Xenia stands for
Guest and stranger, why did we
Separate kindness

I ask you
'how have you been? Isn't this your favorite drink?'
but also
'I hope I'm not trying too hard'
I know I probably overthink

You say
'I had a great time with my friends. We had so much fun'
Sending a picture
'how was your weekend?'
Isn't that a strange mixture?

I grasp for something deeper still
Aren't you too?
I can't be the only one here that wants and will
Clearly you want to share as much as I do
So shouldn't you be willing also?

Why claiming, wanting
but then feel distant
Why do I feel like I need to be hunting
for anything resembling something subsistent
I don't want to feel like constantly being insistent

Why are you so afraid?
Who takes the courage out of us
and leaves empty pages on our doorsteps?

If you'd ask me nicely I gladly lend you my aid
In return just be as good as you allow yourself to be and thus
I promise silently to instead of one I'll make two beds

Inside of these four sides and many scriptless lines
My love's never quite sure how to call itself
I call her by the only name that I know
but know that it's not enough, not quite

If I wouldn't know better I would beg for your trust in these strong-rooted vines
All I want is to let me be me for the sake of myself
And hold closely and in full daylight my beloved stranger, reflected in fresh-fallen snow
For I'd never want to be ashamed of keeping a feeling whole and tight

Please don't ever let me lose my hope in a strangers mind,
it's all I got left in a world full of shallow familiars and quiet pretenders
Don't let me go stray and leave the path less traveled

Let me have
one hand that's tender
that isn't my own
trying hard to hold
on to slippery simplicity

And tell me why
are
you
so
afraid,
heart?

Idly stationed in the bucolic hills,
sits a stone well; unknown when abandoned.
Though her people foregone, water yet fills
as much as you can want for. In tandem,
are high trees less old than she; occluding
the view from pathless and naive strangers.
As their wish in well is to keep obtuse,
those that siren would otherwise capture.
Her drink, one thinks they'll constantly receive.
In reality, they'll only be taken.
Youth will fade as the heart minutely bleeds.
Their hollow, dried corpse will be forsaken.
And though her hole but a tall dark crevice,
I see my reflection on the surface.

I watch you roll with
precision. You see me,
looking at you,
looking at me.

How do I turn this
silence into something?
A little tobacco, and other things
occupy the air in our shared
atmosphere. It is obvious,
we are both more than aware
of each other.

You look my way, I look away.
An endless game of tag between
our eyes. You stand and I
watch you leave.

I like the way your
joint sits on your lips,
but I'd rather it
be me.

We walk pass and lock eyes
Ask ourselves if we know this guy
No? Pass on by.

Every one of your lies
My trust in you dies
Brought a tear out of my eye
Thought you were a friend for life
You were just a stranger for the whole time.