We dress in all black when we’re apart,
Two walking shadows trying to escape the dark.
You told me you wanted to feel something,
And you thought cutting yourself open would be a start.
You’re too young to feel this empty,
But what is one to feel without a heart.

Love never told us what to do, but your friends did.
All of the people who couldn’t keep a lover,
Seemed to give the only advice that you listened to.
I tried to bring you to your senses,
But your hearing and our vision seemed to fail.
I said that we should take a break,
And you just told me to go to hell.
I’ve burned to this very day,
My heart too heavy for any scale.

Our home became just another house,
One side of the closet cleaned out.
My patience and hair are running thin.
I just want to be back with you again.
I threw everything away that you left,
Except for our memories, and only the best.

The pills couldn’t rid my mind of you,
But you’re long gone,
And all you left me with was the song
That was your laughter
And the art
That was your smile.

Eroding brick wall
all that remains
refracted, fading
fishermen shadow
red dawn’s early light

brackish still water
shocked violent green
seeps from the desert
to be subsumed
by an unrelenting sea

restless dreamers rise
muscle sturdy pangas
into the churning tide
seeking quicksilver
at the continental edges

returning boats ride low
the shrinking horizon
race to safe harbor
cold beer on ice
under palm palapas

in the restaurant
a young man
shows off tuna
half as tall as he is
to admiring tourists

like me, seeking
the deep, slow burn
salt, jalapeno, lime
a fitting end to this
unraveling dream

Pueblo Mágico
of “no bad days”
walls of contention
in a fractured land
will never separate us

one margarita, two
another raised in defiance
of those who would try
to confine and define
free-range spirits

the Pacific touches
this contiguous shore
from equator to pole
we could catch
a clockwise current

follow Polaris up North
arrive transformed
magnetically charged
disparate souls fused
together bound

depleted
of energy,
a weight of gold
upon my heart,
its heavy dull luster
pushes down hard
squeezing out
        the light
suffocating
    my staccato
of breath
     I crouch        
quietly
in the brush,
the next step in
my process
                 pending
a dense rock
of pendulum
swaying time
  tick ticking
in my blood
cells reaching
the boiling point
just shy
of spilling over
into froth
waiting for
this conundrum
        to unravel,
my inner tigress
about to unfurl
             her heart
    to leap
and pounce
from
   within
into the
  tight
white
          of blinding
snow, the silent
storm of  
      the unknown
forever