Gravel, dirt or old blacktops
cruising around, not many stops
through a pasture or tunnel of trees
backroad therapy sets your soul free

Driving around, might even get stuck
No high dollar cooler in back of my truck
Just an old igloo, full of beer on ice
Drink them to fast for that yeti price

Backroads and beer
Nobody else here
No cops around
Jamming country sounds

Just me, my lady, my old red heeler
Flip channels, check score, cowboys and Steelers
Blanket and a picnic behind the seat
Pull over in the shade for an afternoon treat

Might stop at the creek for a skinny dip
Squeeze her tight and kiss her lips
Chasing each other and splashing water
Keeping cool as the evening gets hotter

Backroads and beer
Nobody else here
No cops around
Jamming country sounds

Mountains blue, pop the top
This is so fun may never stop
Out in the country is the place to be
No suit, no tie, completely free

Ol red starts barking, sees a rabbit
Pull over, he jumps out to grab it
The chase is on, we watch and see
Reds tongue is flapping but rabbit ran free

Backroads and beer
Nobody else here
No cops around
Jamming country sounds

When I was just a child I went searching for my world,
one of sunlit days, adventure and beauty left unfurled.
Though these days were made to be the a key to set me free
I couldn’t have foreseen the cost that all of this would be.

As I look back on these memories I hoped to have it all,
I believed that love would listen and come answering my call.
I was certain love would find me as I filled my life with song.
Now I’d turn in all these moments for just the promise to belong.

At Oktoberfest with beer halls and the sound of German songs.
The mix of beer and smells of nuts floating through the noisy throngs.
Climbing  on the Untersberg up on Alpines mystic peaks
and attending cocktail parties with Gemany’s elite.

Climbing falls in Ocho Rios with some old and new found friends,
drinking coffee, eating lobster, and enjoying without end.
Driving through the darkened backroads from a day at Negril’s beach,
in a cab with songs of love and Marley counting down the beat.  

In Cancun lagoons were vivid and alive with swarming life,
seas of sergeant majors, parrotfish, and barracuda thrive.
in the Caymans packs of stingrays had become our closest friends,
as we played among them in  a world where the beauty never ends.

The fireworks over Sydney lit the bicentennial sky
while I look upon that moment now with disbelieving eyes.
Waves from the Prince of England as he sat by princess Di
when I left the land down under, well I felt like I would die.

As I watched the sun go down over Uluru’s gold peak,
and the sun rise over Daintree as we picked our morning feast.
digging oysters off the rocks by Nelligan’s foreshores,
I was certain with my best friend that I couldn’t want for more.

Remembering the ocean as I snorkeled though it brief,
in Queensland off the shore on Australia’s barrier reef.
The beauty in Belize nearly took my breath away,
and it seemed to me that God had made this gorgeous land to play.

Camping in the South Pacific beneath the skies and palms.
In the hills of South Dakota we went panning in the calm.
With the Eiffel tower, Louvre and Twilleries rounding out another day
And the visit to the gardens of Monet just made me cry.

It’s surreal to think of all the things I’ve done throughout this life,
and the blessings that I’ve gotten seem enough to make things right.
But the simplest adventure and the one I longed for most
was a man that I could count on and would love and hold me close.

The water on the ground
Is no longer fake,
As I take a look in the rearview.

Huh, I’m crying.

And it’s in this moment
I take a second
To accept the fact

                  I miss you.


Oh how I wish
I’d known,
Before driving
These backroads   alone
My heart and soul
Are objects of old,
And bigger

                          Then they appear.

That this pathway to heaven
Gripped by desert horizon
Was just escape for a women
Who cannot function
And is blinded
                          By fear.

Well, that’s life.

I tried.
Goodbye.
I ride.
Until the end of time,

                          My dear.

Don’t forget to get away every once in awhile,
To lose yourself in a book
Or in the woods behind your home
Ride your bike into the sunset,
Sit on your front steps and count the cars passing by,
Lay on your roof and gaze up at the night sky,
Drive along backroads with the windows rolled down
Listening to nothing but the sound of rushing wind

I hope you take the time to be alone,
To sort through the cluttered shelves of your heart

I hope you take the time to be silent,
To close your eyes and just listen

I hope you take the time to be still,
To quiet your mind and experience the beauty
Of simply Being

In a world that tells us we should always be
Connected, on the go, and doing something worth sharing,
I hope you know it’s okay to
Disconnect, slow down, and keep some memories
Between you and the moment you shared it with.

