Are you man enough
To walk the path carved in your marrow?
To let instinct speak?
Can you listen to the wild in your chest
not tame it, but understand it?

Are you man enough
to protect without owning,
to fight without hatred,
to cry without retreat,
to bleed and still rise
not as a martyr,
but as a force of nature returning to form?

You are not a flaw in evolution.
You are its edge,
its hammer,
its echo through time.

Stand tall,
not in defiance of the world,
but in allegiance to what made you.
Nature never doubted you.
Why should you?

Oceans away, lies an island; A beach where the waves reach the sand.
I found peace there once.
The ocean felt so good on my skin.
The inner peace I felt, I craved it more and more; every sense of relief and every worry left my body.
Then something happened, I slipped and cut my foot.
My feet could touch the bottom so it wasn’t that deep.
The rock caught me off guard, I was pulled under, water filling my lungs; my organs turning against me.
I fought, pulling me under.

A beast, a blue beautiful monster grabbed me and pulled me by my shirt with his mouth.
I woke up, drenched, lying inside a cave; by a warm fire.
This man was a beast, with beautiful blue fur, staring at me.
I must have passed out, because he had been watching me sleep.
He was beautiful, sharp teeth and more animal than human.
He saved me, I almost died but he saved me.

Part 2.

I smell the wild on you.
How the snow is caked in your fur.
When the night falls, what does
It offer besides survival.
And the means to be something
besides human.
We're stuck here somewhere where
The earth has broken.
And the cold envelopes everything it
Touches.
You stand there in the snow
Teeth bared.
Not afraid to go at it once more.
I've grown tired, so very tired.
Your eyes burn the snow.
That fierce longing to stay alive.
What else does the night offer,
We've consumed pretty much
everything else except each other.
And I am tired of fighting.
Nothing pretty survives out here alone,
In the dark.
Together, you and I nestled in each other's warm.
When hunger subsides.
We'll find it in each other

Ignited
Excited
My body roars
Through my veins
Lit
Straight fire
Passion incarnate
Primal desire.

Hollow
Doesn’t have to be a bad word
Hollow
Doesn’t have to mean “empty”
And “missing”

When I listen
It means there is a container
Wrapped tight
And taut in something warm
The hide of a once wild
and free animal
is now a fate reverberated
as another passionate, wild being
Strikes it
Sparks the potential aflame
Into a sprout of a heartbeat

Or it is
The fog
Once aimless and reaching
Until it finds a lighthouse
Its beam also reaching for it
So when light strikes the micro droplets
Each effervescent molecule
Is lit in the turn of the path
In each passing round
An orchestra plays

That is the word
“Hollow”
To me

Read to me
the story of the sun
and how our first lovers
were the stars

Your mind beams penetrate me
radiate my cells
pump my blood

I'd swim in my hair
like you do

Some melodies
don’t need a literal space, you see
world traveler,
you don’t know this place

I like that
you can’t give me an animal
intercepted patterns
trim
unchartered moments
primally coded
in me and you
Don’t be afraid
Whatever happens
it’s only Love

I first heard the
lullaby in the
womb.
It has a pulse
and rhythm.
It was embedded in
my tissue and cells.
And when I was shot out,
****** and naked,
the cord was cut.
The journey began.

At five years old,
I remember closing
my eyes, and lying
down to go to sleep,
it felt like I was
being rocked.
I wonder if the
subconscious mind was
remembering the
rhythm of the womb.
My Mom--pregnant with me
walking upstairs--downstairs,
elevators
escalators
movement
pulse,
the eternal lullaby of
the womb.
When I closed my
eyes, it felt like I
was being rocked.
It felt like I was
in a swing;
back and forth.
Easy, like a fragrant
spring night.

I feel and hear the
pulse--the rhythm,
the heart in everything.
In footsteps--in the wind,
in the ancient river, and
in the mermaid's song.
I feel it in
the beating of the
hummingbird's wings.
I see it in
Van Gogh's jagged sky,
in the flight pattern
of the wasp.

There is a rhythm in
death and birth.
Oh my God, the rapture of
the rhythm of love and
joy--so sublime.
The primal beat of a
heartbreak--pain,
like painting with
blood.
So real
too lucid.
Icarus, let's fly into
the sun, drunk on
***** or cheap wine.
We'll escape--liquid smooth,
until our wings melt,
and we fall back down,
crash
to the pulse
the rhythm
***  ***
***  ***
***  ***.

Sometimes,
I wish I were
a rock.