Dew drops of
                    imagery
soaking upon my
                         reflections,
each emulated in the
                                morning
of awakened thoughts.

i remember someone on this site a long time ago.
they would write unrelenting epic poems that
always made my fingertips tingle in that way
they do when you're surprised art made you
feel something again, you know?

i arrive back here tonight because i've been
doing a whole lotta feeling and far too little art
and i've stopped letting it surprise me.

i keep oversharing when people ask, "how are you?"

i keep wondering who i'm supposed to be at this point on this long path of becoming. i don't know, i've never liked the phrasing but it resounds so cleverly from forebrain to nervous system it's uncanny and unavoidable and ineffable. who am i am i am i am i am i ...

i want to make a map,
a cartography of memory,
charting the granite and
soil, marrow and moss,
river foam, abusers,
flower gardens, wild blackberries --
the purple dabbed away from those
soft parts that blackberries might stain

to wash deep berry blood off
in the public pool bathroom
where she first made you a novelty

to scrape darker
from under his fingernails
with bark from the tree she
made you hide behind

the same park you grew up in

a spot you always caught the sunset
a spot he caught you and the sun seemed always then to set

still haven't gone back

it's time to make a map

i can only imagine
the lazy drip of affection in your voice
when you tell me you love me
at ungodly hours
with my skin
against yours

i can only imagine
the softness of your touch
lulling me to sleep
and stirring me out of it
twining your fingers
with mine

i can only imagine
the goosebumps on your skin
the electricity in my veins
when our lips meet
time and time
again

i love all of the words
that are not mine
just as i love all of the people
whom i can never have

i am a cycle of paradoxes
contradictory and scared
i repair the things
that should be left to crumble
and i destroy the things
that were meant to stand

i apologize when i dont mean it
im sorry
(no im not)
the eighth deadly sin twice removed
i have no place

sometimes breathing
is an emotional struggle
so do not send me onto the warpath
because eventually i wont know
if im looking to **** you or myself

im flammable
so dont use your words as gasoline
because you will burn with me

Shell gas station with little neon green palm trees
perched upon the edge of the frenzied freeway,
          a picture of plastic paradise
     strewn with bright green lights
     like spotlights of limelight
     shedding light upon city life
               never far from the dark side...
    
     nearby, I spy
an assortment of street signs
to guide you into the night,
     so turn right, & drive right
     fly past the stoplight
     into the glare of red light
          & beware the districts of night life

the air is heavy
with an unspoken desire
for his tanned skin
upon hers
a shady block
of warm breeze,
a dusty corner
and her back against it
- heaven.

gentle kisses that tasted like summer
now dot her memory
along with flashes of squinting
liquid honey coloured eyes
framed within lashes
that remind her of the sort of thing she'd like want to feel fluttering against her shoulder
first thing
on a sunny sunday morning;
a nose that she'd like to have nuzzled against the crook of her neck

all swatches of filtered sunlight
and unfamiliar hands
soft lips and hurried goodbyes
- imprints of a translucent yellow

lily of passion,
bloom of the
dreaming pond,

blue lights,
dark golds,
in ponds of velvet
green the fire
of hidden deeps,

summer's light
wrapping the opal-like
water into flame,

blossom of cool rose,

tide of dream,
monet-sweet
flower of the water,

love, with its
magical spell
of summer.

I've always fallen in love in autumn
always to fall apart early spring--
call me deciduous, the abscission just happens,
I've considered my winter coats, my shields,
the neat places I've tucked myself away

were we to overwinter?
to hibernate until further notice?
the titles were frightening, impending and
ominous, each one a textbook on subjects
we had no knowledge of, dark leatherback novels
featuring versions of ourselves we never meant
to be or never knew we could --

wrapped in sleeping bags and white down duvets
best during the winter becase we were both
raging fires, flames licking at eachothers doors
stopping short of our naked toes, put out by the
here and there snow, but sometimes
we were embers, pulsing stones of coal
settling, wishing, waiting, kissing wounds
breathing secrets over bruises--

but migration comes suddenly,
i've been in and out dormant for years
a sputtering volcano rumbling and groaning--

were we to overwinter?
I lost the dream woke with a start,
the caldera gave way and sunk in
terrified I'd take you with,
but travelers don't pause for eruptions
or make their way through magma --

and volcanos don't plead
   for them to
       stay
       were we to    
                overwinter?