Finding a lover is effortless
for some people.
They only want a few things:
Someone attractive, kind,
funny or rich.

But
I desire
something so much deeper.

I want

an intelligent mind
that wakes up thoughts in me
I didn't realize were hibernating.

I want

to converse, analyze and debate
without being conscious of
the sun rising and falling
between our words.

I want

to make a witty remark
at a coffee shop
so he can reply sarcastically
just for me to jab back immediately
and for him to comeback back playfully
until we're both laughing
stomachs shaking
spit flying
the whole store staring
and we leave
without coffee

I want

our hands to stitch together
perfectly
like two lost puzzle pieces;
one found under a couch cushion
one found inside a junk drawer.
The rest of the puzzle has
already been thrown away
but
these two pieces remain
and they fit.

I want

to fall in love together
then together fall in love with
art, museums, songs, poems
T.V shows, radio jingles,
greek food, backroads,
our mutual hatred for pop culture,
doing the dishes (as long as he washes and I dry)
wrong turns, piled up laundry, life.
Just fall in love with life.

I want

to hurt with him

I want

to save the world with him

I want

to meet, see, understand
and experience all that is foreign
with him.

I think it will only take us meeting
and it'll only be history and happiness from then on.

It's just a matter of if a love like that could ever be
and if a love like that could ever be for me.

i like informality

beer straight outta the bottle
pizza for breakfast
wearing a shirt 3 times
before washing it

doing dishes by hand
reading old birthday cards  
stayin up til 2
even though i have to be up at 8

bonfires
backroads
gettin lost on the way to a bonfire
because i took a backroad

going to a bar
on a tuesday night
and kissing a stranger
just because i'm drunk

and lonely
and through the years i've aquired a taste
for whiskey on lips.
And besides, isn't that

the only reason we're here anyway?

I’m stuck in the backroads I walked
Many years ago
Because there’s no need to grow up
So now it hurts to wake
And hurts to go to sleep
The only thing keeping me alive
Is the chance of a better me

It isn't a game.
But one can definitely lose.
There are no competitors.
Yet self comparisons fog hind sight.
Leading to more dreary backroads that the world forgot about.
It was fun for a little while.
Telling yourself that you threw away the world and not vise versa.
Was truly the greatest lie.
One that grew into actual belief for a time.
But found that the greatest hell.
Is watching your paradise burn.
Bound only by disbelief.
Dumbfounded.
It's a shame that when you lose everything.
Somehow your mind is the only thing that stays intact.    
As if those aspects were programmed into humans in preparation for it..
And happiness got the short end of the stick.
Then to further rub dirt into the wound we create hope.
By means of pursuit.
Shakespeare knew the questions.
And left it up to everyone else to answer.
Only as generations pass.
We couldnt be further from any resemblance of an answer.
Let alone know the question has already been proposed.
Writers play with this notion and yield no two pairs alike.
Lifes most important knowledge sadly can only come from experiencing it.
But with the world in such a desensitized state.
The fear of stagnation is becoming the only real possibility.
Preposterous?
No
Predetermined the moment we chose to let others choose for us.
There is no freedom.
Only sacrifice.
Right.

and the smoke is the warmest thing this night.
you light my cigarettes,
and i want to kiss you.

i can't i can't i cant.
you.
once. it was.
but we were both so broken.
we couldn't feel it.

it clicked in my heart,
like the flint in your lighter,
sometime after it became forbidden.

maybe because it is forbidden?
maybe because it is trust?
because i could always trust you.
because you never ****** me over.
because.

you listen. and i listen to you.

i trust your judgement.
i know you won't let us fall off the cliff,
fall into the ditch, get addicted,
get caught,
break.

and you know, because as i drove erratically,
i told you, only half meaning to.
and you know that nothing can come of it.

forbidden. would hurt.

i think i just want you to know that you're worth. . .
"it was good."
"we'll just leave it at that."

and we do. and today. i avoided the us.
but it would have been good.

