I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
     flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
     went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
     ***** turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Scream in the air to not cry.
Stomach twists like tangled vines.
Tears rise but refuse fall.
Violent sobs shake my all.

Legs give out after a while.
Back slides against cold tile.
Of course I'm okay.
Can't you see?

I'm just okay.
And this isn't killing me.

you take a chance
and you say man
here my digits,
now shared,
here is my Rx,
call me as needed

weeks months later
a phone rings
at 2:30am

and one poet says it's me,
I am the living soul
of words you have appreciated

and the other says,
I'm glad you called brother,
how did you know I'd be awake?

and he laughs and says
I read your stuff,
you write best tween
midnite and dawn,
so the probabilities were favorable
that I would find you awake and capable

and you walk and talk and roam
roads and oaths that black and write
screen letters
can't full convey,
till one says **** man look at the time
and both laugh,
knowing a poem
had just been writ in
true voices
shared

and that kids,
is the chance some make,
when first your words you take
and the poetry you proffer
is product of genuine flesh,
beyond mere in vitro digitally fertilized

Don't create
Friends
or
Enemies...

You'll get
caught up
in your
own creation...

Learn to
remain in
solitude
with everything
around you*...

You attempt suicide
and I'm the only one that died

Silence is not keeping quiet
because you have nothing
to say...

Silence is having a lot
to say but no desire
to speak...

You may not have been birthed in the soil,
and granted,
you will not blossom
when spring melts winters wake
but inside of you
grows a thousand gardens
full of exploding stars.
You are of the earth
and your ashes
have been constructed with stardust,
and set free with the wind.
So you may not have a pretty face,
and your body may hold stories
of too many moonless nights alone.
But if you reach inside,
you will find a forest
for a ribcage
and a restless ocean heart.
So don't ever let anyone tell you
you are nothing.
You are a galaxy
holding a million different planets,
and my dear,
that is not nothing.

Morning is a cold metal gun placed to my temple
Time is a trickle of blood I won't remember