and
sometimes just for
a pretty little while.
Wonderful people gave me
wonderful mementos. I
keep all of them, even
if the memory hurts.

And yeah, I lost a lot of furniture
and I lost a lot of instruments
and I lost a lot of friends
but I've never lost a gift.
Everybody's still out there
one way or the other and
they were kind enough to share
some part of themselves
with me. I'm thankful.

They're proof that we live and
they're proof that we love.
Even if some don't anymore and
even if we don't anymore.

I've let go of all of it.
But not of the presents
and not of the memories.
Thank you.

I don't worship you because you are no God
but an angel whose wings reach out
your feathers just settled on my skin long
enough for me to understand there is a
rough edge to a feather,
when it scrapes past your skin
leaving you to have just a moment's taste
savoring
mourning the peaceful moment of contact
one day you sit down to pray for
heaven to come down again, closing your
eyes and never opening them
again.

There was a time I knew sadness,
There was a time I knew pain.
There was a time I knew sorrow,
There was a time I knew shame.

And then I saw her;
Not like a dream, not like a hope,
But real, alive,
A spark in a world that had forgotten how to burn.

She didn’t speak the same language as my grief,
Her words were light,
But they landed heavy,
Like rain on a parched land.

She smiled, and for the first time in years,
I didn’t feel broken.
I didn’t feel like a collection of wounds
Held together by fragile skin.

She held my hand once,
And the touch was like a promise,
A promise that maybe the weight I carried
Wasn't mine to bear alone.

She took my sadness,
Took my pain,
Took my sorrow,
Took my shame,
And replaced them with warmth
I didn’t think I could feel.

But then one day,
I looked into her eyes.

And in that moment,
I saw it—
All the things she had taken from me,
All the things she had quietly held,
Lived there, in the depths of her gaze.

And for a single moment...

There was a time I saw sadness,
There was a time I saw pain.
There was a time I saw sorrow,
There was a time I saw shame.

Love’s like venom in the vine, a pendulum in time,
A crescendo in your spine when the heavens misalign.
It’s a shadow on the shine, it’s a dagger in design,
It’s the chatter in your mind that you never can define.

It’s a glitch in the glow, the itch you don’t know,
A pitch too low, but it hits you though.
It’s a spark in the freeze, a bark in the breeze,
A lark that you seize, but it’s dark in the trees.

It’s a pull in the tide, a lull in the ride,
A skull that you hide with a smile full of pride.
It’s the crash, it’s the climb, it’s the hash of the rhyme,
It’s the past that you mime while you’re grasping at time.

It’s a thread in the seam, a dread in the dream,
A head full of steam that’s about to scream.
It’s the war and the peace, the thorn in the feast,
The beast you release when the hunger won’t cease.

It’s a reel that won’t cut, a feel that won’t shut,
A deal that you struck when your steel turned to gut.
It’s the tear in the weave, the air that you grieve,
A snare you believe but can’t quite retrieve.

It’s a hex, it’s a hymn, it’s the vexed in the grim,
It’s the text in the dim when the rest starts to spin.
It’s a maze in the spark, a haze in the arc,
A blaze in the heart that decays in the dark.

So twist it and take it, resist it or break it,
Insist it’s mistaken, but you’re stitched to forsake it.
Love’s a rhythm that rewinds, a prism in decline,
It’s a prison, it’s divine, it’s the venom in the vine.

In shadows deep, the Noctilux gleams,
A guiding light within our dreams.
I believe each soul has its own night,
Waiting to find its shining light.

One day, darkness and dawn will meet,
In perfect harmony, pure and sweet.
Lovers of light and dark unite,
Together they become one bright night.

Watch the sun...
Aptly, the hunger of love
Simply, a future in an eye's cunning?
Shapes of sharing's life, to come...

True to sleep...?
Here is a waiting few
Asked to wish, a future is seek...?
A stigmata in more than a day too soon...

Beginnings
Or, we found a sense of strength...
In the sate of promises, with endings
Of clashes, that becomes a due length...

Might, is this promise...?
Stay with our slumber, a conscience
To wake myself, or a friend?
Am I patience, or a preparing essence?

Home and heaven...
Why, am I is, when be is kind?
Prayer is any of a source of living, if
A hope ever can be, a lover's mind?

Today, I'd like to take a journey
and if you'll allow me, I'd like to take you with.
But don't pack much.
Just bring someone you love.
Go ahead, grab them, I'll wait.
If they're not near, find a photo,
a voicemail, a sweater they wore.
Hold them in your arms
in your mind
however you can;
as if they could vanish when you blink.

Let's walk awhile
through questions we rarely dare to ask

Tell me:
if science offered you a perfect clone
of the one you loved most,
same laugh, same eyes,
same habit of laughing at your jokes, even when they aren't funny
would you say yes?
Or would you find comfort
in their imperfections being unrepeatable?
Do they have any imperfections?

If you and your loved one had one final day:
no illness, no warning,
just 24 hours gifted to the two of you
how would you spend it?
Would you dance in the rain like its a movie?
Would you say things out loud
that your heart's been whispering for years?
Would you smile, laugh, cry, yell?

And tell me:
have you studied their face lately;
like a sky about to lose its stars as the sun peeks over the horizon?
Do you remember the first moment
you knew they were your favorite word
in a language you thought you'd forgotten?

We tend to wait for grief to ask these questions for us
when the voice is gone, the phone is quiet
the sweater is folded in a drawer like a secret tucked away.
But what if we asked now
while we can still kiss the answers?

So,
before this poem ends,
before you scroll,
before time wins its race,
hold them,
call them,
love them,

Tell them the things you'd regret never getting to say.
Watch how their eyes answer you.
Notice how lucky you are
to have someone
worth asking these questions for.