You are black; we put you through that white school so you won’t be a stereotype; but I hate it out here; they’re expecting me to be this and do that but that’s not me; you can be whoever you want; I want to be grey; great black leaders and their followers struggled so you won’t have to; but what’s a leader if he isn’t reluctant; they had the support of thousands and all i have is you; you always have God; have faith and he’s there; I lost my faith long ago; I am just a number, and when I end, I will be forgotten like half my family and the war that kept them there; as much as I differ from myself, I am still the same as you; I am who I want to be not what old people want me to be; I just want to be treated caucasian; I try to move on but B.E.T. and Worldstar drags me back.; call me a Jaden but a culture as complex ours confuses me, so treat me caucasian; pure as a fresh start, I won't get any glares if I walk by a gated community; i also love being black; the music I listen to could only be black; never let anybody tell you how to feel, but that’s childish; what I think will make people see me as different but if I was caucasian, i could say what I want; be your own human is only something yeezy could have taught me; what I think now could only be temporary just like the vapor; I just want fit in the box you offer because my ideas I carry are irrational, obscure and should not escape from me; I could say what I want now but it’ll cost me my life later; I love being black: we all have a past to fill twenty million books but no one wants to check it out; I love being grey; stupid dumb teen with nothing good to say; I love being white; my words have enough meaning to have a writer to ask me for words; I see and have every future I could imagine yet I have no future; I'm not a gangster, I don't play basketball so what do I do?; I can be better than myself and I really mean that; I am the Internet with all of its weirdness but I am black; the good posture and the way I greet you is caucasion; what makes me what I am?; the person I want to be isn't what the world needs; like the open road all possibilities are endless and I'm taking all the backroads on my skateboard; free as if I'm on air but that won't last; man the world keeps me confined without telling me the charges; no, no, no, no, they can't feel what I feel; why? why? why? why?; I remember when I was important, that I was a friend; now I'm just a minority that was just imported; I am vapor; as temporary as I am, I will leave no trace of my existence; I am just another number in some census; if being black means having life without you then I am just a figure of pigmented cells; someday I'll mean something; someday I'll be something; the door is there and I'm opening before opportunity knocks; I am just a piece of paper that shows I am competent; 12 years of school and what else is there for me; I am annoying without saying a word and I can move you by just living; only if you know what I think; black is the Africa I don't want to know; there is nothing there for me or any where; just a ***** or am I a person?; the water is tasteless but has a mountain of favors as a caucasion; I don't know; its cold outside and I don't know what to wear; the world is cold; full of life and still desolate; the world is black but is best experienced if you're colorblind; the world is cold and all this ice leaves me blinded; people give me a topic that limits me; fenced in my own jail cell; laughed at for your amusement; put me down for your enjoyment; leave me alone; I want to go home, no ones there to guide me home; school isn't what I thought it would be; life isn't as good as I thought it would be; leave me alone; leave me be; I don't need but I want human interaction; I don't know; I only know how to be black; it doesn't matter what I know; better if you decide; better if you choose; I am black and I am wrong; I am black and as temporary as vapor; my idea black isn't your idea white but you sure think so; you can be proud but hate yourself; no one taught me that; I wasn't brainwashed; I saw a better world being grey that treats each other white and makes culture like black; that's cool; oh but like I don't say anything and all of this has no meaning; that's cool; I am quiet and I have no voice; I have an i.d. but I have no identity; my name isn't copyrighted so what's so special; I wish to pitch myself to the world again but as my voice shakes, so does their heads; I am only human let me make mistakes; being black is one of them I guess; yeah I could pilot your ideals; I could follow your plan but what is my purpose?; I contradict myself and I have no point; such a waste that is; such; a; waste; you have no value to us and as your employer, I terminate you; ha!; that get rids of that peon; yeah he was just dead weight; good call! hahahaha; they're **** ups but they're right; what's next for me?

