grounded in this reality
always, something keeps me. today it is my jeans, digging into the soft skin under my belly, reminding me
this world was not crafted around my form

There is no darkness, no fearsome
emptiness we allude to as
an excuse for sadness. We ne’er come
into the light each of us has.

Those restless nightmares, too evil
for scaring us into shameful
weak banality, so we will
live cautiously and shift blame still.

Where has your hope gone? Did you cast
it out of you, like some demon
you could not exorcise too fast?
It’s there, in the world you dream in.

Lazy darkness comes, too easy,
while to make light needs energy
of asking for life to “please be
constant inspiration for me.”

Reveling in
Simple things
Loved before they're gone

Playing down
Entropy
For the moment
We should let it go

Aware of
All the things
Thing's I can't control

In finding
Evidence
Of another
Brighter type of dawn

Out here
Past the point
Never quite alone

Resonate
In bitter sweet
Little moments
In the undertow

Aware of
All the things
Thing's I can't control

In finding
Evidence
Of another
Brighter type of dawn

out of the window
heat merged in white
and there’s nothing I want
the world to supply
or take from me now
I’ve opened my eyes

     she locks the door
     and knows the way she’s moving
     and we both know this is all
     that’s keeping us from leaving
     as we go down to the floor

           (now I see, as it gets dark
            and she’s away, I’m in the room,
            there’s nothing here of what was then
            except these facts I’ve placed in lines
            and keeping hold of what we’ve had; and her return
            and only that)

there’s nothing that I care for
but resumption of these feelings
and will throw the things I promised
far from any stretch of reason

and let them be discovered
by whoever wants to see them
burning
and broke open
as I listen to her breathing

A red flower,
Once pretty,
Lying down,
Petals torn,
Stem broken

“I’m done”
She whispers,
Her resignation
Seeping
Through my ears,
Filling my skull,
Feeding the
One
Who
Knows
My worth,
Who
Keeps
Me safe,
Who remembers
The moments
That stripped
My worth
To bone,
And longs
For me
To be
Just
Bone.
And I knead
And pinch
And rub
My sins
Made flesh.
And try to
Remember
What it looks like
To care.