It's apparent
in the long list of romantics
that lived and loved and died
for myself to spring to life
on some distant desperate branch on
my extended family tree,
somebody fucked a peach.

It's written on my skin in vivid red ink
that i must be the distant descendant of a person
who fell for every small blonde hair and the way they dance
and skin primed to absorb the whole sun in an instant
and sweetness that wants to burn every taste bud from your tongue.

And it's written on my face.
I bruise like a peach
and i keep springing leaks, juices
ooze from my eyes and
the torn up skin on my limbs,
they taste like salt rocks and sweets.

Hogsback Mountain- a love story:

Staircases of roots tangled together
Crawling deeper into earth
And down into my heart,

Nests perched above
Gold glows abundant with eagle eggs
With wings and raptor beaks
These children are my own,

Barefoot it's been awhile,
Hasn't it? A cologne of spring-
Fed trickling streams tickle my senses,
Flames flick up towards stained glass windows,
Birch pine cedar
Depicting scenes of solemn reverie,
Eager to portray our history,
Present these quiet kisses of ours
In vague images to the world are you
Bragging? Almost,

Made it to peak shirtless
Saw again the naked prosperity of our relationship,
Distance can't impede what is meant to be-

The consummation of one's soul
Through great granite skyscrapers
Soft water city nestled in-between fractures interlocking,
To grow is to erode
Break down skin to dirt
Sprout ferns and somehow,

I’ve never felt more human

Do you remember two summers ago-
The first time we met?
I ran straight to summit
Smoking Nightcap in a Prebem Holm freehand,
Not once letting ember rest
I read Kerouac to you
Aloud so all surrounding above and below
Could hear,

Oh,
How far we have come,
How far we have come

first love seems so real

second's just for fun

third love's quite the prettiest

(fourth never sees the sun)

I apply makeup before going to bed
The sound of my phone cam is driving me mad
The black stains on my pillow tell that I'm sad
And not seeing you is more than just bad

A beautiful spring day
Happened a fallen falcon
Left in the wind
To rot
And with it came
The forgotten embers of a
White-washed lion
Ready, waiting, preying
To pounce.

I remember the innocence of childhood,
like one remembers the smell of their mothers' perfume,
I remember that, too,
easy recollections of railroad ties
and the thrill of hiding
at the bottom of a pool,
hastily replaced with the loneliness
of watching the moon rise
from the center of a midnight field,
overtaken by teenage fury,
violent and vengeful for a stolen childhood,
now adults leaving ink footprints
through the new age,
teeming with a different variety of rage,
unwavering and driven,
lamenting on what could have been

~Leaves of Ink 2017~

Doesn't Spring arrive
At just the perfect time
Each year?
Just as the New Year-ness begins to wear out
And Old Thoughts begin to simmer?
When chapped winterlips and afternoon heat
Don't quite understand each other?
Doesn't Spring bloom and burst
Through a fast fading world ,
Bringing life back to Technicolor?

So when Spring arrives
I go to Her with childlike wonder
Bare hands and eyes still full of Winter.
And when I return,
Unable to carry
All her gifts,
I wear Her flowers in my hair
Leaves at my feet
Petals in my eyes
Color on my skin
And Love Love Love
Blooming
On every wall inside me.

In sweeter hushed tones
across your own lovelied zones
We walked along in Fields
Where tall lavender shields
Our toes from the sun
Into soft dirt that we've spun
Where you lifted your skirt
As we crossed this fair earth
Into a meadow of grass
Where one word would sound crass
Against the buzz of your bees
The shuffling of our knees
Through this spring thicket
We tread on further in it
Unto your laughter we fall
Into a deer-bedded wall
Where the sun catches so
Forever here I will go.

even after the harshest, coldest winters,
the spring still finds the strength
to revive all of the flowers of the earth.
the planet spins around again.

and that's the way that i intend to love--
with the resilient yet forgiving force of nature.
because it is the universal purpose.
because the movement of our lives simply depends on it.