In the backroads there's a legend
By the old black hanging tree
That this is the old crossroads
Where the devil comes to me
There's nothing near, it's barren
But the tree and an old rope
It is dark, and bleak and distant
And all devoid of hope
Is this the famous crossroads
where the devil makes a deal
It depends on what you're willing
To trade and get his seal

There is a tale of Johnny
Who played and won his bet
He beat the Devil at his game
But, the Devil does not fret
For every Johnny that is lost
A million more are signed
Just look around the world and see
They just so easy for to find

The pious and believers
Pass the tree and it's ok
But, the souls who wish to trade up
Feel a reason for to stay
The Devil hears their pleas
And he comes up to their side
He brings along the contract
And then he takes them for a ride

Deals are made for money
and deals are made for fame
It doesn't matter to the Devil
He's the ruler of the game
You'll get your wish regardless
In trade he gets your soul
The only thing you need to know
Is that you are no longer whole

A contract is a contract
And redemption sets you free
But, to doublecross the devil
Isn't easy as you'll see
Johnny beat him fairly
And the Devil said that he
Will come and grab a million more
By the old, black, hanging tree.

The taste of your bourbon sweet lips
in the backseat of my car
on a gravel road
that I haven't visited since high school...
If only we were driving a '91 Civic,
I would swear that I was 17 again.

Let's go grab the money
Hidden in the Christmas Tree
Shoppe mason jar with the
Frosted stencil designs,
Ornate and resembling flora.

Let's take that money,
The three separate wadded
***** of once crisp
Green pieces of paper
That somehow reach the
Arbitrary total of one
Thousand, three hundred and
Twenty dollars and
Fifty lonely cents.

Let's take that 1,320.50
And go see the desolate
Stretch of sprawling
Humanity deferred between
These hiked peaks and the
Dangerous mountains
Separating the west
From the rest.

Let's go there!
Let's go there!
We'll make it across,
Be sure of that,
Be sure of nothing
But that!

Let's use the remaining
Seven fifty
To buy some
Seven Eleven sustenance
To have while
We walk backwards
Down backroads edged
With the encroachment
Of the wild back into
Negative space some
Long-ago engineer
Carved and paved.

Let's tell the driver of
This beat-up
Time-worn down
Overcast grey
Buick LeSabre
That we can pay her
Ten dollars to replace
The juice necessary to get
Us back to our sick aunt's
House in Poughkeepsie.

At the gas station
We'll tell her to stop
Real quick
And hope she leaves the
Auto to go
Pay the schlup at
The teller's booth
And jack the beater
And hope we won't
Have to bolt
Again if she doesn't.

Let's call my cousin
And find out who will give
Us four hundred dollars for
The stolen used parts store
And take that four hundred
And buy:

Two (2) greyhound tickets to get us
Back to our ****** apartment
In Stamford: 64.50 American

Three (3) damp-bunned flimsy
Beef patties glued between
Pieces of government-issue
Yellow American cheese
With all the fixins we please: 3.24 American

One (1) zip of dried out
Seeded and stemmed breaks
From the boredom of
Our own conscious
Processes: 120 American if lucky

At least eight (8) servings
Of amphetamine based
Pressed little buttons
Of confused energy: 200 American

One (1) bouquet of
Red yellow and oranges
Mixed on the petals of
Your mother's favorite
Species: whatever's left American.

pisces:** you paint the ocean on your eyelids so that when there are tears streaming down your face at 3:15 in the morning, it doesn't feel like you're crying and you feel like a monster because nobody likes the taste of salt water, but what you're forgetting is that salt helps heal wounds

aquarius: you don't wear sunscreen when you're drinking lemonade outside in the middle of an indian summer because you want to show people that you don't have a care in the world, but it's hard for anyone to see anything when you've constructed a barricade of repressed memories and locked yourself inside a closet full of skeletons

capricorn: "i like holding your hands because they're warm," he tells you, but what happens when they're not? you want to peel back the layers of his skin until you see his lungs moving beneath his ribcage and you want to know if he can hold his breath for as long as atlas held the earth (maybe his lungs can hold your hands when he won't want to)

sagittarius: you get drunk off of cheap thrills and doing eighty-five down backroads while everyone else is asleep, but when it comes to letting people get close to you, you still need someone to hold your hand (maybe you can't trust yourself to trust others)

