i have spent my whole life following close behind
matching my prints to the ones laid out in front of me
following them blindly without questioning where they lead
i try to keep my feet inside the the lines
like i’ve always done with coloring
but i’ve never fit perfectly
my feet never fit
because these prints are not mine

Can't stop
Won't stop
Feeling things
Buried in emotions
Like wet sand
At that beach
I never asked to be here

Picture a man’s solitary stroll on a sandy seaside,
Early time of day, just a short time after low tide,
Water almost calm, gentle waves lapping the shore,
Early morning sun brilliantly blazing the horizon.
Feel the wonderful breeze…smell the salty ocean air…  
See, hear the jaegers, gulls and terns flying without a care.

The soothing sounds of the wind, water and gulls
Are suddenly intruded upon by the sad cries of a small child.  
"What's wrong?" the man kindly asks, as he kneels next to her.
"Someone knocked down my sandcastle," is her reply, tears flowing.
"Don't worry little one, I'll help you build another."
To the little girl's delight, the man smooths away the sand,
In preparation for a newer, bigger, better sandcastle.

Soon his concentration is broken by frantic cries for help.  
Looking out over the water, he sees a tiny figure,
Desperately clinging to one of the buoys marking the deep-water.
Running to the water’s edge, he clearly sees another little girl,
Close in age to the first, whose swimming has carried her too far,  
And now she perilously clings to the buoy, unable to swim back.

The man returns to the first girl
And continues to build the sandcastle.
"The girl in the water is safe for now", he assures himself.
"As long as I can hear her cries for help,
I know her head is above water.
Besides, this other little girl's problem came first.
As soon as I am done with her sandcastle,
I will most certainly rescue the other one..."

And so, the man does build the sandcastle,
One more magnificent than the first.  
All the while he builds, he continues to hear
The desperate cries from the second little girl.  
By sandcastle’s finish, her cries have become weaker, less frequent.
"Are you happy now?" he asks the first little girl.
"Oh yes," she cries, "thank you sir...."
As she joyfully dances around her new sandcastle.

With that, the man springs into action,
Just as she slips off the buoy and goes under.  
He reaches her in record time with all the strength he can muster,
Expertly positioning her on her back with her face above water.
Wasting no time or effort he makes his way back to shore,
As more and more people gather to cheer on the savior.  
He gives CPR - after several coughs, water clears lungs, a life is not lost.
As if on cue, the rescue team arrives, transporting her to hospital.
Extremely grateful parents and the city honor him as a hero.

So what say you?  Is such a man deserving of honor?
How would the parents react If they knew the rest of the story?
Especially since he was the lifeguard assigned to beach patrol!

Now, friends, after considering all of this fuss,
The question bears asking, what about us?
Are we making sure of more important things,
Or are we busy building castles in the sand?

my trust is like waves of the ocean.
they meet the sand at the shore,
then run away faster than ever.
if the waves are too strong,
will the sand vanish...
or will it be pulled by the waves?

A grain of sand on the beach, a puff of air in space.
Carried on the waves, drifting further out. Reaching.
Until the stars align in it's destination.
It's in orbit of what it travels so far to reach.
Carried by attraction, unknown that the smallest decimal-
Rewrites the whole system in unforeseeable ways.

Magic is real.

we are the sand on which man with his ever arrogant gait
treads. we are his tools, his land, his obstruction,
his children’s playthings, his building blocks
bounded only by the limit of his imagination.

to him, we are docile, but we are in conflict,
refusing to give way, robbing each other of the space
for breath, for drink.

we outnumber man as stars do, yet
our friction renders us subservient
to his hands.

we could be so much more.
if it were not for this
friction, this ****** friction,
we could bury oceans
and change the course of rivers.

it is my hope
that a great raptor shall beat her wings,
uniting us in her wind to rend flesh from bone,
that man’s blood shall be our water,
a medium to swallow him whole,

and we shall be dyed red like our brothers
on a former earth

who killed the god of war.

a love letter in the sand


she implores me at my weakest,
early morn, when sleep and sorrow
yet linger on my eyelids and dreamt stories
still have not been replaced by the careworn,
life’s erasures that ***** sparks of creativity

write me a love letter, a forever composition,
resistant to aging, time and weathering, a poetics
stamped with a maker’s mark, a signet, a hallmark
to our love that will be read unceasingly, a party to eternal
preserve our sharing, under glass, in paint, in this ink,
in this atmosphere

deny not my request, for it is holy tinged, reddish singed,
the best of us to become immortalized,
for all other lovers to follow, in garden planted,
a peony’s blooming upon request, whenever needed,  
be ready seeded, to salve and save, to be given and gotten,
in a single act jointed

no matter if our names brown edge to faded,
our love revived when it is voiced, witnessed, taken,
our love refreshed upon renewal by others eyes, lips, sensations,
make it an oath, a promising, combining our combination,
bless it for everyone, to be a blessing, a dressing of loving

poet rose from prone, our templar bed, bathed his face,
bid his woman, follow, her bidding to be won, for this now
is the moment precise that such a need be immediacy met,
a task such, cannot be denied, temporized, delayed by delicacy,
a challenge so eloquently stated, must be instantly sated

to the sandy beach I took her, for she would be the first witness
to her creation, her inspirational must become perpetual,
with forefinger in the sand drew the words she had chosen,
for in every respect, he gave grandeur, preservation worthy, now encapsulated as “I will be yours forevermore”

“how can this be eternal, in minutes, the tides arrival,
it’s erasure a certainty” she laments...

not true, I soothed, the tide will take each grain of our anthem,
with our bodies ash, to every seventh corner, where lovers gather,
to be rewritten, melded together, soft spoken unison,
spreading our tale, forevermore...

it will take 100 years for a single grain to cross the ocean,
and then, when all are as one, as we begun, this day,
our love letter in the sand perpetual

Oh how mighty
Our sandcastles once were
But now in their place
Only lay lost tomorrows
And never-to-be-hads

I think,
it's time to go
back home on land.
I leave the waters,
step out of the blues,
before I could drown.

I sink,
each foot entirely
in the sand.
Rooted in place,
the fine grains
anchor me down.

I ink,
your name on
the back of my hand.
I know it well,
and tell my pages:
I love you now.