I got on the bus alone today
and almost no one else was on it.

As it neared our campus the setting sun
hit the window so right, sending a golden corona
across the dusty seats,
bathing us all in this brilliant golden light.
Brown eyes turned to honey, blue ones to oceans—
a handful of minor gods and goddesses
on their way to class,
in sweatpants and backpacks.
It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

None of us wanted to pull the cord to stop,
but finally, someone did,
and I had to get off.
I feel alive on the bus, I feel alone at midnight.
I am the princess of the bus.

I make my boyfriend Aiden worse without intending to.
I make a lot of things worse without intending to.
I think that if I just spent a lifetime on the bus,
circling round and round at around 6:30 p.m.
I would cause a lot less harm on this planet.
But someone always pulls the cord, even if I don’t.

Aidan won’t pull the cord and neither will I.
We might be riding this bus for a long time yet.

Learning to try,
Where does my identity lie?
Finding myself again is hard,
Harder when I've raised my guard.
Trying to learn it's okay to be alone,
Spending this year on my own.

Writing,
Drawing and painting.
Woodworking,
Welding and making.
Circuitry,
Electronics and more.
Pneumatic, mechanic, IC chips galore.

***** in the veins,
skewed and torn.
Hangovers battled, and seemingly won...
...as the body grows numb...
...limbs waking in hazy hum.

Roll another,
Tobacco makes its mark—
Lungs defiled,
Body failing,
Cherries burn brightest in the dark.

Lets call some lucky,
That they knew from the start,
Yet I continued hoping,
He would come back and restart.

The years draw on,
The day the pickup drove away,
I screamed for him,
Did he hear? check the review mirror and then accelerate?

Children of my own, a wife, and a home.

5150,
It's waiting....
It's ready, patiently prone.

Context needed,
Needed for concepts to churn
Listen closely.
A decibel past a whisper —
A Truth heard from the urn.

Intimacy is not physicality.
Intimacy takes heartfuls of risky honesty.
Its essence is vulnerability -
an ability to offer the key to deep dignity
and entrust it by degree or in its entirety.

And listen carefully:
It's not limited to matrimony.
It's a delicacy available to anybody
and without it friendship is hollow
and fully half empty.

You don't care about

me, so I hope you have fun --


I am doing well.