scorpio: you're telling him to kiss your neck when you really want him to kiss your mind, but you're so torn between being passionate and being psychological that maybe you don't know the difference

libra: according to others, you are the one who's supposed to be balanced and content, but right now you are struggling and you can't tell the difference between a love letter and a suicide note (it was hard for me to write this) (i love you a lot) (i'm sorry, baby)

virgo: you wear more makeup than necessary when you go out and you only wear black pants because they make your legs look smaller, but i want you to remember that you are a flower that was born in the midst of a drought and plucking your own petals until there's nothing left would be a real disappointment

leo: your hands are at your own throat because you are too generous and you have been taken for granted one too many times (ask your mother for advice and she will tell you to stop ripping yourself apart just to keep others whole)

cancer: there are rainstorms in your tear ducts and butterflies in your stomach and sometimes you feel like the earth will shatter beneath the gentle touch of your fingertips, but when you realize that nobody knows how to feel the way that you know how to feel, think of it as a good thing

gemini: you believe that soulmates are supposed to be your other half, but you should also consider that soulmates could be those who help you find the pieces you were looking for in others in yourself (patience — you will find yours soon)

taurus: you do things that you shouldn't do and you kiss boys that you shouldn't kiss and your shameless flirting with self destruction won't be ending any time soon (you let others love you to the point where you are too stubborn to love yourself)

aries: you light fires just to see how quickly you can put them out and you are always three steps ahead of the person next to you and sometimes you start fights just to see how long it takes for you to come out on top, but everyone can see that you would never hold someone else's heart just to have the opportunity to drop it

love is a rhythm i choose not to edit
burning serpents in syncopated tones
stolen vibrations from conquered nations
i am amazed at slavery's undertones
doomsday hypothesis
insufferable hypocrisy
is this the way we are meant to perceive
reality's final throes
perhaps a last attempt at infatuation
another insurgency toward our situation
there is music in the millipedes
1,000 feet stomping on the hot pavement
midday heat is burning the gentlest of trees
and yet saving lives of anteaters in need
grief is complete and not wasted
never jumbled by threads of frailty
insipid lipids deftly crawl upon caterpillars shoulders
starry eyed soldiers
sold to the streets in shivering brokenness
i am madness incarnate
the west is a spectacle of insubstantial lunacy
if you wish to conquer this reality

open your heart and kiss the feet of kindness
blindness is worshipped as if it was wisdom
sincere victims of another’s prison
simpler lives define simpler times
keepers of the rhythm
keepers of the rhyme
i dine on salamanders and supine slivers of the moon’s heartbeat
fault no one but yourself
gifts are wealth
i am salt and sulphur is the mother of the soul
loose cannons explode
she rode the wild shadows
and took the backroads all the way home
infinite living history
his memory serving beauty forever
for a lifetime i am looking for truth
in shattered space and respecting the face of the ancestors
self aware shades of solidarity
harvested by hands made light with clarity
is this music
is this meaning
her openness is our healing
this majesty surrounds us all
resolve to rise and your bound to fall
small instances of randomness daily
semantics are happenstance
you graduate from school with a bouquet of flowers
that rot in the morning’s splattering of paint
as garbage heaps resist *******
issues of power and surface tension
i am dreading the exceptions
give love now or move out of the way
stay awake and aware
while sadhana is beckoning to us all

While driving the backroads last night, I cranked up my stereo
and let the music take me where it wanted to go.
I'd heard the songs before, but I began hearing a different tune.
Must've had earplugs in before. I drove on, and the music played me.
When I'd driven as far as I could, and lost myself completely down those roads,
I pulled over at some strange station I'd never seen before.  
I thought I'd sit a while there and rest, do a little reading from
the book I've been writing. **** my eyes for seeing words there I'd never
read before.  My book was writing me, I had never said a word.  

I thought for a while about how you can wake up one day, hear the same song,
read the same words, and they tell you something you've never known before.
I realized then, I'd been driving with my eyes half closed.  
Then, as the sun came up, I saw with my naked eyes a strange landscape I had never seen before.

