It’s late, and I can’t sleep.
I’m thinking about the way your
hand always felt so weightless in mine,
but the absence of it—of you—
feels so heavy.

It’s late, and I can’t sleep.
I’m thinking about the way
the beat of your heart
and the waves of your breathing
created a rhythm just for my soul.

It’s late, and I can’t sleep.
I’m thinking about the way
the skin crinkles at the corners of your eyes
whenever you smile or laugh.

It’s late, and I can’t sleep
Cause now I sleep alone
And the bed feels so cold

It’s late
And I can’t sleep

Crawl into bed
Sleep like you're dead
But really
Your just deep
In your head.

A dream is a Realm
Where all consciousness
goes to die
And every moment,
Every kiss,
Every fairytale's myth
Is a Lie.

Your grieves, you hide,
Concealed you keep,
When problems are wide
And pains so deep.
If you have sorrow inside,
You can weep.
If you are so tired,
Go and sleep.

How many dreams,
how many wild and uncompleted schemes,
how many words
and the infant ghosts of poems I will never write
do I leave on my pillow at the end of every night

Blinking is slowly killing me
Every time the world turns off
I feel peace
Blink again and again until I don't remember
That my eyes are even closing
They tell me it's natural

How is natural to feel such peace
Only the moment the sky goes away
Just in the moment the world starts to fade
Why do I love to leave

When I was a kid in the Virginia mountains, we had a train line that ran yonder through our quiet little town, a few miles from our house.

In the warm summer months we’d have the wooden sash windows wide open, their screens strummed by the breeze and humming a hushed lullaby.

Each night, lying in bed, I heard the remote rolling roar of the train when it blew its whistle as it neared our town.

Every night, as the dusk fell, it came: the slow rush and roar of iron engine wheels that glide along on roads of steel. The engine‘s sacred heart was stoked white hot, fed by black coal dug from those rolling hills.

Then the hush of night lifted for a rolling moment: The engineer pulled the whistle cord — releasing a long plaintive chord of a melancholy choir, pitched just so, for to sound softly through the coal-hearted hills of the Blue Ridges as they echoed in quiet reply.

It was my signal: It’s time to sleep.

The nightly ritual chuffed on. Boxcars rumbling on rugged rails. A distant engine roaring by in steam and stoked fire. Waves of lightning bugs that rose and fell in the sticky summer night while foxfire faintly glowed blue in the brambled underbrush. High above the rolling green hills, between the watchful blue mountains, the stars arced past on their tracks of old.

I’ve long lived far from home. Longer still has the now lonesome line been turning to rust. Now I know why the whistle wailed: It was wistfully aware that its last stop was near.

But I still hear the ghostly wail of the whistle past, as the slow steam train of memory glides through the dusk of my soul.