Road signs were everywhere.  One showed I was on I-9, another read, 'Welcome to Idaho'.
I heard gentle clouds roll on by, and felt alone in my wanderings.
I saw paint blistering off the walls of some hotel, and wondered who would save me.
I thought about wicked games,and felt accused. I saw crossroads, up ahead,
with a ***** tonk on one side, wanted to go inside and order a case of finest wine.
I felt so alone, sitting in my rudderless boat (you know how dreams can go).  

Then I looked up, saw a man standing at the crossroads
with a golden hammer in his hand.  I wondered if i knew this man,
and wanted him in my boat with me, to sail on the uncharted seas.
I wanted to drown in a deep blue bottomless pool with him.  Then I wanted to
accuse him, for walking into my dream, for standing in the middle of my aloneness.

I looked up at the sky (it was night again, as dreams go) and saw the
stars in the sky.  I wondered if the stars were real, or painted on
some false ceiling.  I wanted to climb a ladder and break through,
to find true.  I wanted to tear down the veils that kept me from
knowing all the secrets of the universe, to burn up the clouds
that hid the sun.  Then I wondered again if the sun was already
shining, if my rudderless boat was being guided by the soothsayer
of dreams.  And I wanted to know if this dream was a nightmare, just a picture
show, or some prophetic vision.  

I felt pushed and pulled, with winds blowing a strong gale, and wanted to know if they blew from
the east or the west, but I could not tell, I'd dropped my compass miles back.
I wondered what the man was thinking, if he saw the same strange landscape.
I wondered if he had driven me here, or if we had sailed here together, our backs to one another.
I turned my radio on again, but only heard static, and wished that I could find the perfect song,
to express exactly the strangeness of this tale, to sing the truth.

I wondered again if I was dreaming or awake, if my ears
were hearing the real music in songs, if my eyes were reading
lines as they were written, or if I was still asleep, only dreaming.


Sometimes, when you wake up, you just
want to go back to sleep, and dream a little longer.  And sometimes
you think you've woken up, but you are still dreaming.  How do
you know the difference?  How can you ever tell? And where is
a good soothsayer when you need one?  

I'm still wondering.

You told me that day,
"The girl I knew would never"
and filled the rest in with everything I've done

The girl I knew would never listen to rap or country music
The girl I knew would never have driven down the backroads going 70 .  .  .  80 . . . 90 ... 100 .. 110
The girl I knew would never think about themselves first
The girl I knew would never put their needs above anyone else's
The girl I knew would never wear such revealing clothing
The girl I knew would never been comfortable sharing their thoughts
The girl I knew would never feel sorry for themselves
The girl I knew would never feel comfortable in their own skin
The girl I knew would never stand up for themselves

The girl you used to know hated themselves
The girl you used to know was taken advantaged of and walked all over
The girl you used to know hid their true self
The girl you used to know would have sacrificed anything to satisfy you, even herself
The girl you used to know cried every night
The girl you used to know hurt herself when she couldn't feel anymore
The girl you used to know could never stand up to you

I'm glad you never really knew that girl
And I'm glad she became me

a hug that smelled like last summer.
'you didn't have to drive all this way for me'
it took me two hours
on the backroads because the freeway is scary
lost in neighborhoods where everything looked the same,
rows of shiny white teeth. it never crossed my mind to miss it.
           how do his eyes burn impossibly blue,
           even under the awning?
'the thing is, i had to'
he understood,
he understood just then that i was the girl he loved second best
and a sore loser always eyes the trophy cravingly
before walking away small.
            'i'll miss you'
whose to say? i'll take silver & wonder if he ever wrote to
             the other redhead.

I watch as the sun sets
ceramic shadows cast
on the valley
waiting to be shattered

The headlights shine
dispersing darkness
caliche road
shines like a porcelain dream

Rolling gravel sparkles
quail and cottontails
scatter on my approach
jackrabbit zig zags in front of me

Starlight now
primordial night
the animals prowl
ancient memories sparked

Nights power prompts
fear, excitment and lust
my awareness drifts
becoming one with the night

our conversation
was punctuated by
the screech of my
windshield wiper blades
and we talked about
how if you were
the thunder, then I
was the rain

i kept anticipating
blocked off entrances and
handwritten out-of-order signs
over gas station bathroom doors
that are rusting at the corners

because each time i got in my car
that smells like sweaty dog
and lavender
i found a reason to turn around
i convinced myself that
the green lights were not meant for me
only backroads and passenger seats

the sun was not there
when i kept going
the sky was full of grey
and i could feel the rain in my chest;
i didn’t need it to be a perfect summer day
i just needed to believe
that i had enough light within me
to make it through

She has a shaved head
that reminds me of a
crooked-smile-ex;
that choked on cigarettes
and words too contrived,
painted in a negligence
for humanity and a
belief in uninformed
nothingness.

Her body curves like
backroads I've been lost in.
Skin as pale as an eggshell,
I'd imagine she'd shatter
under the olive robe
she calls a dress
and bounce under the
kickstep of organic flats.

Eventually she will become
too much of an idea, she will
evolve into a misogynistic
poem, and if I were
to imagine her naked,
guilt would flood our fleshly-
alcohol-stained-continents,
angry between every slur,
loving between the shadows
of phantoms I once knew.

i am a passenger
free to roam on the east sides
of redundancy and table manners

flower markets thrive on dawn skies
arranged as tourist spots
the baker's fair selling eggshells
cracked on cobblestone soup
meatpies sold out too soon
appleseeds scattered for birds

i sweep them all up
and see patterns grow on my skin

let it not be said i did not try, i did not do
for too soon the the heat covers the shade as well
and not even the acacia can go without thirst

fill my cup with honeydew milk
and add bittergourd and salt

i can let philistine warriors come from the backroads
and enter the frontlines
if only to join you

I am alone

I walk the lonely backroads

not sure where I'm going,

but i know i've gotta go.



this is not wanderlust

it's merely broken trust

i kick the dirt beneath me,

and watch a cloud form from the dust.



I knew my father left us

I knew my mother cried

but it seems i never really knew

the hurtful reason why.



my long blonde hair

is what sent him there

to whatever town he lives in now;

i guess having a daughter made him scared.



I am alone

I walk the washed out, broken roads

not sure where i'm going,

but i know i can't go home.

I accost daylight, reviling in the promiscuity of the waken world
Come, be absent with me, enjoy the splendor of the famine
The only pleasure we’ll allow ourselves is that of a despondent heart
As we weaken the bonds that chain us, we’ll destroy ourselves
How can I rationalize my desires, their innocence shames me
To be reprehensible, oh such a glorious way to be
We ran through the streets encased in neon luminance
You, with your hope and rebellion
Me, in awe of you
This truancy, this desolate homage to backroads and swindled affairs
It leaves a longing to wear her fur coat, my makeup soiled beautifully
Those nights of dreams, and dreams, and dreams, resurrect disenchanted
As I lay aching, biting the the cold steel for the knowledge of ones price
The nullity welcomes a confusion, searching for a fragment of familiarity
Wanting and wishing back the stale taste of the endless mornings
I’ll bring with me the calm, the reassurance of futile worth
The length is calculated, the smirking clock relishing in his dismal pace
We trade the dampened moss as the stars scoff at our ignorance
They whisper, piercing the darkness with their reminder
three moons, alas three moons

Racing through backroads
You watch as stars appear as if from nowhere.
Freshly born, newly created
Made only for you and him to know.

You don't know where you're going
But you'll go anywhere with him
So you aren't worried.
Anywhere he goes immediately becomes a good place.

He drives far too fast through unknown townships
If you can ever call them that.
But it's still dark enough there that you just
Stare out the window; you put your arm out to feel the night.

You stop in a dirt road
Abandoned, for all intensive purposes.
Lay on the hood and watch the stars
As if it's a PG-13 romantic comedy.

He gives you the stars
And you have nothing to give in return
So you just try to take in the universe.
You just want to reach out and touch it.

And as you leave you watch the stars disappear
Fading back into the city lights.
You wonder if the universe holds a funeral for a dying star
You wonder if this has all been orchestrated by the cosmos.

In the finer lines of my Mother's eyes
where backroads lead to secret tears
much is spoken when one explores
the map that etches those many years

expressed in smiles and subtle stares
when the world is harsh and cruel
calm washes through your tested soul
that stings of ridicule

in the finer lines of my Mother's eyes
life's riches are retained
and the wells that feed her loving child
through those eyes are sustained

I hate reading you my writing. you've seen my skin split but that is nothing compared to this. I won't let you look at me because I am so afraid you might see how sorry I am. you can turn away but guilt is ebbing from your spine and I absorb it's heaving glow. I bet you didn't know flowers grow towards the sun
2. if I could count how many times I think you've lied to me I would need a thousand hands. every finger would be calloused and burnt but veracious. I've dived into glacial waters and lost perception of the surface. when I see the sky, I swim down to touch the sand
3. I once was with a boy who fell into an abyss of addiction. fourteen months of malicious intentions that rendered me to ash. now I am smeared across your mattress and swept into the cracked marble corner of the window sill, kissed by the silk rhythm of the curtains. I am the needles you dropped on your carpet. I would give you all of me but you don't want a fraction. you know, that boy had my ring that said "I Love You" and he tossed it in the lake. I had another that said "Always" and it's somewhere in your home now. the lake will dry before I ever see your bedroom again
4. you have more lyrics memorized than words printed in a novel. the backroads of Carolina are veiled by tree branches but these streets only seem significant when you're singing in the backseat of my car with your head cutting through the wind and your palms caressing the curves of the atmosphere. and after all, she is much more lovely than I. you recite songs we've heard in the exact locations where they flowed through us for the first time, although it's been months since we've listened. you can remember every time we've ever ****** but not one time you've grabbed my hands
5. we fell in love in the winter. it is so **** warm outside. I hate it because I can no longer become entangled beneath blankets heated by your body. you love it because there are a hundred places to be now. all of them without me. but it's the lack of words from you that destroys me much more than your dexterity. if you can kiss the hickeys on my neck why not the scars along my chest? why are there scratches marking up your frame like a road map and knive handles sticking from my back? twist them and I'll scream, cut me and I'll bleed, but nothing you will physically do can ever injure me.
6. there is something about the f word. and I don't mean any of the words you like to yell while you're ambling down the halls or skating down the street. this word: Forever- makes me want to hurl myself off a bridge. I wonder if you would stand there and try to talk me down like the one boy we saw who broke his bones. it was February sixth. It is April and I can't drive past there without wanting to mimick his very moves. maybe I pray for Forever so badly because you would never bless me with it. maybe its because sometimes I feel like my words are a foreign language and you only grow frustrated when I speak. maybe it's because loving you is mostly like sticking a loaded gun down my throat. I often slip into my fathers closet and pull his pistol from it's case just to remember how it feels. but you are far, far more dangerous
7. if you are hearing this you are sitting beside me, or beneath me, and you should know that you have saved me. when I found out you couldn't sleep in your own bed while I was gone (and how you could not write because music is too much like poetry) my brother told me, "good luck loving him as much as he loves you." what he doesn't know is how I can pick you out of a crowd of a thousand in just an instant. everyone asks me why I love you because they don't understand you. I don't understand you. that is why I love you.
8. I have read the minds of stupid boys with loud mouths and pretty smiles but your life is still just foggy windows that I cannot clear. I would love to hear you make promises but I don't think you can keep them. you were with me when you had two girls by your side- how could I ever know where your hands are now when I am not holding them? I would take a bullet for you but you're the one holding the gun. I always kiss you first. I always beg you to stay. but I am constantly so worried that you will slip away.

Page unwritten  hand never to be
played.
Outcasts sitting at center stage.
When you never showed love.
It's no need to question why no one ever stayed.

And you never wondred and new better
to ask.
Cause people grew tired of the game.
And you of the mask.

Deep emotin with which like
overgrown children we play.
Gone in a second.
Was it love or just another day.

Torn sails endless flow.
Blocks and miles.citys and backroads.
Like any flock we scatter.
Only to lose track the futher we go.

Dellusion speaks well amoungnst friends.
You see it's the last farewell.
But with truth in are thoughts
everyone pretends.

Are you okay everyone does ask.
You give a expected reply.
And slip into oblivian slowley
fading behind your mask.